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Student Spotlight: Jack Luba Lands Summer Investment Banking Internship with Raymond James in Chicago

By Jamie Boyle

ST. PETERSBURG (January 12, 2022) -- Jack Luba’s goal was always to find a job during his junior year. As a finance major in the USF Muma College of Business, Luba started focusing on that on day one.

Luba’s early initiative paid off. While still a year from graduation, he landed a job with Raymond James in Chicago as an investment banking summer analyst in the diversified industrials group. Luba is on track to graduate in 2023 with dual bachelor’s degrees — one in finance and one in world languages and cultures, with a concentration in Chinese.

Luba said his diverse background has fostered a fascination with global businesses and markets. He grew up in six different countries spanning multiple continents. He served as an infantry drill sergeant in the Singapore Armed Forces. He played soccer and ran track and field at the Singapore American School in Singapore and attended the Claremont Fan Court School in the United Kingdom.

At USF, Luba is in the college’s Corporate Mentor Program, a program for juniors and seniors who are first in their families to attend college. He is the president of Delta Sigma Pi – Theta Phi chapter, a professional business fraternity at USF. Both of those outlets provided a lot of support in the recruitment and interview process. He says he relied heavily on his brothers at Delta Sigma Pi to help prepare for these rigorous interviews, and through conversations with older brothers, he became acquainted with these prestigious careers in finance during freshman year.

“Courses such as Principles of Finance and Principles of Investing also helped to prepare me for those interviews,” he said. He always had an interest in those topics, but it wasn’t until he started interviewing and talking about these topics frequently that he realized how much he enjoyed the subject matter. That’s when he knew investment banking was where he wanted to be.

Luba said he laid the groundwork for his summer internship during his sophomore year. He started by doing research and watching videos on how to put himself in the best position to be successful in investment banking recruiting. From there he applied for internships and focused on expanding his network. He reached out to individuals within groups he was interested in on LinkedIn and scheduled phone calls with them. Those calls led to interviews, and eventually landed him the internship with Raymond James, Chicago.

Luba spent this past summer as an intern in the third party risk group at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a financial services company, and prior to that, interned as a private equity analyst at an independent search fund.

Though the odds of being offered a position in investment banking seemed insurmountable, Luba said sometimes a simple phone call to an analyst can play a big role in recruiting success. “I hope that more students at USF try to get into investment banking,” said Luba.  “Networking with intent and focus is incredibly important; not being afraid to reach out and talk to people on the teams you are applying to really opens doors.”

Luba said he put a lot of time and effort into networking. And he didn’t let the closed doors sidetrack him. “The more rejections you get along the way make the offer you do get so much sweeter,” he said.

Because the summer analyst roles with Raymond James hire with the intent of hiring post-graduation, Luba is looking forward to a stressless senior year. In fact, he says, he might even have time to learn to play guitar.