What can I do with my degree?
Putting theories into practice
Thea was always drawn to finance and banking during her studies, and she wrote her master’s thesis on investments. Now she has her own portfolio of corporate customers, and she enjoys following their journey to success.
Thea Marie Sagelvmo
Position: Relationship Manager
Employer: Nordea
Nordea is the Nordics biggest bank, which naturally gives a lot of career opportunities, so it was the perfect place to start. Furthermore, I enjoy that it is an international company with a diverse workforce.
Responsible banking
As a relationship manager at Nordea, Thea’s main responsibility is to optimize liquidity and give out credit products like loans and other types of credit facilities. Customers come to her when they need a loan in order to build a new office for example, or any other type of request.
Nordea is also a universal bank that offers lots of other services and products such as investments, foreign exchange hedging, interest rate swaps, pension schemes, leasing and cash management. She works with the customers to understand their specific needs and bring in the right people and service providers within each of these areas.
– The most challenging thing is not being able to help customers in the way in which they hope. Sometimes we do get loan requests that are just too risky, or for another reason are not feasible. Giving rejections is no fun. However, that is part of responsible banking.
Learning by doing
Thea has learned a lot about corporate financing, credit and risk analysis. She finds it really useful to put the theories from school into practice. Now she knows how to assess risk in a more structured and comprehensive way; be it business, market, financial, governance or sustainability risk. These are all parameters they workaround and have to know well.
– Furthermore, I know a lot more about corporate finance. Different structures, products and ways to leverage firms in the best, most efficient way possible.
Creating tailor-made solutions
Thea loves being able to contribute to making businesses thrive and grow. She enjoys financing a project and seeing it do well, as well as meeting the company owners and creating tailor-made solutions. Since she has her own portfolio of corporate customers she gets to follow their journey and see how Nordea`s services affect their day to day operations as well as their big mile-stone accomplishments.
– My goal is to optimize the customers' liquidity, leverage and banking services. This in turn makes them able to focus on what they do best, which is their business, of course. Any day that I reach that goal is a good day.