Time in the market is more important than timing the market—start investing in your future early.

This piece of advice was among the strategies offered during the recent panel discussion presented by the Greater Riverside Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for student ambassadors representing UC Riverside’s A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management. Part of a series of quarterly panel discussions between the chamber and ambassadors, the gatherings provide the ambassadors an opportunity to connect with professionals and ask questions.

With 23 student ambassadors in attendance, the February event was held virtually and explored retirement and investment strategies, a topic suggested by Vice Chief Ambassador Caspar Gaviria ’22, who is pursuing a Professional MBA with a concentration in management. The panelists encouraged the graduate students to think about retirement and investing now while they are working or before they enter or re-enter the workforce.

“Although I have a few investment products of my own, this event showed me that there is even more out there than I knew about,” says Ambassador Danielle Wright ’21, a Professional MBA student concentrating in finance. “I will definitely be looking into some of the investment opportunities suggested by the panelists.”

Among the presenters was Yundra Thomas, an agent at New York Life, who said, “Your mentality should be the abundance mentality, not the scarcity mentality.” She was joined by speakers in the financial and insurance industries: Daniel Garias, managing partner at Virtue Agency; Laura Ritchie, agent at PHP Agency; and Micah Tokuda, financial advisor at Edward Jones.

“This is super helpful, especially for me,” says Ambassador Natalie Qaqish ’22, who is pursuing an MBA in management. “I needed information regarding wills and trusts, and Daniel Farias helped me with that.”