Levi Pettit: Building Success Through In-Person Learning and Office Culture
Investment professional Levi Pettit knows the value of showing up. From his experience at a family office to his current pursuit of an MBA at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, the CFA® charterholder has seen firsthand how in-person interactions shape career trajectories in finance.
The Remote Work Challenge
“COVID changed a lot of things,” Pettit observes. “People coming out of undergrad or college who want to pursue finance may find that attractive. However, it’s important for people who [are in] their entry-level job [to] be looking for opportunities where they can be face-to-face with people every single day — in my experience, that’s where I learned and grew the most.”
Learning Through Direct Experience
After graduating magna cum laude from The University of Texas at Dallas with degrees in Finance and Economics, Pettit began his career as an enterprise risk management analyst at Independent Financial. This early experience taught him a crucial lesson about professional development.
“I was working in enterprise risk management; nothing in my undergrad prepared me for that,” he recalls. “My first boss said to me, ‘I know that you just graduated, and you think that you have a college degree and you know everything now; but that’s not the case. You need to realize you will need to continue learning for the rest of your career.'”
The Family Office Advantage
A lunch meeting with a former boss led Pettit to an opportunity that would shape his career: helping build a family office from the ground up. “It never felt like I had to talk to a boss, who had to talk to their boss, who had to talk to somebody else’s boss,” he explains. “I could be completely open and honest to even the managing partner about what was going on.”
As an investment associate at the first-generation, single-family office, Pettit gained invaluable experience in alternative investments, private equity, venture capital, and commercial real estate. “It was an amazing experience,” he says. “I realized how these high-net worth individuals looked at investment opportunities — not just on the public side between stocks and bonds, but on the private side as well.”
The Future of Professional Development
For young professionals entering finance today, Pettit emphasizes the importance of in-person learning opportunities. “Unfortunately, I just don’t think remote environments provide that opportunity,” he notes. “If I was graduating today, I would try to find something that required me to be in a seat five days a week, and make sure there was some type of team culture.”
His experience suggests that the ability to observe leadership decision-making and engage in direct mentorship remains crucial for professional growth in finance, advantages that may be diminished in remote work environments.
Through his own career progression, from risk management to investment associate and now MBA candidate, Pettit demonstrates how embracing in-person opportunities and maintaining a commitment to continuous learning can create a foundation for success in finance.