Our Team
We’ve seen the power and freedom that comes with the opportunity to pursue a foundational career right out of college. We’re passionate about expanding access to careers in finance because we lived it.
Mannie Ajayi, Co-Founder
Though originally from Vancouver, Canada, Mannie has lived all around the globe. After finding himself enjoying his AP Economics class in high school, he decided to pursue a career in “business,” even though he wasn't quite sure what that meant. This path eventually led him to join Morgan Stanley's Financial Sponsors Group as an analyst in investment banking. After banking, Mannie joined TPG Growth as a private equity associate.
Today, Mannie runs his own investment firm focused on the consumer industry. He also dedicates time to the youth of San Francisco through the Youth Art Exchange. As the chair of YAX, Mannie supports the non-profit in their endeavors, including providing arts programming for underprivileged high school students in the city.
Mannie holds an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Commerce in finance from UVA's McIntire School of Commerce.
Jessica Holton, Co-Founder
Jessica is originally from New Jersey, where she essentially grew up at Discovery House, a hands-on children’s science museum that her parents started and operated until she was a teen. She was attracted to a career in business because it seemed like the best way to have a large-scale impact.
Not really knowing what she was getting herself into, she joined Morgan Stanley’s Financial Sponsors Group as a summer analyst and then a full-time analyst in investment banking. After banking, Jessica joined Carlyle’s Consumer & Retail group as a private equity associate.
Both roles changed the trajectory of her career and life, offering her the financial security, network, skills and experience necessary to be able to choose what she wanted to do next. Today, Jessica is an entrepreneur in the relationship wellness space.
Jessica holds an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science from Georgetown University.
Mike Kimpel, Co-Founder & Head of Curriculum
Mike grew up in both central Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He developed an interest in business and investing in high school and decided to aim for a career in Investment Banking. He originally pursued a degree at an in-state school. With no personal connections and due to the lack of recruiting at his “non-target” school, he didn’t see a path to his targeted career field.
Mike transferred to the University of Virginia, ultimately landing jobs at UBS in the Sponsors Group in NYC and then at UBS in Los Angeles. This experience launched Mike’s career in finance where he would go on to work in Private Equity at Golden Gate Capital, HIG Capital and later joined an NYC-based long/short hedge fund that grew to $2 billion dollars in assets over the course of his tenure. He recently launched a new platform called Finance|able that's aimed at helping students from any background gain access to top-tier finance careers.
Mike’s experiences in the world of Finance have provided him with tremendous opportunities and he’s given back by teaching throughout his career.
Mike is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where he received his MBA, was a Senior Instructor and Managing Partner at Wall Street Prep, and is now the founder of Finance-able.com.
Jessica Baier, Executive Director
Jessica grew up in a small town in rural Montana. Much like the fellows in Access Distributed, finance and business was not even on her radar when she enrolled in undergrad at a small liberal arts school in Minnesota.
After taking her first economics class and loving it, a professor-turned-mentor encouraged Jessica to enroll in intro to Investment Banking course. Because her school was a non-target institution, she had to rely heavily on networking and coaching from alums to break into internships in investment banking at Piper Sandler and corporate finance at 3M. This experience gives her a unique perspective on what our AD fellows are going through and why this program is so critical - she wishes it had been around when she was in undergrad!
Jessica’s career has taken her from Deloitte Consulting to leading strategy and operations at ecommerce start-ups at Stitch Fix and TryNow, and is now the founder and CEO of her own venture, Habit Money, which empowers people to develop healthy financial habits.
Jessica holds a MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Economics from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.
