ASHLEY FAIRON

Silicon Valley Bank

ASHLEY FAIRON is a graduate of the FEMBA Class of 2018. She serves as vice president of growth-stage banking for Silicon Valley Bank, based in Santa Monica, where she engineers venture debt financing solutions for mid-to-late-stage startup companies. Upon entry in the FEMBA program, Fairon worked on the Los Angeles desk of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi’s debt capital markets platform.

Fairon received her B.S. in business administration with a concentration in international business from USC’s Marshall School of Business. While at USC, she attended the National University of Singapore for a semester on exchange to expand her knowledge of the growing Asian markets. Fairon was drawn to UCLA Anderson because of the CGM and its on- and off-campus programming and was keen to learn more about the global economy, interact with global business leaders and travel overseas.

During her three years at UCLA Anderson, Fairon participated in two global immersion courses. She traveled to Germany to learn about the country’s economic environment and vibrant startup scene in Berlin. Her interest in thriving innovation then inspired her to enroll in a course that focused on entrepreneurial activity and technological innovation in Israel. She also traveled to Chile for her Global Access Program field study project with Impresee, a visual search technology company based in Santiago. During the six-month project, she traveled to Santiago and San Francisco to conduct extensive primary research to understand the feasibility of Impresee’s entry to the U.S. e-commerce market.

On campus, she enrolled in the “Global Macroeconomy” and “Innovation and Evolution in the Global Mobile Industry” courses, which provided a solid foundation for understanding how global forces can affect business domestically and abroad. She also audited a new course on “Understanding Politics: The Global Context for Doing Business” to further her understanding of the intersection between business, politics and policy on a global scale. She attended many of the CGM’s policy forums and discussion and speaker series on topics such as Brexit and Trumponomics. As a first-generation American, Fairon is confident that her immigrant roots will continue to fuel her drive to understand her place on the global stage. The opportunities afforded to Fairon through the CGM have guided her toward a deeper understanding of how the intersection of economics, policy and culture drives business strategy.