Employee Spotlight – Emmie DeFusco
Emmie DeFusco moved to Greenville, SC in 2017, and originally hails from Maryland. She studied engineering at West Virginia University and has previous work experience in building recycled products and telecommunications manufacturing facilities in process engineering, R&D engineering, and materials management capacities. It was her role in materials management where she discovered there is typically a disconnect between finance and engineering and manufacturing groups. This realization inspired her to go back to school to get a master’s degree in finance at Southern New Hampshire University. While working toward her finance degree online, she left manufacturing for an opportunity to work in financial services. Over the past three years, she’s held roles in IT and treasury and capital markets teams.
Emmie brings this unique culmination of experience to the Nexus PMG team, merging her two distinct paths into one as Senior Business Risk Analyst. She shares more about her life and career with us in this interview.
What is the best career lesson you’ve learned so far?
Always ask questions. Don’t feel bad about not fully understanding a concept right away. Ask the experts as many questions as possible until you understand it, they’ll be more than happy to explain as it shows initiative and that you truly want to understand.
What is something that excites you about Nexus PMG?
I’m very excited to get back into the engineering world while still being able to utilize my finance and private equity experience. I believe these two worlds have a lot of interactions and should live in harmony. If a financial model isn’t built in a way that most closely depicts how the operation functions in reality then it will struggle to produce a result that is achievable. Working with complex financial models is challenging and can be like solving a puzzle to get all the pieces to fit and work as they should.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
My go-to activity is hiking and camping, my boyfriend and I will go on adventures pretty much year-round. This is one of the reasons we fell in love with Greenville, there are so many fantastic hiking spots within just a few hours of driving. When the weather is less than ideal, you can find me reading and tending to my numerous houseplants/outdoor plants.
Where is your favorite place in the world?
Of the places I have traveled, Taiwan has been my favorite. The country is just a bit bigger than Maryland and has it all – large cities with towering skyscrapers, mountains and hot springs, and miles of beaches. And of course, the food there is delicious! Of the places I want to travel to, the Canary Islands are at the top of my list – there is an impressive observatory on one of the islands that I want to go to!
Three words to best describe you:
Inquisitive. Versatile. Deliberate.
What is one thing you can’t live without?
A reusable water bottle. I never leave home without one!
If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?
A back handspring. The coordination and power it takes to do tumbling/gymnastics is amazing.
What is the best advice you’ve received?
My mom has told me time and time again that life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. There have been times that life didn’t play out like I expected or planned it to. But every time, something else has happened that’s better than I could’ve ever imagined.
- Nexus PMG Moves Greenville, SC Office to Vibrant Main Street - January 20, 2022
- Employee Spotlight – Paul Hammond - December 15, 2021
- Employee Spotlight – Robert Wong - August 18, 2021
