Nathaniel Siens (M.A. '06)

Like many of his fellow Chicago School alumni, Nathaniel Siens spends his days counseling clients. He is well trained to deal with the issues he sees on a daily basis—anxiety, uncertainty, the challenges of dealing with life’s unexpected hiccups or, more often these days, its dreaded crises.

Unlike most of his classmates, however, Siens does not work in a clinic, or a nonprofit agency, or even in private practice. Possibly the only financial manager with a degree in counseling, he is vice president of the private client group at Chase, overseeing the stock portfolios of some of the bank’s wealthier investors.

“Working with people is really all about the relationship and trust you build,” he says. “Anyone can talk about the money side of things, but it’s just as important to know what is driving your clients’ behavior, to understand their wants and needs, and to be able to deliver.”

A 2006 graduate of The Chicago School’s M.A. in Clinical Psychology- Counseling Specialization, Siens says that proactive outreach has been the key to his success in allaying client panic since the economy began its downward spiral in 2008. Reflecting that “any investment advisor can handle the financial management piece,” he points to people skills—and especially the ability to relate to what clients are feeling—as a more critical competence in the current climate.

“The biggest problem I see is lack of knowledge,” he says. “Clients come in panicked because of what they’ve seen on the news or heard from others.” Sometimes changes can be made to provide more protection to their portfolios, he adds, but they have to be educated and, yes, counseled.

“Knowledge is comforting, and that’s a big part of my job,” he says.

Siens left a sales job in 2004 to enroll at The Chicago School; while he came from a different background and mindset than a majority of students in the program, he was convinced that a background in counseling could be valuable to him in any area of business. Understanding people and the way they think and react, he explains, couldn’t help but enhance his professional competence.

When he earned his master’s and entered the world of finance, he expected to use his newfound abilites in a role heavily skewed to sales, working with potential clients who were considering transferring their business to Chase.

“They would come in with a swagger and challenge me to sell them on why they would be better off working with me,” he says. “I used what I had learned about behavior to understand them and to come up with recommendations that would meet their needs.”

When the economy stalled, however, swaggers gave way to trepidation, and Siens found himself drawing even more deeply on his counseling background. His Chicago School practicum experience, at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, proved more relevant than he had anticipated in preparing him for the work he is now doing.

“Many people’s worries are finance based, and their problems get deeper and deeper.” He says that working with clients at St. Elizabeth’s helped him hone the skills he needed to transfer what he had learned to the financial industry. It has proven a successful transition; during his first year at Chase, he ranked in the top 3 percent of financial managers in the company, and during his second year, his total sales were among the top 5 percent.

Despite the toll the financial collapse has taken on most investors, Siens says that none of his “100 or so” clients have experienced panic for more than a short time.

“We reach out to them before they have the opportunity to panic,” he says. “Proactivity goes a long way, and psychology helps us understand— and address—the difference in the kinds of reactions we’re hearing so that we can do what’s best for them.”