The Force of a Financial Future

Rahul Bhojwani '22 likes solving problems — especially when his work will benefit others. After learning in eighth grade about the impact that the 2008 recession had on Wall Street and the rest of the country, he figured he'd do so through a career in finance.  

“My project focused on the merits of the bailout,” Bhojwani explains of a middle school assignment. “Investment banks help facilitate the flow of capital, serving as advisors when companies merge, raise debt or equity or face other strategic financial decisions and then implement a course of action. I wanted to learn more and knew I wanted to work in finance.”   

The next step was for Bhojwani to figure out how to do that, which included accelerating his education through a partnership that his high school had with a local community college. “Starting sophomore year of high school, I took classes at the community college. By the end of my junior year, I graduated summa cum laude with my associate’s degree.” 

Bhojwani was just 17 at the time and eager to join the financial workforce, but his young age proved a challenge. So instead, he spent what would have been his senior year in high school completing an internship in the United States Senate with Senator Lamar Alexander in Washington, D.C. It was there that he developed an additional interest in healthcare. 

“Senator Alexander chaired the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee,” Bhojwani says. “With a front-row view of the legislative process, I recognized the importance of the U.S. healthcare industry as well as a number of its problems — including a complicated system that does not work for the average person. Even though we are seeing structural changes in delivery and incentives that extend beyond just pure digitization of healthcare, the solution to the puzzle of the system lies in promoting simplicity and transparency. We’re just not there yet.”   

When it came time to dive deeper into the world of finance, Bhojwani landed at Bentley, where he is a Finance major in the Honors Program. Classmate Ryan Guenette ‘20 was a sounding board when it came to Bhojwani following his passion.  

“Ryan, who is now an investment banking analyst at Lazard, believed in me early on and answered any and every question I had about banking. He made time for me and guided me through a complicated and daunting process.” 

MaryEllen Ryan, senior associate director of the Pulsifer Undergraduate Career Development Center, also helped Bhojwani through the rigorous and competitive investment banking recruitment process; and Bhojwani followed through — landing an internship in private equity and commercial banking at Search Fund Accelerator and Cambridge Savings Bank in 2019. It was during the internship that a colleague connected Bhojwani  to Len Pepe, lecturer in accountancy and director of Bentley’s master’s programs in accountancy and accounting analytics. Since then the pair try to meet monthly.  

“We’ve discussed the importance of a robust work ethic, maintaining personal relationships and finding a competitive drive,” Bhojwani says. “He relays these business and life lessons by describing interactions he had with clients and other managers when he worked as an executive at Grant Thornton.” 

Bhojwani also did an externship with Deloitte Consulting in spring 2020 and a summer 2020 internship for a healthcare investment banking firm based in Nashville — BRG Capital Advisors.  

“These experiences solidified my interest in investment banking and developed fundamental business insight,” Bhojwani says. “The breadth of experiences shaped my thought process and approach to problem-solving.” 

In a role he calls "the perfect combination" of healthcare and finance, Bhojwani recently signed an offer with SVB Leerink, a leading healthcare and life sciences bank based in Boston. Given his gratitude for his Bentley mentors, he serves as a career colleague in the Career Development Center. “It’s my turn to give back to the next group of students.” 

When asked about the impact he wants to make, Bhojwani says, “I want my impact to have been that I did my job well — that I was a phenomenal executor. Eventually, I want to put the skills and resources I’ll have developed to work on behalf of a charity that addresses issues such as hunger or access to medical care. To have helped people in need — made their lives better — will be the most important work I do.”