Future MBA & Whitman Grad Leads With His Heart & Head

Few things mean as much as home to Matthias Argenyi ’18. 

His parents fled Soviet-occupied Hungary in 1979, gaining asylum in Germany, before relocating to the United States. His newfound security in the U.S.—Argenyi grew up in Woodinville, Washington, outside Seattle—gave him perspectives that would help shape his career ambitions. 

“My mom has said that what I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I was 5 years old, was open a house for the homeless,” says Argenyi, an Economics-Mathematics major at Whitman College. 

Argenyi’s compassion for others seeking a place to call home has remained steadfast through his rise in the world of finance. 

Until June 2024, he was Associate Director at Social Finance, a Boston-based nonprofit group that develops creative financing for socially impactful projects around the country. For his part, Argenyi helped expand the operations of Home for Good, Alaska’s largest permanent supportive housing program designed to serve 150 people experiencing homelessness in Anchorage. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that more than 650,000 Americans—2,600 of them in Alaska—were homeless in 2023, up 12% from 2020. 

Whitman Grounded & Harvard Bound 

While Argenyi is leaving his job at Social Finance—it’s with the purpose of broadening his potential impact. 

In the fall, he will be pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School in Boston. Argenyi says this advanced schooling will help him expand his knowledge of creative financing opportunities that can generate further solutions to solve homelessness. The national homelessness crisis, he notes, is a multidisciplinary challenge that requires discussions around affordable housing, health care and criminal justice. 

Argenyi’s early years influenced his heart—but it was at Whitman that his intellect and curiosity grew around the possibility of a rewarding and meaningful career in finance. 

“I knew that a place like Whitman would be where I could explore topics in a really nuanced and engaging manner,” he says. “I arrived on campus, and it took probably five minutes before I called my mom and let her know that I made my decision. There was a rigorous focus on academics that resonated deeply.” 

He says his Encounters course (what’s been replaced by the First Year Seminar program) expanded his understanding of economics as a tool for good. 

“I came into Whitman eager to explore several areas that I thought might align with my long-term interests,” he says. “The first-year curriculum was pivotal in helping me recognize how economics underpins so many aspects of our world.” 

At Whitman, Argenyi also reinforced his budding business acumen by serving all four years on the Whitman Investment Company, for which he served as both CEO and Chief Financial Officer. Along with as many as 40 fellow students, he managed nearly $1 million of the college’s endowment.

Investing for a Better Future

Argenyi says he became interested in finance in the second grade, when he read a textbook highlighting the so-called penny challenge. The popular thought exercise asks people whether they would accept $1 million upfront, or choose to receive a penny, and then double the amount daily for 30 days. It’s a lesson in compound interest. On day 30, choosing the latter option would be a $5.36 million payday—and nearly $11 million total.

It was through Whitman’s career development programs that Argenyi first learned specifically about impact investing, which generates financial returns by targeting areas with social and environmental benefits. It includes what’s known as “ESG integration,” which incorporates environmental, social and governance voices in the analysis of investment risks and opportunities. 

Argenyi gives his liberal arts education credit for his ability to look beyond the numbers and think about the bigger picture and how to influence others. 

“Impact investing incorporates a wide range of stakeholders when considering financing mechanisms and how to move money where it’s needed most.” 

While understanding financial markets is central to his success, so too is building strong relationships with others and understanding context and history around decision-making. 

“My Whitman degree provides such a strong foundation of knowledge and context that has helped me really thrive in a finance role,” Argenyi adds. “It’s helped outpace the merely technical skills that I might have gotten from a finance-only degree. 

“That ultimately sets you up to be a leader,” Argenyi attests. 

He hopes to spend his entire career leading on issues around affordable housing and homelessness. 

“Hopefully, my legacy will be changing the way people think about homelessness and encouraging them to more empathetic,” he says. “Housing really is a human right, and it’s in all our best interests to take care of people. To provide security and stability to those who don’t have it has always been central to me.”