When Preston Asher ’27 talks about where he is headed after Butler University, the answer is pretty clear: New York City.
After graduation, Preston will return to J.P. Morgan as a Commercial Banking Analyst in the firm’s Commercial and Specialized Industries Group. He has already spent time working in the bank’s New York office, supporting corporate clients on transactions exceeding $100 million and gaining firsthand experience with the pace and scale of the financial industry.
For a student from Vevay, Indiana, a small rural community along the Ohio River, the path from southeastern Indiana to one of the world’s largest financial centers might seem unexpected.
While still in high school, Preston was already taking courses through Ivy Tech, getting an early start on college-level work and beginning to think seriously about what he wanted from his education. As a Lilly Endowment Community Scholar, he then had the opportunity to pursue his education at any college in Indiana.
He had plenty of options. Preston considered Notre Dame, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, Purdue University’s Mitch Daniels School of Business and DePauw University before ultimately choosing the Lacy School of Business.
He was looking for more than a business degree. He wanted a place where he could build relationships with professors, find mentors and have opportunities to get involved early. Butler’s size and emphasis on experiential learning gave him the chance to do that.
“I was unsure what could be accomplished within the collegiate setting,” the senior says. “The biggest thing is the Lacy School of Business opened my eyes to what more the world has to offer.”
At LSB, he found professors who were willing to do more than teach a class. They helped him explore interests, build relationships and connect what he was learning in the classroom to the business community beyond campus.
“I think a lot of opportunities are feasible on your own,” he says. “But when you talk with professors about what you want to do and what your goals are, they can help you figure out who you should talk to and what opportunities are out there.”
Preston took advantage of that access.
He is completing a double major in Finance and Entrepreneurship & Innovation while serving as a Managing Director for Bulldog Reports, Butler’s student-led equity research program. He has also worked as a Finance Intern within the Lacy School of Business and held leadership roles with DECA, the Undergraduate Programming Council, Student Government Association and Butler’s Peer Career Advisor program.
Through Bulldog Reports, Preston now helps teach underclassmen how to analyze companies, develop investment theses and present their research. The experience has become as much about developing people as it is about developing financial skills.
“The students already have the drive and ambition,” he says. “My job is to help them grow and become more comfortable with the process.”
His own growth accelerated as he became more involved with Butler’s business community. Faculty encouraged him to pursue research and introduced him to professionals and organizations beyond campus, including the Economic Club of Indiana, Venture Club of Indiana and CFA Society Indianapolis.
Those experiences gave Preston opportunities to see how what he was learning in the classroom connected to the business community around him – and how much could be built from a campus in Indianapolis.
Then came New York.
During his summer with J.P. Morgan’s Commercial and Specialized Industries Group, Preston conducted industry and company research, built financial and credit models, and analyzed everything from liquidity and cash flow to capital structure and risk. He supported senior bankers working with corporate clients on transactions exceeding $100 million.
The experience gave him a firsthand look at the scale and pace of the financial industry he had been preparing to enter – and showed him how the concepts he was studying at Lacy translated into decisions with real financial consequences.
Now, that experience is becoming his next chapter. After graduation, Preston will return to J.P. Morgan’s New York office as a full-time Commercial Banking Analyst in the same group, where he will evaluate the creditworthiness of corporate clients, underwrite financing solutions and work alongside bankers, credit officers and product teams to support businesses’ financing needs.
For a student from Vevay, Indiana, it is a significant next step. But Preston’s Butler experience has never been about following a single path toward a predetermined destination. Along the way, he has continued building things of his own.
Through Zephyr Logic, he works with medical practices to improve their websites, patient acquisition and use of technology, including AI. He also recently launched Callback Coaching to help students and recent graduates navigate the job search in their fields.
The common thread is simple: Preston likes finding a problem and figuring out how to solve it.
That mindset is part of what he says he will carry with him from LSB – along with the relationships, experiences and confidence that came from saying yes to opportunities he could not have fully imagined when he arrived.
“If you told me four years ago what I would be doing now, I probably wouldn’t have believed you,” Preston says.
His advice to the students coming behind him is simple: stay open to possibilities you cannot see yet. Join the organization. Take the class that sounds interesting. Go to office hours. Meet the professor. Start the business. Change your major. Talk to someone whose career you admire.
“Don’t put a ceiling on what you think you can do before you even get here,” he says.
For Preston, that willingness to explore has taken him from Vevay to Butler, from Indianapolis to New York, and from wondering what might be possible to having a career waiting for him in one of the world’s largest financial centers.
He came to Butler looking for an education. He is leaving with a degree, a network, businesses he is building – and a seat waiting for him at J.P. Morgan in New York.
