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How Zicklin’s Co-op Program Helped This Undergrad Get a Job at Deloitte

January 2, 2025

Federico Della Monica (BBA, ’25) is a man with a plan. 

He doesn’t graduate until later this month, but he already has a job lined up at Deloitte, courtesy of the Zicklin Business Co-op Program and a plan hatched seven years ago from his bedroom in suburban Milan, Italy

In high school, Federico knew he liked banking and finance and briefly considered business school in nearby Zurich, Switzerland. But “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone,” he says. “I liked the flexibility and opportunities New York offered.” 

Location decided, Federico researched LinkedIn profiles of New York finance professionals and noticed that many had studied at the Zicklin School. But as an international student, he couldn’t afford the $20,000-plus yearly cost. 

Fortunately, someone told him about the less expensive community college route. That’s how he ended up at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), conveniently located near BNY Mellon and Moody’s. Once enrolled, he wasted no time joining the Moody’s mentoring program while also mentoring fellow BMCC students. His leadership qualities got him invited to a fundraising gala dinner where he met a BNY Mellon executive director who became his mentor.  

The following year, 2022, Federico became one of the first students to join the Baruch Business Academy and transfer into the Zicklin School, with “amazing help from Annie [Forman] and Nicole [Johnson],” he adds, citing the director of community college partnerships and Federico’s academic advisor, respectively. He spent the summer studying alternative investments through a Harvard Business School online course. When the Zicklin Business Co-op Program launched in 2023, he applied, landing a full-time position for five months in Deloitte’s audit and assurance business serving clients in the financial services industry

Now, thanks to collaboration between the Co-op Program’s associate director Stefano Verdesoto; Starr Career Development Center assistant director Catherine Law, the program’s course instructor; and Deloitte audit & assurance managing director Danny Wang (BBA ’01, MS ’05), who believed in the program’s value, Federico will join Deloitte in January to work with a hedge fund client. 

The man with a plan plans to use the opportunity to “learn as much as I can about alternative investments, which I’m fascinated by.” After that, he’d like to take a deep dive into real estate and eventually open his own investment firm. 

“The Co-op Program gave me a real feel for what it was like to be part of the Deloitte team,” Federico sums up, adding that because of the semester-long timing, the January-to-May job offered a true taste of audit & assurance work during the busy season: “After a couple of months I understood what the expectations were and was taking ownership of my work, comparable to what a first-year employee would do.” 

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