#WhitmanWatch: Caitlin O’Hara

Name: Caitlin O’Hara
Graduation Year: May 2018
Major(s)/Minor(s): Finance/Accounting
Hometown: Merrick, New York

According to Caitlin O’Hara, a finance and accounting double major at Syracuse University‘s Martin J. Whitman of Management, leadership has always come naturally to her.

Growing up as a triplet, she was the leader among her siblings and often took care of them. O’Hara was attracted to the Whitman School for its leadership opportunities and ability to cultivate the talents of students.

“When I visited I could tell everyone was a family here and everyone cared not only about what students are doing but why they are doing it,” said Caitlin.

Since coming to the Whitman School, O’Hara has become the project leader for Team Guatemala, an Enactus project that sells products made by women in Guatemala and sends the proceeds back in the form of scholarships for their daughters. As the project leader, she has spent significant time training new members on how to run sales and hopefully, run the entire project in the future. In addition to working with Team Guatemala, O’Hara has been involved in a number of different organizations at Syracuse University such as the Women’s Club Softball Team, Global Abroad Ambassadors, Whitman Ambassadors and the honors college. She studied abroad in Hong Kong, China where she completed a full-time five-week internship with the intellectual property and technology, media and telecommunication department of Mayer Brown JSM.

O’Hara spent last summer interning in the audit department of PwC, a global accounting service that handles public and private clients.

“I took an accounting class and found that I just really liked accounting,” said O’Hara.

In addition to interning at PwC, O’Hara took part in the Emerging Leaders Program at Ernst & Young, where she was exposed to cutting-edge leadership strategies, practices and tools.

O’Hara will be returning to PwC full-time in the fall. She also hopes to one day attend law school. Through the SU Abroad program, she spent a semester in Hong Kong and had the opportunity to intern at Mayor Brown JSM in the Intellectual Property, Technology Media and Telecommunications department. While she was there she had the opportunity to conduct research for partners and associates.

“For me, it’s always been about the why. I really care about the things that I do,” said O’Hara.

O’Hara derived her work ethic from the purpose behind the activities. She wants to be remembered as someone that didn’t’ just do things for the sake of doing them but got involved because she truly cared about the effect of her work.

Daniel Strauss
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