Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and Chief Monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general.

Let's get to it.

In this episode, James shares his path from the nonprofit world and the Peace Corps to working

as an associate in private equity after getting his MBA from Duke.

We learned what it was like living and working in Costa Rica for the Grameen Bank,

as well as how he defied all odds to land a job in private equity even after he didn't

get a return offer from Molesus after his summer associate role there. Enjoy.

All right, James, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Oasis podcast.

Yeah, man, happy to be here.

It'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.

Yeah, man.

So I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina.

I went to school up in Virginia at Washington and Lee, majored in accounting

and business administration in a theater minor.

And while I was there, I also wrestled, I was on the varsity wrestling team for a couple

of years.

But while I was there, I had that distinct urge to get what I was learning out of the classroom.

So started a little company over in Nairobi.

We were making hoodies with men and women living in the slums out there and sending them

over to the U.S.

That led me to a fellowship from what's called the Princeton Alumni Corps, took

me up to D.C. I worked for a nonprofit doing like federal contracting work where we staffed people

...