August 8, 2023

Author: Joe Musco, Technical Coordinator, Fund Accounting

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Describe your role at Northern Trust

I joined Northern in 2019 and I am a Technical Coordinator in Fund Accounting. I am responsible for performing a variety of accounting, analytical, and financial reporting duties to ensure that client and investor activity is prepared and completed appropriately.

The end outcome that Fund Accounting is responsible for is striking a NAV (Net Asset Value) for Northern Mutual Funds, as well as direct client mutual funds.

What brought you to Northern Trust?

While in college, I had come across Northern Trust and had an interest of their business values, culture, and brand awareness across the financial industry. Out of college, I had taken a full time accounting position within the food industry for a restaurant.

With several months of experience, I came across an opportunity with Northern Trust in their Asset Servicing business unit as a Fund Accountant in which I had applied, and went through an interview process that lead to an offer the very next day!

I took that offer to work at Northern Trust because I felt that their brand awareness and strong relationship with clients was a great opportunity for me in terms of my career development.

Can you describe a particular project you’ve worked on that you loved and what was great about the experience?

One project that I’m passionate about is the onboarding of a new client and valuing their mutual funds as it opened my experience to learning more about the client, and also innovating reports, and meeting specific client requests.

In the end, this project resulted in me taking on new growth opportunities within my current team, and also helped me to focus on client relationships which is essential at Northern Trust.

What do you like best about working here?

What I love most about working at Northern Trust is that there is always opportunities for growth and knowledge share across the entire company. I also enjoy the hybrid style of working from home and the office on a weekly basis.

What technology/technologies have you been excited to work with here at Northern Trust?

I am currently on a particular project where we are testing our accounting system being moved from a mainframe to a cloud computing resource.

The most innovative part of this project is mirroring our current mainframe stored data and mirroring it with the cloud computing and making sure that the end results are exactly the same before officially moving over to a new cloud based resource as an end result.

So far I have contributed by making sure that proper access is accounted for as well as testing actual Northern funds in which my team and I value are being mirrored with the prior days information with the new cloud based storage.

So far I’m glad to say it has been successful.

How has Northern Trust supported your career objectives / development?

Northern Trust has supported my career objectives/development by allowing me to explore what I may want to do next in my career. Many of the employees that I have worked with across my 4 years have driven my interest in taking on new roles and responsibilities.

Northern Trust University, which is a great learning resource, helps build my skills in any scenario across the bank by providing tutorials and excellent knowledge share videos/classes to help provide me with any knowledge gaps that I may have.

I try to keep my skills fresh by always trying to learn something new each day such as market related information and technology updates that may benefit myself and my colleagues.

What’s unique about Northern Trust’s culture that enables you make an impact?

It is all to do with the continuous help and support among all coworkers. To me, the strong relationship and teamwork differentiates Northern Trust’s culture from other companies just as it differentiates our strong relationships with clients.

What has surprised you most about life at NT so far?

Time flies by when you are having fun! I enjoy what I do and what our team/company are all about.

How do you create a balance between work and home?

Some activities outside of work that help me cultivate joy, gratitude, and enjoyment is playing hockey. Hockey has been an exciting sport to play outside of work hours as it also keeps me active. I also enjoy attending plenty of baseball games in the summer.

What would you say to someone considering a career here?

I would say it is the perfect decision because there are so many great opportunities for growth. I for one can abide by this as I myself continue to grow internally here. Our benefits are also very strong compared to other competitors.

Do you have any other career tips you would give to candidates interested in working for Northern Trust?

Be compassionate, always ask questions, communication is key, always be ready to learn. 

 

Fast Facts

Hometown / where are you living now?

-          Chicago, IL

Do you have a pet(s)?

-          A French bulldog named Santino

Favorite sports team?

-          Chicago White Sox (baseball) and Chicago Blackhawks (hockey)

Best advice you’ve received (work or non-work related)?

-          Find a mentor for every area of your life, show up with confidence, and a smile no matter how you feel.

If you could have dinner with any person alive today, who would it be?

-          Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary - I’m a big fan of Shark Tank and would love to discuss business strategies with him.

Careers at Northern Trust

Learn more about career opportunities at Northern Trust.