Ex-Wall Street Exec Invests 'Social Capital' In NYC Teens

NEW YORK — Kevin Davis capped his 26-year career on Wall Street as the CEO of the massive derivatives brokerage MF Global. The company famously filed for bankruptcy in 2011, but Davis had left three years earlier wanting to do something "more than just profit and losses on a balance sheet," he said.

Now the Upper West Side resident is trading in what he calls "social capital" through First Workings, the nonprofit he founded in 2014. The organization has leveraged Davis's connections to arrange paid summer internships for talented low- and moderate-income high schoolers in fields ranging from finance and medicine to film and architecture.

"I myself started my career as a result of a paid internship in Chicago. But I got that through familial connections," Davis said. "And so I don’t really think there’s any other way other than for people like me who've got those social connections, who've got pools of social capital, to be willing to share that with other people."

In addition to placing them with companies such as Morgan Stanley and Mount Sinai Hospital, First Workings gives the teens coaching on how to navigate a workplace, even providing a daily stipend for them to go out for lunch or coffee with co-workers.

Most of the students form lasting relationships with someone at their company, Davis said. All of them so far have gone on to college, the organization says, with 15 percent getting into Ivy League schools.

With two current full-time staff, First Workings hopes to serve as many as 75 rising seniors from at least a dozen schools in Manhattan, The Bronx and possibly Brooklyn this coming summer, said Executive Director Chloe Mullarkey. The organization hopes to raise at least $150,000 through its first-ever fundraising gala on Wednesday to help it grow further.

First Workings partners with schools, most of which are charters, to target ambitious and high-performing juniors for its application process each fall, Mullarkey said. Selected students begin the program the spring after they are chosen and start their internships in the summer.

Through in-person training sessions and lots of individualized coaching over the phone, email and text messages, the students learn skills such as resume writing, networking and the basics of how to conduct themselves in an office, from dress to conversation, Mullarkey said.

First Workings internships last from two to seven weeks, Mullarkey said, but many students are either asked to stay longer or successfully request an extension. The organization gives each student a MetroCard for their commutes and buys professional clothes for those who need them, Davis said.

"Some of these kids arrive at these companies and say, 'Oh my god, I don't fit in, or I'm not up to level of the people around me,'" Davis said. "But by the time they've left, they realize, 'Hey, you know what? I can compete with these people. I'm just as good as anybody else that I meet.'"

First Workings connected Emily Mota, who grew up in the South Bronx, with a two-week internship at the Manhattan-based media production company Hart Pictures in 2015 after her junior year at a Democracy Prep charter high school in The Bronx. She spent the first week learning to edit video with Final Cut software, then got to work cutting bar mitzvah and wedding videos the next week.

The experience made Mota "more motivated and more inspired" to work towards becoming a filmmaker, she said, a passion she had developed throughout high school. It also connected her with a mentor whom she's stayed in touch with and helped her get letters of recommendation to the University of Southern California, where she's now a junior studying film.

"First Workings allowed me to understand as well the power of networking, and what networking can provide for me," said Mota, 20. "... It opened a lot of opportunity for me that I don't think that I would have had if I (had) never done the program."

Davis said he has so far personally funded most of First Workings' expenses, but the organization has turned its annual student celebration into its first fund-raising event set for Wednesday evening in Harlem.

The proceeds will help First Workings expand, shore up its support for students and help develop its alumni network, Mullarkey said. The event had already raised nearly $123,000 as of late Tuesday morning.

Placing such talented students in their offices encourages top-notch companies to think "outside the box" about how to reach more people from backgrounds that aren't well represented among their ranks, Mullarkey said.

"For some people it really makes them kind of wake up and realize there's a lot of talent in New York City, and maybe there are some creative ways we can start thinking about how we can reach these populations," she said.

(Lead image: Kevin Davis is seen at a training session for First Workings, the nonprofit he founded in 2014. Photo courtesy of First Workings)