7 Rising Wall Street Stars from Sports, Science, Engineering

The 2025 class of Rising Stars of Wall Street features seven young professionals who pursued unique career paths in sports, science, and engineering before entering finance. These individuals leveraged their diverse early experiences to achieve success at leading firms such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and Moelis.

For instance, one aspired to professional football and now underwrites NBA team deals, while another conducted anthropology research in Sierra Leone and serves as chief of staff to BlackRock's CEO. Others transitioned from chemistry labs, global oil engineering, electronics studies, machine learning internships, and collegiate golf championships.

Their backgrounds provided analytical skills, global perspectives, and resilience that propelled them into roles involving multibillion-dollar transactions across investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, and data center M&A. This group demonstrates how non-traditional starts can lead to influential positions on Wall Street.

The 2025 Rising Stars of Wall Street list showcases professionals whose formative years were spent far from traditional finance environments. These individuals entered the industry through internships, economics studies, and market exposure, but their unique beginnings in sports, science, and field research set them apart.

Today, they succeed in niches including investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, and quantitative investing at firms like Blue Owl, Bridgewater Associates, and Morgan Stanley. Their early experiences fostered skills essential for navigating complex deals and global markets.

Key Themes in Their Journeys

• Adaptability from athletic pursuits and research fieldwork.
• Analytical rigor from scientific and engineering training.
• Global exposure influencing geopolitical and infrastructure decisions.

Organized alphabetically by last name, their stories illustrate how unconventional paths converge on Wall Street success.

Several rising stars drew from athletic backgrounds to build finance careers, applying discipline and strategic thinking to high-stakes deals.

Lamar Cardinez at Blue Owl

Lamar Cardinez initially aimed for a professional football career. After that path shifted, he interned at Madison Square Garden, joined the 2014 Super Bowl host committee, and completed the NFL's rotational program in media, business development, and strategy.

Following an MBA and investment banking roles, Cardinez joined Blue Owl's HomeCourt Partners, a fund with the NBA for minority team stakes. He contributed to deals like the Phoenix Suns' $4 billion sale and a 2024 Minnesota Timberwolves transaction.

Jackie Shepherd at Morgan Stanley

Jackie Shepherd competed in Division I golf, earning a full-ride scholarship and captaining the University of Minnesota team. She started in accounting at EY's international tax practice, encountering investment banking.

Shepherd pivoted to Wall Street roles at Goldman Sachs and Citi before joining Morgan Stanley's separations and structured solutions group. She handled roughly $250 billion in transactions, including Comcast's pending cable networks carve-out. Golf remains central, with aspirations to play on all seven continents. She noted, "I didn't realize that there was an intersection between the two." Adding, "I wanted to be the person coming up with more of the cool ideas."

Professionals with scientific and research foundations brought rigorous analysis and global insights to finance roles.

Catherine Kress at BlackRock

Catherine Kress studied anthropology and psychology at Notre Dame, conducting fieldwork in Sierra Leone. She pursued graduate work on Angola's energy sector at the University of Oxford.

At Eurasia Group, she trained investors on geopolitical risk integration. Kress joined BlackRock as advisor to Tom Donilon, former US national security advisor, a role she called a "dream job." She elevated the firm's geopolitics function within the BlackRock Investment Institute.

This year, Kress became chief of staff to CEO Larry Fink. She described it as the "culmination" of her career, offering "unparalleled exposure" to global policymakers and business leaders.

Josef Menasche at Goldman Sachs

Josef Menasche studied chemistry and math at Cambridge. Academic research felt too slow-paced, leading to roles blending analysis with momentum, eventually into secondaries.

Now a managing director and global cohead of Goldman Sachs' private capital and liquidity solutions group, he works on real estate, infrastructure, private equity, and venture capital transactions.

Nikunj Jain at Bridgewater Associates

Nikunj Jain graduated from UC Berkeley in two and a half years, studying machine learning. He taught undergraduate math, interned at Apple in machine learning engineering, and worked for the Department of Defense.

A friend's suggestion led to quantitative finance. At Bridgewater Associates, he heads Asia research, leading a 15- to 20-person team on trading signals. He found the Bay Area "a little slower than I would have liked."

Engineering graduates applied technical expertise to infrastructure and M&A roles on Wall Street.

Jack Levendoski at JPMorgan Chase

Jack Levendoski grew up globally in Louisiana, London, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Australia. He began as a facilities engineering project manager at Chevron, supporting offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Later entering investment banking, he is now an executive director in JPMorgan Chase's M&A group, advising on technology and software transactions.

Aman Mittal at Moelis

Aman Mittal studied electronics and communications engineering in India, then joined Bain & Company as an analyst in technology, media, and telecom.

He shifted to digital-infrastructure advisory. At Moelis, he handled over 15 data-center transactions worth more than $25 billion, including Apollo's acquisition of Stream Data Centers and Prime Data Centers' stake sale to Snowhawk and Nuveen.

These transitions highlight how engineering precision drives success in evolving sectors like data centers and energy.

Conclusion: Broader Implications for Wall Street

The achievements of these seven rising stars underscore the value of diverse backgrounds in finance. From underwriting sports franchises to advising on geopolitical risks and leading infrastructure deals, their paths enrich Wall Street's innovation and adaptability. As the industry evolves, such unconventional journeys may become more common, fostering a more dynamic professional landscape.