David Settanni ’09

David Settanni ’09 is currently the CFO at Settanni Financial.

After a rocky start to his college career prior to Purchase, Settanni found his groove and graduated cum laude with an Economics major and a minor in Political Science.

At Purchase, he was a member of the Economics Club and the Chung Do Kwan Tae Kwon Do Club and served as a teaching assistant, while he worked at Northwestern Mutual Insurance and Wells Fargo Financial.

After graduation, Settanni joined the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as an economist before becoming a private wealth manager and tax advisor at his family’s firm, where he’s now CFO.

The advice Settanni shares is simple.

“Get a phone number” and “leverage the network. If the person has time and a heart, they’ll say ‘yes’ and speak with you.”

He encourages students to believe in themselves, urging, “There’s no reason you can’t go out and get those jobs. They went for it,” referring to his fellow alumni working at major firms.

In regards to handling stress, Settanni meditates, works out, and leans on his network of people by picking up the phone for conversations. And he finds inspiration from a unique source—an audiobook by rapper and business mogul 50 Cent, Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter.