For someone who insists his alumni network was “marginal” in helping him find career success, Richard Bernstein ’80’s generosity in mentoring students is remarkable. On Monday, Oct. 27 and Tuesday Oct. 28, Bernstein returned to Hamilton to spend time speaking with students about finance, adaptability and the ethics of investing. The spread of events was part of the Career Center’s Employee in Residence Program. Across three sessions, Bernstein drew on his 40 years on Wall Street—including frequent appearances on CNBC and his work as CEO of Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC—to demystify finance and share lessons learned from an unconventional career path.
Finance Is for All
The week began on Monday, Oct. 27, in the Kennedy Science Center’s Bradford Auditorium, with a discussion titled “Finance Is for All.” Moderated by Lily Spencer ’26, President of the Hamilton Finance Club, the session explored how students can approach the finance industry with confidence and adaptability.
When asked what “finance” really means, Bernstein compared it to choosing a college: “Finance is often mentioned as a generality, which makes it meaningless. It’s like saying you want to go to college without knowing where or what you want to study.”
Spencer then followed up with a question about his rise to Wall Street and how he made his way cafter graduating from Hamilton. He described his route as “very unplanned.” After earning an Economics degree in 1980, Bernstein hoped to become a labor economist. But as inflation soared and layoffs hit his firm, he pivoted—teaching himself an early computer programming language that he jokingly called “the ancestor of C or Java.” Those analytical skills, he said, could be atributed to Hamilton’s liberal arts foundation and education, particularly his study of philosophy.
“I think of myself as the poster child for a liberal arts education,” Bernstein said. “Philosophy teaches you how to understand how others are thinking—critical in my field.” He contrasted Hamilton’s adaptable education with more technical business programs: “When I started, trading was all about sales and the human touch. Today, those jobs are gone. The people who survive are the ones who adapt.” Bernstein also was also asked about the ways one might struggle with doubt knowing wether this career field is right for you. Early in his career, he changed jobs seven times in ten years. “I never doubted my ability to succeed” he said. “If something didn’t work, I moved on. You’re 21, you fail—who cares?”
Regarding business school, Bernstein said it expanded his perspective much like Hamilton did. “I pushed myself to take marketing, finance, and operations research. The ability to bring all these facets together gave me a leg up.”
To students weighing finance careers, Bernstein urged exploration beyond investment banking or venture capital: “Companies need people in marketing, sales, treasury and law. Look at your options like a Venn diagram: what you’re good at versus what you love. The intersection is where you’ll find your best first job.”
Lunch Talk: “Sometimes I Wonder How I Ever Succeeded”
Bernstein also spoke to students over lunch as part of an informal conversation. The discussion centered around reflecting on his successes and failures over the course of his career. While facilitated by Executive Director of the Career Center Melissa Marietta, Bernstein began by answering a question related to how his experience at Hamilton shifted before and after the merger with Kirkland College in 1978. “Prior to the merger, Hamilton was two different schools. Once we merged, the whole atmosphere changed. I still think about how Hamilton sold me the vision that Kirkland and Hamilton share events together, which I realized was not the case once I started attending. That’s a testament to the school’s marketing. I wonder how they got to lure me to an all-mens campus that felt like a prep school.”
Bernstein continued by telling the audience his worst crash and burn story. In the early 1980s, he took a job as Assistant to the Chief Strategist for a banker, whose demands were rigid. “My boss would wake me up in the middle of the night at 2 a.m, I lost 15 pounds in six weeks, my personality was changing and I was drained by work. It destroyed my life because I saw money as a motivator.” Bernstein knew it was time to pivot careers because he “was not happy in a place where [he] was and it wasn’t what [he] wanted my life to be. It felt innately wrong.”
Marietta asked Bernstein a follow-up to his worst failure question: how to deal with imposter syndrome. Bernstein recalled a time where at 22 years old, he applied for a job at New York Life Insurance’s Labor Economics department for a job he was “somewhat qualified for.” During the 7-8 hour interview process, Bernstein progressed through the echelons of the company, convincing managers, department heads and divisional heads of his potential until he made it to the CEO. During the interview with him, he was asked a question about “differentiating between the financial statements of an insurance company and an industrial company.” Like he had done throughout the day, Bernstein “made up an answer without truly knowing the answer.” Yet, this time, the interview was over in two minutes. “The CEO called my bluff, my answer was so dramatic we both laughed, shook hands and I left. That was my biggest case of imposter syndrome, where I tried winging a job application to no avail.”
During the Q&A portion, one student asked about how to navigate asking for opportunity even when a position or job opportunity might not be “officially available”. Bernstein applauded the question, acknowledging that “People aren’t going to come and spoonfeed you opportunity. You have to be aware enough to understand the opportunity and step through that door.” When conducting yourself in this context, Bernstein underlined the importance of “being both a diplomat and a salesman.” In other words, ensure you deliver the right message to your potential future employer: “Not to be offensive in asking for people to see you, but also being able to sell yourself, to sell the product as being you.”
The Ethics of Investing
The final segment of the Employee in Residence Program took on the form of a larger discussion within students on the complexities involved in balancing investing motivations with ethical concerns. Bernstein opened the conversation by outlining that “these questions are often real-world scenarios certain companies and even Hamilton could make. Many people assume investing is black and white, but there are actually shades of grey. Both sides have to make tradeoffs” that are often left out of the picture.
The first question asked students to think about whether it was ethical that certain companies took into consideration ESG, DEI and SRI mandates, while others did not. It also asked what the net benefit to society would be as a result. Fletcher Shaw ‘26 opted that “investment companies could talk to their clients about why they chose or not to care about these initiatives” in order to better align with their client’s interests, but also argued that “the idea supporting these mandates and getting better returns are mutually exclusive could be flawed, we need to take that into account.” Another student followed-up on Shaw’s assertion by claiming that “certain issues, which many consider to be universally wrong, receive pushback by corporations who turn it into a debatable topic instead with the goal of return in mind.”
Bernstein then provided his answer. Within the scope of his investing firm, Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC, his investors “must not impede on political or environmental considerations.” To answer this question, Bernstein took time to break down the “G” of ESG, which stands for Governance, is often ignored but is critical in ethical conversations. It involves “understanding when boards are allowing for factual and transparent reporting” of their internal numbers, taking or refusing to take political stances, ect. Using the investment into public goods as a base, Bernstein made it clear that “The US considers public goods to be bad. When I was a kid, the interstate highway system was being built despite its huge financial component. Today, such a project would be endemic to our economy nowadays and impossible to imagine happening from a political standpoint” which adds to the complexity of ethics as an investor.
The second question piggybacked on the ethical dilemma of the first, expanding into whether there was a difference between ESG, DEI and SRI mandates, and faith-based mandates, such as Catholic or Sharia-based investing. Students largely agreed that both mandates overlapped. Bernstein mentioned that certain people might be against ESG mandates, but once presented with faith-based investing, are no longer opposed. He also questioned how much of these pro-faith or anti-faith stances were genuinely motivated by the economy. He mentioned how “we can all agree Texas is reasonably conservative and brown in terms of energy. On a normal day, without rain or clouds, 50% of electricity comes from non-carbon sources, namely solar energy. Makes you think about how much is political versus how much is based on economic benefits.”
The third question tackled activism investing: in order to change a company’s ethics, should one prioritize investing or divesting? Bernstein noted that a popular misconception when wanting a company’s ethical values to change would be to boycott products and sell the company stock. Yet, the opposite is true: “The academic studies show you should be an activist, not a divestor. It makes a lot of sense. Unless we are independently hugely wealthy, it is in the banding together that they can forge change in an investment fund.” Within the case of Exxon Mobil, one student mentioned that shifting ethical stances from the inside could be complicated if the CEO has a “supervote, as in the case of Zuckerberg with Meta, where his vote counts for 10 regular votes. Without his approval, you can’t force a hand and influence mentalities.” Following up on a previous remark, Palmer Yerima ’28 says that consumers might have an advantage over activist investors since they can boycott products if the competition stands its ground. Bernstein agreed that “if there is reliable competition, this argument could work.”
One of the final questions centered much more around considerations impacting Hamilton as an institution: should pensions, endowments and foundations consider implementing DEI and SRI mandates if those guidelines hinder returns and constrain an entity’s stated mission? Within Hamilton’s context, should the College implement DEI and SRI mandates if it resulted in lower returns that limited the ability to offer need-blind admissions? Bernstein used the example of the Alaska Permanent Fund, where the Alaskan government takes revenue from oil and gas, invests the money, and pays its residents every year in dividend payments. “How do we balance the good for bad, or bad for good,” Bernstein said. Dylan Ngwa ’28 continued on the same note: “One’s person’s good is another person’s bad. People are idealistic, and this issue flares whenever Palantir or other defense companies come up into conversation. People say it’s immoral to invest, but one man’s freedom fighter is just another man’s terrorist.”
Responding to that answer, Bernstein added that “for the College, this is an important consideration. The College investment team would say they want to make as much return as possible to keep offering needs blind. What is most important for us? Is diversity more important than blind, especially considering need-blind admissions is in Hamilton’s DNA.”
