Jaron Marshall took a circuitous route to her current career. She fell in love with psychology in high school. By her sophomore year of college, she decided to pursue a business career. Marshall believed that by keeping her major in psychology and adding a business minor, she'd be well positioned to apply her education to human resources, marketing, or business operations.
Marshall's mission was to make people's lives easier. When she was eight, her father accepted a transfer with JPMorgan from New York City to Manila. Marshall and her siblings loved their five years in the capital of the Philippines but lived in a private community next to individuals in dire poverty. Marshall realized her privilege, making her grateful for what she had and inspiring her to do what she could to help others in need.
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DOWNLOAD NOWMarshall's family returned to New York when she was entering the eighth grade. She found it hard to fit in because kids in her public school didn't understand what it was like to live in a Third World country. She also missed the two years they'd already spent forming friendships. Her parents agreed to find her another school, settling on one in the Wall Street area called Millennium High School.
"Millennium was a great experience because my teachers were all passionate about what they did," Marshall says. "My homeroom teacher was also my psychology teacher, and she inspired me. I fell in love with psychology and decided I wanted to be a clinical psychologist."
Marshall's first jobs were in retail. First, with lemonade stands and, later, working at the Banana Republic in Grand Central Station.
"It was very humbling," she says. "I think everyone should work in retail or hospitality. It's good money, and you get good skills, but it's hard work and can be demeaning. It helps you understand how not to treat people."
Marshall wanted to attend college in California. Yet, when she realized how much it would cost to go out of state, she enrolled in the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany. Marshall felt the SUNY system offered an amazing public education at a fraction of the cost. She also liked the diversity, which was important to her after growing up in New York City and Manila.
Still wanting to pursue a career in psychology, Marshall majored in clinical psychology. Yet, a sophomore year internship in marketing at a senior living community inspired her to shift gears toward business.
"I got to see several aspects of running a business by going through a whole facility construction project," Marshall says. "I also did a lot of administrative work, including working at the front desk and giving tours, being the face of the place. I was surprised at how much I liked admin work—even filing. It opened up another possible career path and supported my goal to make people's lives easier. I also felt that I created value."
Post-college, a family friend helped her get a temporary administrative role at a small investor relations firm, where she started to develop an interest in finance. She later landed an administrative role at Blue Owl, a small alternative investments firm. Marshall worked with the finance team for three years and learned a lot. She loved the culture. There were no questions she couldn't ask, and she was invited to meetings, which gave her in-depth exposure to the alternative investments field.
"I wanted to better understand the field and get a deeper education in finance and investments, so I started looking for a course in alternative investments," Marshall says. "There were a lot of free courses, but they seemed very surface level. When I found HBS Online's Alternative Investments course, I knew it was right. I talked two of my colleagues into joining me and asked our boss to pay for the course."
She created a PowerPoint presentation to pitch the idea, fully expecting it to be denied. The pitch included reviewing the course syllabus and highlighting its relevance to the business. To her delight, it was approved.
"I believed HBS Online would be leverage for my career growth," Marshall says. "I had taken other online courses, but this was different. The professors gave me the vocabulary I needed for my job, and the variety of cases, discussion posts, short videos, and exercises made it really interesting. It was also incredible learning alongside CEOs, principals, and business administrators from Hong Kong, Australia, all over Europe, and the rest of the world."
To learn about her classmates' career paths, she reached out to many of them and picked their brains about how to advance.
A few months after completing Alternative Investments, Marshall took a job as an executive assistant at a different alternative investments firm focused on buyouts of strong businesses with bad balance sheets.
"It was scary to make the jump, but I wanted a more operational role," Marshall says. "It's completely new work, and it's building on my other learning experiences. I've fallen in love with the business strategy and my colleagues."
Marshall plans to continue doing business operations in alternative investments. She's optimistic that, with the help of HBS Online, she'll advance in her field.
"The HBS Online course gave me more confidence at work and helped me decide that I want to stay in the alternative investments field," Marshall says. "Someday, I could see myself inside a small tech firm or startup."
Are you interested in learning more about one of the fastest-growing finance fields? Explore our five-week Alternative Investments course and develop the skills, confidence, and strategies to assess potential investment opportunities.
