“Reaching Your Dream” series tells stories of Northwestern alums who found their dream careers thanks to Chicago Field Studies (CFS), an academic internship program that matches over 500 students every year with over 250 employer partners. CFS participants receive guidance on choosing internships based on their passions and values, navigating applying and interviewing, and succeeding in the professional world. While interning, students process their experiences in weekly CFS seminars, where they reflect on the place of work in their lives and the role of their industry in society.
By Nina Wieda
Zack Brown ‘09 majored in Economics and History at Northwestern and is currently a Capital Markets Trading Principal at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His Chicago Field Studies internship introduced him to the world of finance and became the beginning of an illustrious career dedicated to public interest.
Halloween, Zack Brown with his younger brother, Nick Brown
Growing up in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Zack found his passion when he joined the debate team: “it was this great combination of the intellectual and academic aspect with competitiveness. You worked really hard on something, and then went to a debate tournament, and it was very fulfilling to see your work pay off. Northwestern famously has one of the best debate teams in the country, so I really wanted to go to Northwestern.”
“I hadn’t really thought about careers, because I’d been so focused on debate in high school and college that I hadn’t really given much thought to what I want to do after college.” After his sophomore year in college, he worked as a bank teller in Wisconsin. He wanted to take his experience with finance to the next level, but didn’t know how to get an internship in finance. “You go to a company’s website and you send your resume, but a thousand other people send in their resumes, too.” That is when Zack discovered Chicago Field Studies and appreciated their access to exclusive internship opportunities based on established relationships with companies.
With the help of CFS, Zack secured an internship with Goldman Sachs. “I don’t think there’s any way I could have done that just on my own.” Zack loved taking the train into the city with other CFS interns and going through the experience together. He didn’t know that he was about to find himself in the epicenter of a historical event. It was the fall of 2008, and Zack witnessed the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression right from his Goldman Sachs office. “It was exciting to see it all from the frontlines,” Zack recalls. His experience at Goldman Sachs confirmed the possibility of a career in finance. “I thought, I’m going downtown into this office, I’m actually doing this. I can be a real grown up!”
Zack Brown and Janet Yellen when he worked at the Treasury Department in D.C. in 2022
After graduation, Zack went to work in the Risk Management Division at Milliman, which was rapidly growing after the financial crisis. The skills that he had gained in debate helped him become an expert public speaker, and he presented at conferences all over the world, including Beijing, London, and Berlin. While at Milliman, Zack proposed that the company form a partnership with Chicago Field Studies to invigorate their hiring practices. The initiative worked well, and Zack ended up hiring and supervising CFS interns. Over a decade later, he still keeps in touch with some of them and mentors them in their own career journeys.
After 10 years at Milliman, Zack noticed that volunteering was taking center stage in his life. He taught financial literacy in Chicago Public Schools, became a board member at the ACLU, and was selected to participate in the Emerging Leaders Program at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The 2016 presidential election further deepened Zack’s level of commitment to public interest, and he left his Principal position at Milliman to work on the 2020 presidential election. He joined Amy Klobuchar’s campaign for the primary, then moved to Des Moines for the Iowa caucus and lived there for a few months. “I was on the analytics team. Working in finance, I knew how to do a little bit of coding and math; that was an area of the campaign where it seemed like I could contribute the most.”
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Zack Brown pictured third from left
After the 2020 election, Zack moved to Washington, D.C. to work at the Treasury Department. “I worked on the Emergency Capital Investment Program. It had nine billion dollars for banks and credit unions that were planning to boost lending in communities that were especially hard-hit by the pandemic.”
Now, Zack is back in Chicago, working at the Chicago branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “I feel like my whole career, I’ve been lucky to be at the forefront of whatever is going on. I was at Goldman during the financial crisis, at the Treasury Department during Covid. Now, the Fed is in the news all the time. It feels like it is an especially interesting time to be there.”
Zack still volunteers for Chicago Public Schools, explaining concepts ranging from stocks and bonds to 401K plans to high school students. “Sometimes, students get really into it. They ask me, ‘Should I invest in Bitcoin? They are asking really smart financial questions.” Zack is also on the board of the Economic Awareness Council, the Next Gen board of the ACLU of Illinois, and the Chicago Urban Debate League. “Debate is somewhat expensive for each student to join, so historically, the rich schools in the suburbs have good debate teams because the parents can pay for it. Within the last twenty years, there’s been an effort to bring debate to schools within the cities that haven’t historically had them.”
Zack lives in Chicago with his wife Noor Hasan, who also went to Northwestern (Class of 2014). As for next steps, Zack is considering running for office, perhaps for the position of Treasurer of Illinois. “I’d like to leverage my finance background to come up with some solutions.”
Zack Brown at his wedding in 2022, with his wife, Noor-ul-ain Hasan, a fellow Wildcat, class of 2014