Varun Rajan: 0:07

Tell me a little bit about the MBA wrapping up. you had, you had mentioned your final internship that you had was this internal consulting role at a major investment bank.

Omar Dinar: 0:17

Yeah.

Varun Rajan: 0:18

who were they? what was the offer like? just in terms of was it similar to the work that you were doing in the internship? yeah.

Omar Dinar: 0:25

I was there in the fall of oh seven and, so this was Leman Brothers. they, this was a, they were at the time the fourth largest investment bank in the US and had been around for a very long time and really had an amazing culture. And, at that time they were also recruiting at Fordham for a position. It was a 16 month rotation program and within their capital markets group. And, and they were looking for, to hire, they were scouring the country and they were looking to bring in eight people into this program And, I applied, I went through multiple rounds of interviews and, and very fortunately, I was selected, there was, I was the only one at Fordham to get the role. there was the other seven were from a handful of other prestigious, business schools from around the country. And I signed my offer letter December of oh seven. and I thought I was, I thought I was so happy and proud. your third semester in business school, your main focus is. Interviewing, applying for jobs, interviewing, and a lot of people, they go into their fourth semester, still trying to keep applying, keep interviewing, and it's a very stressful time. And the moment you can sign that offer letter, it's a huge relief off your shoulders, I could say. and I was signing it for what I thought was my dream job. I was so impressed with Lehman and their culture and. And how passionate people were to work there that I was so excited to start. and that was my start date was August of 2008

Varun Rajan: 1:55

Wow. okay. Remind, remind us of the macro picture and

Omar Dinar: 2:01

Alright, so

Varun Rajan: 2:02

for those of

Omar Dinar: 2:02

what,

Varun Rajan: 2:03

be as.

Omar Dinar: 2:04

sure. So what happened at the time in oh eight? So there was a big problem. With mortgages, they were called subprime mortgages. Long story short, there was a lot of bad mortgages that were being put into these securities called mortgage backed securities, and that was starting to unravel in, in oh eight. And the first bank famous firm, that bank that went under was called Bear Stearns. they were at the point of bankruptcy in March of oh eight and got acquired by JP Morgan. Now, they were the fifth largest, investment bank at the time in the us. Number four was Lehman. So all attention turned to Lehman Brothers. all four banks, Goldman, Morgan, Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman. But the biggest attention was on Lehman. And, and a lot of the market started to question. Would we and be the next bank to fall. And that was right around the time I was joining in, in, in August of 2008. we were put in, brought in my first day. It was in orientation. There were about 400 of us from all these post grad programs from around the world that flew everybody to the headquarters in New York. for, we had about a week of training and, And of course it was in the back of all our minds. everybody's saying how excited they are to have us to start our journey at Lehman, while at the same time you can't, every time you put on the television or you open up your computer, you hear we're on. We're front and center on news, on All attention is on us, basically.

Varun Rajan: 3:34

yeah, that's gotta be a stressful place to be, at what, you had seen as your dream job. You were super excited. what ended up happening,

Omar Dinar: 3:44

Yeah,

Varun Rajan: 3:44

during your time there?

Omar Dinar: 3:46

sure.

Varun Rajan: 3:46

and how long was your tenure there? guess was, is my question.

Omar Dinar: 3:51

So Mike, Like I said at the very beginning, I started my career in finance in the worst possible place, which was Lehman. and at the worst possible time, August of oh eight, because, six weeks later was when Lehman filed for bankruptcy, which ended up being the largest bankruptcy in US history. I had started a couple of weeks in, my first rotation was actually in the real estate group, so I saw. all of the holdings of all of these, all the assets that everybody was so concerned about, I saw, and that we were helping manage and a result of that, that put me in a very unique experience where there was ongoing negotiations to potentially purchase for other firms to purchase Lehman. And we were part of helping support those negotiations by providing very detailed data for that. And that the last week prior to the bankruptcy, we were working very long hours and I remember our direct, the director of our team brought us into his office late on Friday before the bankruptcy. The bankruptcy happened, got announced Sunday evening in mid-September. That Friday we were brought in saying we, we all did everything we could to support the negotiations. There were two firms. In-house, try negotiating for the acquisition. And he said Everything we can, we did everything we could do. Just we should hear something in the, within the next day. It'll probably be a similar style acquisition to what happened with Bear. Okay. Saturday, we don't hear anything. Saturday comes and goes, and Sunday morning we start hearing rumblings and that Lehman may actually declare bankruptcy Sunday evening before the Tokyo market is open. And we never thought that the word bankruptcy was never brought up at all around me within those walls at Leman. I was stunned that Sunday morning that the firm I was working, I had just started, was gonna go bankrupt and, and where we didn't think that was gonna potentially be an option. And, and I was working, I was living in Midtown, just a couple minute block, uh, walk from the headquarters. And, and after the announcement happened, I get a, I got a call from a good friend of mine that I went to business school with. He said, you should go take a walk by your building right now. And this was before Twitter and Facebook was just building up. So he didn't have this instant like newsfeed. so my, my, my fiance, my wife was now my fiance, she had actually just left her job to do her MBA full-time. So I was supporting the both of us and, And we take a walk and I'm standing across from Lehman's headquarters on seventh and 49th. And, and I could see in the first two floors there's offices and people were boxing up all their belongings and, and you could look this up and there was, there was a lot of press there taking photos and videos of all this happening. And and I was hearing some rumors that day was, our badges may not work the next day. And so a lot of people took that as well. I'm gonna box up my things and go home and take it, take them home. And actually one of my old neighbors is, was at Lehman at the time. Who did? Just that. We were talking about that when I first moved into the neighborhood here in Connecticut. And, I didn't, I barely had anything at my desk. I was six weeks in, so I thought, I'm gonna go in and see what happens. I'm going to go in with an open mind and I felt like I had nothing to lose, and I walk in and my badge worked. Okay, great. we log in, we can't do anything. We're all frozen out of all our computer systems because they had to freeze all the assets.$600 billion worth of assets, a lot of which has to get traded actively on a daily basis, was frozen. something like this has never happened before. and the whole markets were really teetering at that time, because of that. and that's where other firms famously started to need very large amounts of money very quickly, otherwise they were gonna be going bankrupt. you, there's a number of very large notable firms that nearly went bankrupt. They got acquired or received a large amount of assistance to, to survive. And, and for.

Varun Rajan: 7:49

is like tarp and stuff.

Omar Dinar: 7:51

Yep. exactly. So there, there was a lot of that. And then, so I would come and go each my first week. we would go in for a few hours, not a whole lot to do. And we, we knew that there was a firm that was one of the firms that was negotiating beforehand, was still negotiating to, to make the acquisition. And the following late, the following week, Barclays had announced that they were acquiring the US operations. And, and so fortunately, I never missed a paycheck. my badge always worked. and I got, I became an employee of a, of Barclays who had purchased, Lehman Brothers, in, in, in late September.

Varun Rajan: 8:27

that, that is such a rollercoaster.

Annalyn Cruz: 8:32

What ended up happening was that I applied to be a resident director for Semester at Sea. that was gonna be a temporary role. It was only for a semester, but it had been, a dream of mine to

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 8:46

yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 8:47

and to work for a semester at sea and travel the world. so it actually gave me, not only did I see part of the world through that experience, and it was amazing, but it also gave me that pause to think about do I actually wanna apply for the role that I left? Now that it's gonna be a full-time role, it was no longer gonna be an interim role.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 9:10

Ah.

Annalyn Cruz: 9:11

they were gonna hold my job that you, and I know me as like the academic program coordinator role. So they were holding that job for me. I think in the hopes they were hoping that I would apply for the director position, With, with new student services was the role at the time. And so I had a lot of, I think, heart to hearts with myself and with my best friend who sailed with me, who I met on the voyage and really thought, is this the path for me moving forward? it wasn't like I, it was very clear to me. And that actually was a pivotal moment because that's what led me to then go into learning and development, which is the latter part of my career that I've continued to do since 2012.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 10:03

Was there a role that was open at the time? Was learning and development something that you had been thinking about for a while?

Annalyn Cruz: 10:08

I had done, it's funny because I had actually done learning and development or l and d in, different aspects of my career within student affairs. It has always been about learning. It has always been about development. Coaching, facilitation, right? Like it wasn't a huge leap. What was different was that this role would have me working directly with staff, unquote the adults versus the college students. so that was actually a big, pivot point for me because as I mentioned, up until that point, I was always working for the most part with college students. and of the reasons why I wanted to move into learning and development for the staff was that saw how much those folks needed help, who were supporting the students, right?

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 11:07

yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 11:08

I'm like, oh, I needed someone like who was in l and d to help me with what I was going through in that last interim role. And so I

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 11:18

Yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 11:18

to think, okay, this'll open up a door for me, beyond maybe working at Cal, right? there's a lot of learning and development or l and d functions in any company, in any organization. Not always, but I thought that this would be, a door opener for another career, pivot.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 11:44

Yeah, absolutely.

Annalyn Cruz: 11:46

Yeah.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 11:47

cool. Te tell us about the role. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Annalyn Cruz: 11:50

just about to go there. I was like, you know what was

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 11:53

I.

Annalyn Cruz: 11:53

too about my decision at the time was that, it was a project analyst role within the l and d, department within student affairs and. I remember thinking to myself, do I take a lower position versus a director position? So organizationally, pay-wise, et cetera. director role was, better on paper, knowing where I wanted to go and what I was curious about, it wasn't in alignment. So I'm like, I will take the lower paying job. I will take the quote unquote lower title in order for me to really explore if this is the right path for me. I'm so glad that I did it a hundred percent.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 12:43

I think that's really important. I. Find that it's very difficult to make a decision like that, like personally speaking. And for most people that I talk to, like there is this sense that taking a pay cut or title cut or both at the same time, is a lack of progress or a setback in itself. Whereas I think what I'm hearing from you and what I'm starting to I think I think most people know this literally, right? Like they can, like concept, they understand the concept that those things don't necessarily mean you're taking a step back if it's in service of progress you're making in other areas of your life and career.

Annalyn Cruz: 13:25

Yep.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 13:25

but, I think it's really, that's really awesome that you did this. and it's not like you, at this point in time in your career, you were in higher ed, you are like, several years out of grad school at that point. How did, you look back on it, it was a great idea.

Annalyn Cruz: 13:40

Yep.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 13:41

I can't imagine it was like an easy decision to make from like an ego perspective.'cause we all have egos and

Annalyn Cruz: 13:49

Oh

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 13:49

yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 13:50

love that you bring that up because it really was, like I said, had to think long and hard about whether this was something I wanted to pursue. Because you're right, the ego in me and also just even what I was hearing from other people, they're like, are you sure you wanna take a step down into taking an analyst role versus a director position? I just said. My heart and my spirit's calling me to something else and this feels like the right path for me. I also knew, who my boss was gonna be, and I knew who my colleague and my teammate was gonna be, and I respected and admired the two of them. Still do to this day so much. And

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 14:35

Yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 14:36

like they were going to help develop and grow me and gimme the support that I may not necessarily have gotten in the other role.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 14:45

Yeah. And these were folks that you had worked with before.

Annalyn Cruz: 14:49

tangentially. Yes.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 14:51

Okay, got it. Yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 14:52

Yeah. And so that was the other thing too. my, my soon to be boss who ended up becoming my boss at the time said, look, it's an analyst role. I wanna grow this team. I see this happening in the future, but I can't guarantee it. I do see you as having the skillset as one of the organization consultants on the team. we ever grow the team, I like, I wanna develop you and I wanna give you opportunities even though you're an analyst, to still put you in front of the room, to still have you facilitate, to not just have you do our admin and our finances, but this is a strategic move for me and for you moving forward. if you say yes, right? And I just again, trusted. I was like, yes, this is what I'm gonna do and I'm gonna learn on the job and I'm gonna get better at learning what, learning and development is all about and absorb as much as I can. I just trust that the right opportunity will open up. And eventually it did. I became a consultant on, on that team in the last few years. I was working there.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 16:05

And what did that mean in terms of becoming a consultant on that team? how did your role change? Were you reporting to the same person that convinced you to come on and help you grow in that role?

Annalyn Cruz: 16:15

I was reporting to the same person. It meant one higher pay, higher title, of course.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 16:21

Great.

Annalyn Cruz: 16:22

and it also meant that we could hire someone else to do the administrative work, the financial advising, the, website design, all these things that like I could do and I did do them, but that's not my bread and butter. that's not where I excelled. It's like I ended up excelling in, I. A lot of the other things that, like I'm currently doing right now, it's the consulting work, it's the facilitation, it's the program design, it's the, influencing leaders, right? that's what I ended up doing more of and focusing on that versus having to juggle both the administrative and

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 17:03

So

Annalyn Cruz: 17:04

consulting

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 17:04

when you were a project analyst, you were doing more of like just admin stuff versus when you were actually a consultant? like how did that cha you were actually like leading programs, hiring people to take over the admin stuff that you were doing? Talking to leaders, more, and like actually doing trainings.

Annalyn Cruz: 17:22

I would say I was do, if I had to give a percentage, it was like role was maybe 40 to 50% with the rest, the consulting role. I just wasn't getting. the title for it, right? So

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 17:38

Right.

Annalyn Cruz: 17:38

it was strategic in the sense of let me just do what a normal consultant would do on top of the other things that were expected of me in the analyst role.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 17:50

Gotcha.

Annalyn Cruz: 17:52

and so yeah, that's what ended up happening. And then we were

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 17:54

Yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 17:55

find an amazing person who took over the analyst role and was with our team the rest of the time that I was there.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 18:02

That's wonderful. te tell me about how your time wrapped up at uc, Berkeley, and, let's talk about what came next. what were, what was telling you your season and at Cal was coming to a close and what were you looking to do? You

Annalyn Cruz: 18:14

It was twofold. I, and I think it one. At the time, the campus was really struggling financially, so there were some layoffs that were happening us being within l and d, we saw the writing on the wall. We knew that was, something that was gonna happen. And we knew also that within l and d that's sometimes the roles that end up going away, right? so that was one thing. The other factor was, again, I was getting curious about what would life be like outside of higher ed doing this work now

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 18:50

Yep.

Annalyn Cruz: 18:50

learning and development in a corporate space. So I had a former colleague who used to work at Cal, who ended up, at ea and she referred me to the role. And, one thing led to another and I ended up getting that job, in the midst of. my role within l and d at Cal being eliminated.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 19:14

Okay. All right.

Annalyn Cruz: 19:16

two factors. One, there was again that curiosity of could I do this in a corporate space? what would that be like?

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 19:24

of the reason you were excited about going into learning and development, right? to open up more avenues for you, not necessarily corporate or someplace like ea, but it's like, Hey,

Annalyn Cruz: 19:32

Absolutely.

varun_1_04-30-2025_154524: 19:32

a place where I can actually be of service and like helping people like go through like a transformation and have an actual result in their lives that can be applied beyond the higher ed space, in a way that student affairs, couldn't. Very cool. Yeah.

Annalyn Cruz: 19:48

and thinking back on that time, I'm so grateful for the l and d role I had at Cal because that opened up a door, right? that opened up a door to other corporate spaces that were like, oh, you've done this, you've just done it. Within higher ed,