Going Places

Senior Finance major Elizabeth Pearson calls Salt Lake City home but the world is truly her playground. After traveling to 30 countries and residing long-term on four different continents, Elizabeth has taken this adventurous spirit and applied it here at BYU through her unique Honors thesis, daring internships, and full schedule.

The high stakes and stress of Finance are strong deterrents for many students, but those are the exact reasons Elizabeth was drawn to the program. Growing up, Elizabeth lived in Russia, New Zealand, and America. Her desire to succeed in international business was clear when Elizabeth arrived at BYU. Speeding through prerequisites, Elizabeth was accepted and joined the Marriott School of Business her Freshman year. She knew that her future was in a fast-growing company with the potential to work overseas. The Finance major was like the perfect swirled ice cream for Elizabeth: full of problem solving, interacting with people, and mathematics.

Waiting to return overseas was never an option for Elizabeth. As soon as she finished her Freshman year, Elizabeth headed to the London Center to study English Literature and History. Classes were finished by the early afternoon and she was able to spend hours exploring England, Scotland, and a bit of France. After a brief intermission back in America, Elizabeth returned to Europe for her mission in Milan, Italy and then to the Jerusalem Center shortly after. In Jerusalem, she studied the Palestine/Israel conflict and the Bible.

While racking up airline miles, Elizabeth created extensive networking webs, hoping to catch internship opportunities. In her sophomore year, she interned with Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, an asset management company, where she practiced modeling financial statements and hard financial skills. She focused on looking at publicly traded companies and predicting their growth over the next five to ten years. Based on her reports, Grandeur Peak would decide which companies were worthy investments.

In her junior year, a person in Elizabeth’s network helped her land a new internship at Lucid. Lucid is a tech company based in South Jordan, Utah that creates visual collaboration technology. The technology industry in Utah is rapidly growing and Lucid is at the forefront, winning awards for best employee communities, and already has branches in Melbourne and Amsterdam. She worked as an Operations Intern in the Revenue department, supporting the Sales department. Through market analysis and client details, her position worked with sales reps to guide which products needed more advertising and how to expand product offerings. Each day was something completely different and that energized Elizabeth.

Before she graduates in April and returns to Lucid’s operations team, Elizabeth is focused on finishing her Honors thesis. Elizabeth joined Honors as a way to stretch herself. Finance does not require a capstone so many Marriott School of Business students stray away from the extra work of Honors. Elizabeth felt differently. She saw Honors as crucial to her journey; Honors allowed flexibility in her schedule which allowed her to participate in the Study Abroad programs, and gave her a path to make a difference as an undergraduate through research. Her thesis seeks to understand why women are not entering the Finance field. In the Marriott School of Business, Elizabeth was used to being one of very few women in a class. It did not escape her notice that there was only one female faculty member in the Finance department at BYU. Under the direction of Dr. Colby Wright, she studies surveys sent to women who expressed interest in business and what they eventually chose to study. Through this project, Elizabeth hopes to provide the Finance program a list of ways that they can better recruit females to the program as well as support the women who are already in it. In the meantime, Elizabeth works on the board of the Women in Finance club to help fellow female students.

Elizabeth is a Finance major with an Art History minor from Salt Lake City, Utah. While at home, she loves to play and watch sports ranging from football to tennis. With her five brothers, she is also fond of water skiing and boating. Her true hobby however is traveling the world which includes the 30 countries she has already visited and the four continents where she has lived. With hopes of helping a business grow to an internationally established company, Elizabeth has accepted a position on the operations team at Lucid. After working in the industry for a bit, she plans to apply to MBA programs nationwide. With her passion for international business paired with her dedication to succeed, she is sure to go places both in her work and in the world.