Name: Ivana Bolfarini
Graduation Year: Spring 2018 (M.S.), Spring 2017 (B.A.)
Major(s)/Minor(s): M.S. in Professional Accounting
B.A. in Accounting and Finance with a minor in Women and Gender Studies
Hometown: Weston, Connecticut
As an undergraduate student Ivana Bolfarini ’18 originally enrolled in the architecture history program at Syracuse University, but before arriving to campus realized that she could not ignore her passion for accounting.
“I studied accounting in high school and became interested in the area during that time,” explained Bolfarini. “Before I arrived on campus, I decided that I wanted to switch to studying accounting at Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management. I was actually one of the fastest students to declare their major.”
Since then, Bolfarini has gone on to earn both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the Whitman School. She credits the diverse experiences she received, both inside and outside of the walls of the Whitman School, with preparing her for a professional career.
Ivana is an active member of the Syracuse University community. She worked as the public relations representative for S.A.S.S.E, which focused on women empowerment, was treasurer for La L.U.C.H.A., a community for Latino students, assisted BrainFeeders, an organization that deals with food justice and sustainability and the Zeta Epsilon Chapter of Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Inc. According to Bolfarini, her involvement has allowed her to get behind several important causes to her and gain exposure to people with different backgrounds.
“Within these different organizations, there were diverse people with different ways of thinking,” explained Bolfarini. “I can now look at businesses from different perspectives and understand social implications better.”
At the Whitman School, Bolfarini was able to learn the foundation of accounting from professionals and attend networking events.
“Whitman has endless connections with major companies throughout the country and I knew I would have many networking opportunities that would help in my professional development and future accounting career,” explained Bolfarini.
Bolfarini attended multiple events held by employers whether it was networking socials held by EY and PwC, snow tubing held my Beta Alpha Psi partnered with KPMG, Career Madness and the multiple career fairs offered by the Whitman Schools.
“These events helped me with obtaining the internships I did throughout my academic career,” said Bolfarini.
The summer after her junior year at the Whitman School Bolfarini gained multidisciplinary exposure by joining a small life insurance company called Lifester. While on the Lifester team she worked with coders on mockups of the website, created hundreds of e-mail templates and in-app alerts for the software and conducted market research on a kick-starter campaign.
“The internship at Lifester provided me with a lot of knowledge in the life insurance market, specifically whole life insurance, which requires a financial background because of all the financial forecasting and evaluation,” explained Bolfarini.
In addition, Bolfarini interned with PwC, where she conducted audits of three branches of a global insurance company, helped with audit planning and assisted in a statuary audit.
After her undergraduate graduation, Bolfarini chose to stay an extra year to earn her master’s degree in professional accounting and reach the 150 credit hour requirement for the CPA. Bolfarini is excited to put her CPA to good use as she will be returning to work at PwC full-time after graduation.
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