Young alumnus reflects on influence of Lehigh in finance career

Lehigh University alumnus Scott Bordogna, ’08, attributes his finance career success to his professors and involvement in Greek life at Lehigh.

Bordogna has a degree in finance and earned his master’s degree from New York University in real estate finance and investment.

“I found myself drawing on my knowledge of corporate finance and valuation from my days at Lehigh quite often while earning my master’s at NYU,” he said. “Having a solid foundation in both subjects helped me not only start with a leg up, but apply the concepts to real estate, as well.”

While at Lehigh, Bordogna was heavily involved in Greek life and held various leadership positions within his fraternity, Chi Psi, over his three years in the chapter.

“I was given the opportunity to interact with various fraternity alumni and cultivate meaningful relationships with established individuals in the financial services industry,” Bordogna said. “Their influence was partly responsible for my desire and overall decision to work on Wall Street, which has led me to where I am today.”

As an undergraduate student, Bordogna earned three internships all within the commercial real estate industry. After working at Rockwood Realty Advisors, a boutique investment banking firm, and serving within Roseland Property Company’s (now owned by Mack Cali) development acquisitions group, he secured an internship with Lehman Brothers, which turned into an offer of full-time employment.

Bordogna started his career as an analyst at Lehman Brothers in the Global Real Estate Group in 2008 and worked through the firm’s bankruptcy for almost four years, where he performed numerous workout and restructuring exercises on many of the firm’s commercial real estate projects.

In 2012, he began working at Synapse Capital, a startup commercial real estate investment firm that provides advisory services and acquires, develops and operates commercial real estate, where he assisted in building out the firm’s overall investment strategy and helped to obtain initial capital commitments from investors.

While at Synapse Capital, Bordogna also oversaw the firm’s multi-family acquisitions platform and assisted in the evaluation and closing of various ground-up development opportunities. Since late 2014, he has been working as an Associate for GTIS Partners, a commercial real-estate-focused private equity firm, where he is responsible for the oversight of assets. He has an integral role in the growth of the firm’s single-family rental platform at both the asset and corporate levels.

Bordogna attributes his interest in finance and real estate to his father, who has worked for many years at Prudential Real Estate Investors.

“Growing up, he would sometimes allow me to tag along on various site tours,” he said. “Whether it was walking a half built project or doing a diligence trip on a potential acquisition, he always took the time to explain the project, business plan, and strengths and weaknesses of each site. As I got older I started to have more and more interest in the industry and began to realize I had unwittingly developed a strong base of knowledge for someone my age. It made sense to leverage this knowledge to start my career.”

Along with his father, Bordogna explained that professor Samuel Weaver was particularly influential. Weaver taught a class on financial valuation that was filled with real world examples and application. Weaver had a career at the Hershey companies in a financial planning and analysis role prior to teaching at Lehigh. Bordogna said that Weaver’s ability to utilize that experience helped to take his class to a new level.

“Having Lehigh on my resume helped getting my foot in the door when I was first starting,” he said. “The education I received allowed me to speak knowledgeably about financial theories and concepts in interviews which resulted in my first job with Lehman Brothers out of school.”

In the future, Bordogna hopes to start his own commercial real estate investment firm.

Editor’s Note: In a previous version of this article, Scott Bordogna was incorrectly identified as a member of Chi Phi fraternity. He is a member of Chi Psi fraternity.