UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Matthew Cherry freely admits that when he started at Penn State, he was completely unaware of consulting as a career path. As he finishes his undergraduate academic career, he leaves behind a legacy of having worked to spread awareness of and preparedness for his future profession.
“In addition to helping students prepare individually, over the past two years I also began finding ways to create and organize resources to help students become more aware of consulting and to open up consulting opportunities for Smeal students,” Cherry said.
“One of my favorite memories at Smeal will be seeing people that I helped mentor get job offers that they wanted," he added.
The Penn State Smeal College of Business has named Cherry, who is graduating with a 4.0 GPA in finance, as the student marshal for spring 2019. He will lead Smeal’s commencement procession during the Baccalaureate and Associate Degree Ceremony on Sunday, May 5, at the Bryce Jordan Center.
“I’m very humbled,” Cherry said. “I had my head down working for most of my college career, focusing on individual projects or goals and it was really amazing to see that the combination of those were recognized by Smeal.”
Cherry, who was a Schreyer Scholar, a member of the Sapphire Leadership Academic Program, and a dean’s list student every semester, accumulated an impressive list of scholarships and awards, including:
- Even Pugh Scholar Award
- President Sparks Award
- President’s Freshman Award
- Mitchell N. Nadel Honors Scholarship
- Schreyer Honors College Academic Excellence Scholarship / Gerald Bayles Scholarship
- Smeal Undergraduate Research Grant
- Schreyer Undergraduate Research Grant
- Finance Department Scholarship for Undergraduate Research
- National Merit Scholar
Many of Cherry’s extracurricular activities connected to his interest in consulting, including helping fellow students practice interviews, and creating and presenting a seminar series focused on helping underclassmen understand the consulting recruiting process and develop the skills necessary to land top internships.
Cherry worked with Fariborz Ghadar, professor of finance, William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Management, Policies and Planning, and director of the Center for Global Studies, as a research assistant at the center and a teaching assistant in Ghadar’s Management 561: Global Strategy and Organization class.
He was also president of the Schreyer Consulting Group and a member of the Nittany Consulting Group. In addition, Cherry interned with Deloitte Consulting LLP for a summer, as well as with Toll Brothers, Inc., for two summers.
Cherry has selected Christoph Hinkelmann, associate clinical professor of finance, as his faculty escort.
“Professor Hinkelmann is my thesis adviser and has been a huge support in helping me push through some tough points with the thesis and also supported my application for several grants / scholarships (from Schreyer, Smeal, and the Finance department) to pursue an extension of my thesis so I could attend the TMT M&A Forum USA, an investment conference," said Cherry.
Both of Cherry’s parents and both of his brothers, one of whom is a sophomore at Penn State, as well as his grandparents, will travel from his Hellertown home in the Lehigh Valley to watch him graduate.
Cherry has accepted a position with Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy and Operations practice as a business analyst.
Smeal has also named student marshals for each academic department and ROTC, along with a corresponding faculty marshal. They include:
- Accounting: Skye Griffiths, escorted by Suzanne Wright
- Finance: Anthony Porreca, escorted by Kimberly Cornaggia
- Management and Organization: Jillian Morello, escorted by Jennifer Eury
- Marketing: Nancy Venter, escorted by Matthew Checcio
- Risk Management: Xin Xia, escorted by Nan Zhu
- Supply Chain and Information Systems: Jennifer Ferrone, escorted by Ralph Sees
- ROTC: Joseph Barclay, escorted by Navy Capt. R. Scott Young