We sat down with Guggenheim Services Vice President Ricardo, who discussed his current role at the Firm and his best advice for success.
Please describe your title and role at the firm.
I am the Quality Assurance (QA) & Audit Operations Officer for Guggenheim’s Internal Audit (IA) team. I am responsible for performing QA reviews to identify opportunities for improving, developing and monitoring IA’s key metrics, maintaining IA’s policies and procedures, assisting with IA’s risk assessment and annual audit planning exercise, tracking action plans and preparing monthly reports, and preparing ad hoc analysis for the IA management team. Additionally, I am the administrator for IA’s work-paper repository system for which I also provide technical support to the IA team.
Please tell us about your career path at Guggenheim. What brought you to the firm and what from your past has helped make you successful here?
I joined Guggenheim’s administrative team in 2010 and subsequently transitioned to a few different roles within the firm. I have a passion for learning new things and looked at each role as an opportunity to evolve and grow within a company that’s committed to excellence, collaboration, and success.
After working with the administrative team for a year, I moved into a role with the Guggenheim Securities Finance team where I stayed for the next four years of my career. During those four years, I worked with an amazing team that helped me develop and enhance my technical skills, which I continue to use in my current role. In 2016, a new role in IA was created. It provided an opportunity to learn a different discipline and enhance my skillset with a new team while also allowing me to leverage my prior experience. So, I seized that opportunity and joined IA.
Who have been your mentor(s) during your career? What is the most valuable lesson(s) that you learned from that mentorship?
I have been very fortunate to have many mentors throughout my career including my coworkers, friends, and family members. My father, however, has been my most prominent mentor throughout my career. During the summer of my senior year in high school, I shadowed my father at the Mercantile Exchange and assisted him with recording daily trades. Through that experience, my father taught me that to be successful and happy, I needed to always be humble and have confidence in myself and my abilities.
What is the best career or personal advice you have received or what is career or personal advice you would give?
The best advice I received is that I should embrace the moment and not let insecurity get in the way of achieving a goal. There is never going to be a perfect moment to speak, share an idea, or take a chance, so it is important to have confidence in yourself and overcome a self-defeating attitude.
Out of the firm’s six core values (stewardship, integrity, excellence, innovation, entrepreneurship, and talent), which one(s) resonates with you the most?
Of Guggenheim’s six core values, I would say that integrity resonates with me the most. I believe integrity is foundational to a positive workplace culture and vital to building trust within a team and with stakeholders across the firm.
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