Zicklin Alum Proves “Anything Is Possible, Even If Improbable”

Archer (BBA, ’98) co-led an Arctic expedition

How does a one-time high school dropout become the multimillionaire founder of a 150-employee financial consulting firm? Through hard work, humility, luck, and an appetite for risk.

That’s what Zicklin School of Business students heard in February from the Mitsui-Lunch-Time Forum presentation by Zicklin alum Wesley Archer (BBA, ’98) at the Weissman Center for International Business. “Anything is possible, even if improbable,” Wesley declared at the beginning of his speech. He went on to tell a most improbable tale of how he, a farm kid from Tennessee, dropped out of high school to stow away to Australia (until he got caught), joined the U.S. Navy, and eventually wound up in New York working as a doorman. When he mentioned to some of the building residents that he was interested in business, they encouraged him to enroll at Baruch College.

As a finance major in the Zicklin School, Wesley was one of the first students to take a Microsoft Excel course and enjoyed a front-row seat to the automation the financial industry underwent in the 1990s. Hired by Barclays, he learned bond accounting on the job, becoming an expert in post-trade processing—the hundreds of events that occur after a bond trade is executed, involving accounting, audit, risk management, regulatory disclosures, and more.

At the time, Wesley was mainly motivated by imposter syndrome, he confessed to the standing-room-only crowd: “I learned everything I could about bond accounting because I went to work every day for a year afraid I’d be fired.” At a certain point he realized he knew more about post-trade accounting than anyone else did, even writing a training manual covering all 1,500 possible accounting events that take place after a bond is traded.

In 2001, Wesley launched ALaS Consulting LLC as a solo operation, and in a decade built it into a 150-employee firm serving more than 40 clients. In 2011, he sold it to Virtusa Corporation for $27.8 million in cash. Others would have retired, but he was just getting started on his second life. He learned to pilot a plane and co-led an expedition to the Arctic. He bought land in his home state of Tennessee and founded a cattle ranch that today has over 300 acres and specializes in farm-to-table, high-quality beef. He still has a hand in the finance business, advising fintech companies and banks on streamlining business processes.

Wesley’s advice to today’s Zicklin students stressed hard work, continuous learning, self-management of one’s career, flexibility, and internships: “They’re the most important factor in getting hired,” he said. “Start your internship search early. Wear a suit to the interview and know everything possible about the company and the industry. Show that you’re hungry.” Offer to work for free if you have to and be willing to leave New York for your first job, he added.

Finally, he dropped a big hint before taking questions from the audience. “Find where change is happening—it creates voids that need expertise. Blockchain is the next evolution in bond market post-trade processing.”

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