Please contact me if you wish to speak with any of these professionals.
References
Spencer Nam, Managing Director/ Director of Research — Summer Street Research Partners. Direct supervisor.
I had the pleasure of working with Carla Tardi at Summer Street Research Partners for slightly more than two years. I believe that Carla’s extensive experience in editing and publishing are her main strengths. She can add significant value to any financial services environment where attention to detail and rapid turnaround are critical. At Summer Street, Carla managed a wide range of research products from large initiation reports (20-40 pages) to short daily notes (3-7 pages). Carla’s broad background in the financial services industry enabled her to create finished products that often significantly improved the original drafts while providing a professional look and feel. Prior to Carla’s arrival at Summer Street, we did not have proper templates for our various types of research reports. Carla designed a wide array of templates and single handedly established the publishing structure for the firm.
Carla also built the firm’s Intranet site, combining research products with sales and trading operations to create a streamlined communications and distribution platform. The current Summer Street publication platform still uses Carla’s work, and the firm’s professionals and clients are very satisfied with our publications. I was impressed with Carla’s proactive spirit in putting together these products and platforms, as she pursued her mission with little direction or input from management. Furthermore, her final product exceeded expectations in both quality and quantity. I view Carla’s edge to be not only what one sees on her resume — variety in experience, tenure in the industry and familiarity with a broad range of products — but also in her ability to integrate her background and skills to develop new, creative, value-added products. I believe Carla would be a valuable contributor to any work situation, and I recommend her without reservation.
Bruce Herring, Director of Research/ Portfolio Manager — Fidelity Investments. Direct supervisor. Below is an excerpt from 2000 year-end performance review.
Carla, you have initiated many new projects for FMRCo this year — we view this assertiveness as a benefit to the Company. You are perceptive about our Department’s needs, and have worked with others to address them. You have a unique ability to spot gaps then create and apply solutions proactively. In launching these various projects, you have demonstrated that you are both an independent, self-directed employee, as well as an innate leader who can stimulate groups to action. Significantly, you are a very strategic thinker, which is a plus for us.
Your presence among us has affected FMRCo’s culture in positive ways. You have influenced our analysts to write better investment research via group seminars, one-one-training, shepherding analysts through new products and processes, and by inventing your singularly useful “Fundamental Research Instructional Templates”. Moreover, through ingenious product development — and by originating the annually updated “Research Writing Handbook”, (now three years old and global!), for example — you have set standards for our internal research, where before there were none! Our external research providers see you as an asset to Fidelity, and are thankful that you are in place as research liaison. You are indispensable to our Wall Street Relationship Manager in helping to manage Street relationships and expectations. You serve as an adept ambassador for Fidelity as you continue to foster productive relationships with the Street that yield quick visible results, especially for our portfolio managers.
We are aware that you feel very lucky and proud to work for Fidelity Investments. In turn, Fidelity Investments is lucky to have you as its employee. The investment that Fidelity has made in you has multiplied myriad fold. With your pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit, your boundless creativity, distinctive intellect, drive and ambition, and your scrupulous yet feisty nature, you match Fidelity’s high standards. As such, you take your place with your FMRCo colleagues quite affably. Thank you investing your time and talents in the Company.
Paul W. Shaum, Managing Director/ Director of Research — Bear, Stearns and Co., Inc. Direct supervisor.
Although I met Carla Tardi when we worked together at Salomon Brothers, I did not get to know her well until she came to work for me at Bear Stearns as my managing editor. I had been recruited by Bear to act as Director of Research for a new high-yield research department, which from a publishing perspective, was a start-up. When we began, we were not even using the same software, and some analysts were still waiting for their PCs. Together, Carla and I created what became the preeminent high-yield shop on the Street in the early 1990s. Carla was a dedicated managing editor and worked many long hours to help get us going. She developed all of the templates for our signature research publications, including the much-copied High-Yield Relative-Value Analyses and the Bear Stearns High-Yield Research logo. She demonstrated patience and diligence in seeing us through many revisions of our annual High-Yield Conference Book, a 250-page tome that accompanied our yearly industry conference. Carla hired a small staff — production assistants, junior editors, graphics designers and so forth — and dealt deftly with other employees, departments and external vendors. In our working relationship, I trusted Carla’s decision-making ability implicitly and depended upon her insight and opinions, which I still do now as her colleague. I highly recommend her to any prospective employer.
Vimala Tharisayi, Director FMRCo Information Services — Fidelity Investments. Co-worker. Worked closely together on many projects, she on the IT side, me on the business side.
Carla and I worked on a number of successful projects together at Fidelity. The largest, most challenging project likely was the creation of “Research Reports”, a proprietary internal publishing system. As representative of FMRCo’s business needs in terms of IT platforms, I found Carla to be an excellent communicator, both verbally and via written proposals. She was extremely clear and detail-oriented, and though did not have a technical background herself her understanding of technical issues was excellent. I also saw that Carla was an extremely focused individual. She was able to concentrate on what mattered, with little distraction. Because of this and other traits, the rollout of the Research Reports system was one of the smoothest I have experienced. Carla was also a very dedicated employee, always having Fidelity’s best interests at heart in general, and those of our portfolio managers in specific. FMRCo was a very discerning and exacting client; Carla and I both met the challenge. We worked diligently and with long hours, during which I also appreciated her tenacity and sense of humor. It would be my pleasure and privilege to work with Carla again.
Rita Kohn, Sr. Vice President-Financial Services — Dawn Taylor Associates, New York. Colleague. Worked closely together on placements in financial services industry, and other projects.
I met Carla Tardi in approximately 1991, when she contacted me to discuss career opportunities in financial services. Since then, we have remained friends and colleagues, working together on a number of placements, in both fixed-income and equity research. Having known Carla for a long time, I have been pleased to watch both her professional and personal development. I have always been impressed by her drive, tenacity and commitment to her work. Carla is a person who does not give up, which is one of the strengths that helped her to succeed and rise through the ranks in her field. Other qualities that make her a desirable employee — she is hard working and dedicated, with excellent follow-through. A bit of a perfectionist, Carla will not leave a project until it meets her high standards. She is a consummate professional, poised and well spoken, who brings a high degree of creativity to her work. Importantly, Carla really loves her work; she loves working, period! It is this joy and enthusiasm that I have watched develop, and which shines through all that Carla Tardi does.
