From CMU business student to international retail leader, reality TV contestant and finance professional, Becky Durst has built a career defined by curiosity, reinvention and a willingness to keep learning
Before Becky Durst was working with financial advisors, trust committees and pension plans, she spent a summer inside the Big Brother house, competing on national television and wearing a Colorado Mesa University shirt in front of viewers across the country.
It was a memorable chapter in a career that has taken Durst from Grand Junction to Germany, from retail leadership to financial services and from one unexpected opportunity to the next.
But when Durst looks back on the path she has built since graduating from Colorado Mesa University in 2011, she does not describe it as a typical ladder-climb.
“Your career is a jungle gym,” Durst said. “It’s not a ladder.”
For Durst, that perspective has come from her own experience. Since earning her Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Economics from CMU, she has learned that careers rarely unfold in a straight path. Companies change, opportunities appear and plans shift. Sometimes the next step is a promotion, while other times, it means starting over, taking a risk or stepping into a room where others may know more than you do.
“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room,” Durst said. “I’ve never been in the wrong room in the last 10 years.”
Durst first came to CMU because she wanted to stay in Colorado and keep college affordable. Her older sister, Stephanie, was already attending Mesa and playing soccer.
After touring colleges across the state, though, CMU stood out. Durst liked the campus, the community and the city of Grand Junction. She also appreciated the smaller class sizes and the fact that she could get around campus without a car.
“I didn’t want to just be student number 157 in a hall,” Durst said. “My professors actually knew my name.”
Durst arrived at Colorado Mesa University in 2007 and graduated in 2011, studying business during one of the most turbulent economic periods in recent history. The Great Recession shaped the questions she brought into the classroom and deepened her interest in economics, finance and investments.
She credits Professor of Economics Morgan Bridge, PhD, with helping her see economics as something connected to people, markets and real-world decisions.
“I just had such a fascination,” Durst said. “Wanting to understand what broke so badly. Why is there so much pain in the market and the economy?”
That curiosity followed her beyond the classroom. Durst remembers economics students arriving early to class, first by a few minutes, then by 10, then by 30, until they were showing up nearly an hour ahead of time to talk about stocks, articles, job applications and to share ideas.
“It was like a nightclub,” Durst said with a laugh.
The experience helped her build confidence, think critically and communicate professionally. She remembers group projects, presentations and assignments that required students to dress professionally and present their work seriously.
“That stuff people don’t get,” Durst said. “I felt Mesa set us up in a way that we could transition to our careers more easily.”
Durst had already been working at Hollister during high school and college, including managing the store at Mesa Mall during her senior year. What started as a job to help pay for college eventually became her first major career opportunity.
After graduation, she continued with Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister, working in Colorado before being promoted to an international role. She completed three months of language training in Berlin before moving to Munich for a two-year assignment to help open the largest Hollister store in the world.
The store produced $20 million in annual revenue, and Durst was responsible for helping lead a large team of managers and part-time employees.
The experience was difficult, but it gave Durst leadership lessons she still carries with her. She learned to manage people, adapt quickly, solve problems and keep going even when she felt underprepared.
When her assignment in Germany ended, Durst returned to the United States and found herself unsure of what to do next. She had worked her way into a strong role in retail, but she did not see herself continuing in that industry long term.
“I was just kind of lost,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
That was when an unexpected opportunity found her. Durst was recruited for Season 17 of CBS’ reality competition show Big Brother, where contestants live together under constant camera surveillance while competing in social, physical and strategic challenges.
For Durst, the timing made sense.
“I don’t have anything to lose,” she remembered thinking. “I don’t know what’s next for me.”
The show became one of the most unusual experiences of her life. Durst made it far into the competition and joined the jury where she got to decide the winner of the season. She became known to viewers as a contestant who could read the strategy unfolding around her. For CMU alumni watching at home, she was also the alumna repping the university by wearing a Mesa shirt on national television.
Looking back, Durst said being on the show was fun, strange and intense. During the competition, Durst was cut off from the outside world with no phone or internet access, giving her more time than usual to think about her future. As she reflected on her career, she realized finance was where she wanted to be.
“You have so much downtime in there,” she said. “I was starting to think, ‘I need to get back into finance.’”
That realization helped shape the next chapter of her career. After her time on the show, Durst joined Jackson National, where she entered the financial services industry, earned the licenses required for the field and began working with financial advisors. She advanced quickly, moving through all three levels of internal wholesaling in 17 months, compared with an average of three years.
When Jackson later closed its Denver office, Durst made another shift. She joined Janus Henderson Investors, where she has now spent eight years. Today, she serves as Director of Strategic Sales, working with financial professionals, trust committees and pension plans, helping navigate investments and market changes.
Durst said the work draws on many of the same skills she has used throughout her career: communication, persistence, curiosity and the ability to build relationships.
During the pandemic, she and her husband Patrick both earned their Certified Financial Planner certifications, using the time to keep learning and investing in their futures.
“Don’t stop learning,” Durst said. “Those decisions compound.”
Outside of work, Durst and her husband spend much of their time with family and friends. They hike, camp, snowboard and enjoy Colorado’s outdoors. Durst also loves international travel and has been working on her German and Spanish in her free time.
As she reflects on the path from Colorado Mesa University to Munich, from Big Brother to financial services, Durst sees a career shaped by adaptability.
Her advice for current students and young alumni is to build relationships, take chances and stay open to opportunities that may not look exactly like the plan they imagined.
“More often than not, it’s not going to be you going and searching for your ideal job,” Durst said. “It’s going to be that a door opens, and you have to decide if you’re going to jump through it.”