There's a version of a corporate partnership that lives in a press release. A logo on a website, a check written once, a photo taken and filed away. And then there's what Macquarie Group has built with Pursuit, something that keeps showing up, year after year, in rooms like the one in early April. Together, we hosted a fireside chat, a live Q&A, and several Macquarie professionals gave Pursuit Builders something that matters more than a polished presentation: real access.
This event traces back to the Macquarie Group Foundation’s (“Foundation”) mission to support people on their path to employment. In 2023, the Foundation identified Pursuit as an organization directly advancing that mission, and committed support through both a social impact investment and a philanthropic grant. The Foundation, which drives social impact work for Macquarie Group, looks to provide funding to organizations that help people overcome the barriers they face to employment and a better future – and Macquarie employees strengthen this impact by contributing their time and skills. With Pursuit as a partner, that commitment extends beyond funding: it draws on Macquarie’s culture of showing up, including senior leaders who get involved hands-on in events like this one.
Hosted at Macquarie’s office in midtown Manhattan, the fireside chat featured three Macquarie leaders who spoke with uncommon candor about their careers and what they actually look for when hiring.
Anthony Trichter, Managing Director and Head of Group Technology & Security, Americas, offered his perspective on navigating large-scale technology organizations and what distinguishes candidates who grow quickly from those who plateau. Jessie Chen, Associate Director focused on eTrading technology for Macquarie’s Commodities and Global Markets business, talked about breaking into highly specialized technical domains and building credibility in rooms where you're often the only person who looks like you. Marjie Howie, Associate Director and Head of Talent Acquisition, Americas, was direct about the hiring process: what signals matter, what gets a resume moved forward, and what Macquarie is genuinely looking for in early-career technical talent right now.
The Q&A that followed was driven entirely by Builders. Pointed. Specific. Unhurried.
And then Anthony did something that nobody asked him to do. After the session ended, he stayed. He spoke individually with Builders, reviewed their LinkedIn profiles one-on-one, and offered to take a look at their resumes after the event. It was the kind of thing that changes someone's trajectory, done without fanfare.
"I was genuinely impressed by the Builders I met," said Anthony Trichter. "The level of preparation, the quality of their questions, and the work they're doing are attributes I look for in my teams. I'm rooting for them and I want to help where I can."
After the formal session, several Macquarie staff members participated in structured 1:1 rotations.
Builders rotated to a new person each round. Each pairing was one on one: a Builder, a Macquarie professional, and a real conversation grounded in where the Builder wanted to go. Macquarie volunteers reviewed resumes and LinkedIn profiles on the spot, giving targeted feedback based on the specific roles each Builder was targeting. What happened inside those rotations is the part that's hard to put in a blog post: the kind of specific, actionable guidance that most people only get if they already know someone on the inside.
Macquarie employee volunteers came from across technology, trading, and talent–spanning early‑career and senior roles, different functions and different paths. For Builders, that meant several different versions of a future worth working toward.
Pursuit builds programs like this around a simple premise: the gap between Builders and a career at a company like Macquarie is rarely just about technical ability. It’s about confidence, exposure, and proximity – having access to people who can demystify the process, make expectations clear, and help translate potential into opportunity. Sometimes that starts with a forty‑minute conversation that builds clarity, confidence, and a sense of what’s possible.
"Events like this are about more than exposure," said Devika Gopal Agge, Chief Development and Employer Services Officer at Pursuit. "When Macquarie professionals give an entire afternoon to our Builders, including staying after to look at resumes and make introductions, that's not a corporate program. That's a real commitment to changing someone's life. We're deeply grateful to the entire Macquarie team for showing up that way."
The structured networking rotation is designed to create that kind of proximity at scale: to give every Builder in the room access that most people only get through a warm introduction they were lucky enough to receive.
The Macquarie collaboration is a window into something larger that is happening across the corporate world. Across the country, innovative and accountable workforce partnerships are delivering results for workers and businesses alike, suggesting a broader realignment in how we prepare the future workforce. The most forward-thinking firms are moving beyond check-writing and toward something more hands-on: shaping the talent market rather than simply responding to it.
The workforce of 2026 and beyond will belong to those who treat talent not as a transaction, but as an ecosystem – cultivated, supported, and grown. Macquarie understands this. Their engagement with Pursuit spans the full arc: a social impact investment and philanthropic grant through the Foundation, and now direct mentorship and engagement opportunities through events like this one.
A 2025 study found that firms rated highly for diversity and inclusion were significantly more innovative, and that improvements in those areas led to measurable increases in innovation outcomes. But the firms making the most meaningful progress are not just tracking metrics internally. They are reaching outside their walls, into communities that traditional recruiting has never touched, and building relationships long before a role is posted.
That is what the Foundation has sustained and championed. And that is what the Macquarie professionals made real at this event.
"Watching the Pursuit Builders hold their own in those conversations, and seeing Macquarie staff lean in and genuinely engage, was exactly what we hoped this would be," said Paul Sangree, Investment Manager for the Foundation’s social impact investing team. "Events like this work when both sides show up fully."
The question for every financial services firm watching from the sidelines is not whether this kind of partnership is worth doing. It is whether they are willing to show up the way Macquarie did: not once, but again and again, across years and generations, from the investment level all the way down to the room where a young Builder gets honest feedback on their resume from someone who can actually make a call.
We are grateful to the Foundation, and to everyone who made the event possible. And we are already building toward what comes next.
Interested in partnering with us?
Devika Gopal Agge
Devika@pursuit.org
