FROM DINING ROOM TO BOARDROOM
By Jared Kaltwasser/NJBIZ
February 20, 2012
Caren Franzini had just completed her MBA when she found herself being interviewed for a job by a hot-shot investment banker — and she was getting annoyed.
The young banker kept peppering the Wharton School grad with the same question: Why did she want to work for the firm?
“I finally said, you know what, you’re asking me a question, and obviously I’m not giving you the answer you want,” she said.
So the banker answered it himself: “For the money,” he said. “That’s why you want to work here.”
Franzini, the longtime head of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, recalled that incident, during an interview last month at her parents’ home in Atlantic City, where she grew up. The banker’s comment offended her, she said, but it also reinforced something that had become clear: She wasn’t just interested in making deals: She was interested in turning those deals into tangible development.
