Katie Ward
Staff Writer
USF graduate students Jing Ye and Arriel Sherman were awarded two of 11 scholarships this summer from the Financial Women of San Francisco (FWSF). FWSF, a group of more than 300 women in executive and managerial-level positions who work in finance or financial services, serves as a network for women in finance who hope to build connections and provide opportunities for one another.The organization has provided over $2 million in scholarships to more than 200 Bay Area women since it was founded 30 years ago.
The 11 scholarships, totaling $100,000, granted $5,000 to each undergraduate recipient and $10,000 to graduate recipients. Ye and Sherman learned about the scholarships through their participation in USF’s graduate program. Sherman was encouraged to apply by one of last year’s recipients of the award, a friend and fellow graduate student, Mona Ahmadi. Ye heard about the scholarship from a peer who spoke at a USF information session and volunteered at FWSF. She began the process in February of this year.
“It’s an eye opener for me,” Sherman said. “You really have to push and stretch yourself to achieve something big, and through this process I was hoping that I could also encourage people to go for their goals. This is a community thing for me — I want to be able to uplift people in my community, my family, my friends.”
Ye agreed with Sherman’s statements. “It is recognition from some of the most brilliant and successful women in San Francisco’s financial field,” Ye said, “It is a great honor to me. I am also getting the opportunity to work with a mentor which is assigned by FWSF, and I think that I can benefit a great deal from the mentorship program.”
Sherman has found many career opportunities through her classmates in the USF Graduate program. She also traveled to Dubai and Abu Dhabi with other students on an Academic Global Immersion trip, where they visited other companies and learned about the financial workings of international companies. Last April, she took part in the USF Startup Weekend, which helped students brainstorm and begin new startup ideas. There she developed a responsible drinking board game which has since gone through several prototypes.
Ye, a full-time MBA student, is the VP of Finance for USF’s Graduate Business Association and the Treasurer for the Net Impact USF chapter, a nonprofit that intends to inspire social and environmental change. “Although I have only been at the school for slightly more than a year, I have been given a lot opportunities, and because of that I have actually achieved a great deal,” Ye said.
Sherman is set to graduate at the end of the Fall 2015 semester, and intends to travel to Argentina where she can continue to build upon her international finance experience. Once she completes her degree, she hopes to find a management position and lead a team in the financial industry. She currently works in Silicon Valley for PubMatic, a marketing automation software company, as a Revenue & Billing Analyst.
Sherman also has her own entrepreneurial venture, She Believed! Brunch and Tea, which intends to bring networking women together once a quarter to focus on reaching goals and bonding on a semi-regular basis.
Ye aspires to become a CFO once she completes her MBA at the end of this school year. “I think that we all have a choice of what we want to be in this world, and what kind of world we want to leave for our future generations. I want to provide dignity to every human being by promoting equality and by making a larger impact on society.”
Photo courtesy of the Financial Women of San Francisco
