A Student Executive Team Member Spotlight on CFO, Quinn Ackerman ('23)
As our first Student team member to be featured on the Student Agencies Connect platform, we would like to introduce our CFO, Quinn Ackerman (‘23), who is a sophomore studying in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. Quinn was born in Boston, MA, and moved with her family to the small town of Mendon, a suburb of Rochester, NY. While Quinn graduated from Honeoye Falls-Lima High School, Quinn spent her freshman year abroad in Vienna with her family while her mom performed genetics research for her sabbatical. During this time, Quinn attended a German-speaking high school and was able to travel to Spain, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, and even Egypt.
Like many students on the 2021-2022 SAI team, Quinn hails from a big Cornell family—both her parents attended the school, and her younger brother is a current freshman! What really drew Quinn to Cornell was the opportunity to explore an undergraduate business school education. With such a diverse and tight-knit community, Dyson seemed like the perfect fit.
Last year, Quinn served as the Social Media Manager of the Hotel Ezra Cornell team. Run entirely by students, Hotel Ezra is an annual hospitality industry conference. Every year, it brings together some of the most respected leaders in the space to deliver thoughtful programming and inform people about the current state of the industry. While Quinn enjoyed the independence offered by being a part of the student team, she wanted to shift away from hospitality and into other aspects of business, specifically real estate.
That’s where Student Agencies came into play. During her first Dyson course, Quinn heard Reid Kleinman (HHMC, ‘22)—who was a teaching assistant for the class—discuss his experience at SAI. She was excited by the idea of working in a small business environment and the prospect of joining another student-run team like that of Hotel Ezra Cornell. Come the fall of 2020, Quinn was reminded of her interest in SAI when she took note of the Student Agencies Building Redevelopment and subsequently applied for the General Manager of Real Estate position. Quinn ended up on the Executive Team as CFO, and has worked closely with Charlie, Kyle, and the Real Estate team to track the financials of the project.
In her role as CFO, Quinn has drawn upon lessons from her Dyson courses as well as her experience performing basic accounting and financial modeling for her family’s real estate business. As CFO, Quinn gets to play a role in each of the businesses. As such, she has enjoyed overseeing the constant small changes and pivots that the managers must make each month to generate revenue. Additionally, she is intrigued by how intertwined the businesses are: “working with all of the managers, I get to see how interconnected and collaborative Student Agencies really is. It’s great to see how we can take advantage of the competencies of each business so that all the branches of SAI can succeed— not only from a creative standpoint but a financial one too.”
During the rest of her time at SAI, Quinn can’t wait to watch the Real Estate team make significant progress with the redevelopment project and for Ithaca Beer Company to open its doors at 409 College. As Student Agencies moves into the most exciting part of the year (summer!), Quinn is excited to spend time with her coworkers and get the full Student Agencies experience.
