Amazon practically owns the world. Still, its Prime Finance team constantly explores strategies for increasing customer spending and infiltrating untapped corners of the planet. Robinson alumnus Alnoor Dinani will join the unit as a financial analyst at the end of the month. In the role, he will create financial frameworks to help measure and analyze customer acquisition, member retention and growth in global markets.
Dinani completed his M.S. in Finance in December. Dr. Pete Eisemann’s Financial Analysis and Loan Structuring class provided spot-on preparation for his upcoming position at Amazon. By examining different businesses’ balance sheets and liabilities, Dinani got tons of practice structuring loans to meet hypothetical funding needs.
“I came to understand what business efforts actually lead to growth,” Dinani said.
Another useful course: Financial Leadership with Beatty D’Alessandro. In one assignment, Dinani and classmates explored how negative press about a company CEO affected its valuation.
“In that case, the company went from being worth $47 billion to $20 billion in a few days,” he said. “We got only 30 minutes to analyze the problem and present three or four slides in front of the whole class.”
The hands-on projects kept coming in Dr. Harley Ryan’s Financial Analysis class. On behalf of a mock wholesale client in search of $100,000 in funding, Dinani used a Monte Carlo simulation to determine how much revenue the company must generate to pay back its debt in three years.
“I can apply that knowledge to the financial problems I’ll face at Amazon,” Dinani said. “Moving to Seattle, working for a new company and settling into this demanding role will be an experience.”