Financial media veteran Scott Tanner publishes a profile on Joe Rinaldi.

Return on Investment: How a moonlighting money manager in Maryland built the perfect internship program for Wall Street

Joe Rinaldi, president of Rockville, Md.-based Quantum Financial Advisors (QFA), the financial advisory firm he founded in 1996, believes in paying it forward. He’s also a strong advocate of mentoring. The Long Island, NY native has enjoyed a successful career in the investment management industry, and he’s doing his part to ensure that the business he loves is well stewarded by the next generation of financial services professionals.

In addition to managing portfolios for clients ranging from young professionals to high-net-worth families, in 2008, Rinaldi began teaching finance as an adjunct professor at top schools like New York University Stern School of Business, The Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University, and The Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. It was at the latter institution, in 2011, that an innovative internship program was born, one that would launch careers for dozens of college students aspiring to make it big on Wall Street. Rinaldi affectionally calls the program the (IIIIP, The International Investment Incubator Program).

In addition to welcoming young professionals, Rinaldi seeks out the best and brightest undergraduate and graduate students who aspire to careers on Wall Street, in the areas of asset management, financial advisory, investment banking, and private equity. These talented, ambitious scholars hope to enjoy the same success in finance as Rinaldi, who decades ago eschewed medical school for an entry-level position as a mortgage-backed trader and hedging specialist at a $25 billion bank in New York City.

In 2008, Rinaldi began teaching an advanced course on futures, options, and derivatives at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business. By Year Two in College Park, his students seeking jobs after graduation started approaching him for letters of recommendation. Three such letters quickly turned into fifteen, and that’s when Rinaldi had an epiphany. He set out to create a formal program where every semester he would selectively recruit a handful of the best and brightest interns right from the classroom. “When I was their age, I thought I wanted to go to medical school, but I quickly discovered my love for numbers would mean a very different career path,” recalls Rinaldi. Furthermore, he recalls, at age 16, riding his bicycle ten miles to open an investment account at Merrill Lynch, where he started to invest and trade equity options. “These students are so far ahead of me at their age because they already have a laser focus on pursuing their life’s work in the financial services industry.”

In 2012, at University of Maryland, Rinaldi taught a Futures, Options, and Derivatives class. It was there that he met a brilliant Sophomore named Pavan Rangachar, who agreed to accept an internship at QFA and write a chapter in A Beginner's Guide to Alternative Assets, which Rinaldi co-authored with his colleagues, Dr. Howard Lodge. Rangachar reached the pinnacle of Wall Street success before his 30th Birthday. After several years at Goldman Sachs, he joined Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts, better known as KKR, one of the world’s largest private equity firms in Manhattan. Recently, he welcomed a dozen of Rinaldi’s current college interns to learn the best practices of applying and interviewing at the top investment firms and banks on Wall Street, then learning how to thrive once they arrive.

When vetting internship candidates from an ever-growing pool of talented students, Rinaldi asks them which of three career categories most appeal to them: research, sales, or securities trading. Upon selecting the successful applicants, Rinaldi then tailors a rigorous internship that simulates over 3-4 months what a day in the life would look like for someone at an actual investment firm. They learn to operate a Bloomberg data terminal, how to prospect and cold call, how to screen for securities and optimize a stock portfolio, among other vital skills. They’ll work 20-25 hours a week for QFA and earn three to six hours of college credit. Furthermore, graduate students are eligible for a paid internship. From there, Rinaldi and his colleagues help QFA’s interns create a resume that is ready for submission to the top companies in New York, including JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, PIMCO, Ernst & Young, and Nomura Securities.

One of Rinaldi’s most gratifying experiences was helping a finance student at The George Washington University in 2023. Junyuan Chen had desires to join a big bank or asset management firm someday. After his spring semester in 2023, his HB1 visa requirements required him to secure a sponsor that would allow him to remain in the U.S., or he would have to return to his native China to renew his visa. He got into contact with Rinaldi, who was so impressed with his initiative and intellect, he offered him an internship.

Chen immersed himself in every facet of learning QFA’s business and demonstrated his acumen in understanding complex financial formulas and applications. Rinaldi entrusted a $500,000 investment portfolio of his money to Chen to invest on a non-discretionary basis. Chen excelled in the intricacies of asset allocation and sector rotation, so much so that he became lovingly known as “Big Money” in the office. Last month, his hard work and Rinaldi’s networking on his behalf paid off. Chen accepted a position as a foreign exchange analyst in the Baltimore office of Morgan Stanley. “I delight in watching students from all over the world pursue academics with everything they’ve got,” Rinaldi reminisces. “On top of that, they dive into their internship responsibilities with the same zeal, and you just know they’re going to be world changers. I’m proud to play a small role on their journey to career success.”

What is Rinaldi’s proudest achievement to date with the QFA internship program? “We have successfully placed every single one of the 121 interns into a highly competitive position at a major financial institution,” Rinaldi proudly proclaims. “We’re literally batting a thousand, in baseball parlance, in our intern career placement,” he marvels. He is extremely excited about mentoring and coaching these brilliant young students. “I truly believe there’s no financial internship out there quite like ours.”