UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Smeal College of Business has received a $500,000 gift from alumni Jeff and Wendy Gido to endow the Jeff and Wendy Gido – Goldman Sachs Distinction in Financial Technology Fund.
Their gift, which was made possible through the Goldman Sachs Gives program, is the first gift to Penn State Smeal supporting programs and initiatives that prepare students for careers in the “fintech” (financial technology) industry.
Goldman Sachs Gives, a donor-advised fund through which Goldman Sachs’ partners recommend grants to qualified nonprofit organizations globally, supports programs that build and stabilize communities, increase educational opportunities, honor service and veterans and create jobs and economic growth.
Jeff Gido, a partner at Goldman Sachs and global head of its Investment Banking Division’s financial technology sector, described fintech as anything in the financial services industry that uses technology to enhance, disrupt or replace financial products and services.
“When I first started following fintech, that could be anything from ATMs to online banking to digitization of certain parts of the value chain. New companies were continually sprouting up in this space,” he said. “Today, that extends to insurance companies, e-commerce and investing apps and more.”
Having a front-row seat to the ways technology has transformed the financial services industry over the last two decades, Jeff and his wife, Wendy, started to talk about what the future of the industry might look like and how they could help Smeal prepare students to be successful in the space.
“I’ve also been discussing this with my peers on Smeal’s Finance Advisory Board. We all agree that it's important for Smeal students to be aware of and well-spoken in fintech trends, because that's what employers are really going to demand going forward,” Jeff said.
The Gidos’ gift will support course or curriculum development, lectures, student organizations, competitions, site visits, networking events and other related expenses that advance the understanding and application of fintech programs or initiatives and prepare students, particularly students who contribute to the diversity of the student body, for careers in the field.
“Technology is changing the landscape of business, and Jeff and Wendy are acutely aware of how important it is for our students to be on the leading edge of this change,” said Charles H. Whiteman, John and Karen Arnold Dean. “Jeff has continually stepped forward to offer guidance about how we can enhance our finance programs. I'm grateful for the Gidos’ leadership in this realm, and I look forward to the myriad ways their gift will enrich finance education at Smeal.”
As a Penn State student studying subjects like finance, economics and international business in the early 1990s, Jeff found a passion for the banking industry, and he graduated with a degree in economics and international business in 1994. He said that he wrote his honors thesis on bank consolidation and interviewed several economists at the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington, D.C. as part of his research.
Those connections led to a full-time job offer, and Jeff spent five years there before pursuing an MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Wendy, a 1994 Penn State graduate with a degree in accounting, began her career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) following graduation, and was promoted to manager. Jeff said that Wendy was the one "on the fast track."
After earning his Master of Business Administration in 2001, Jeff joined Goldman Sachs in the Financial Institutions Group while Wendy decided to turn her attention toward raising their young son. The Gidos have four children, including one current Penn State student.
“I was putting in 60-80 hours a week in my early days at Goldman Sachs, and there’s no way I could have done that without Wendy’s support,” Jeff said.
He said fintech was just starting to emerge as an industry when he was hired at Goldman Sachs, and there were few people who covered it.
“But given my passion for banking, I knew that I’d found my niche,” he said.
Jeff and Wendy have been committed to giving back since their time as college students involved with THON. They direct their philanthropy primarily to two places: the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation, a New Jersey-based charity that benefits families facing a pediatric cancer diagnosis, and Smeal.
In 2014, the couple established the Gido Family Trustee Scholarship. Two years later, they endowed the Gido Family Goldman Sachs Excellence Fund, which offers scholarship support to students studying abroad. And in 2018, the Gidos created the Gido Family Goldman Sachs Wall Street Excellence Fund to support Smeal’s Wall Street Bootcamp program.
In addition, the Gidos have given to Smeal’s Trading Room Endowment and Finance Excellence Fund.
Jeff is also a founding member of Smeal’s Finance Advisory Board and said that joining the board brought him even closer to Smeal.
“It creates an ownership mentality. It’s not just about giving money; it’s about offering advice and providing direction for the finance program. The great thing about the board is that Dean Whiteman really listens to the things we say and then acts. That’s been incredibly rewarding,” he said.
Wendy said she hoped the donation will help replicate for future students some of the experiences she and Jeff had at Smeal.
“Jeff and I met as sophomores and left Penn State with so many good memories. We want others to have that same experience,” Wendy said. “It’s important to us that Smeal students are both prepared for the workforce and have great career outcomes. When they look back, we hope they’ll recognize the role philanthropy at Penn State may have played in their success and pay it forward themselves.”
With the record-breaking success of “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” which raised $2.2 billion from 2016 to 2022, philanthropy is helping to sustain the University’s mission of education, research and service to communities across the commonwealth and around the globe. Scholarships enable Penn State to open doors and welcome students from every background, support for transformative experiences allows students and faculty to fulfill their vast potential for leadership, and gifts toward discovery and excellence help serve and impact the world. To learn more about the impact of giving and the continuing need for support, please visit raise.psu.edu.