I worked as an investment banking summer analyst for Rothschild & Co. What separated this internship from any other is that I was offered this position, reserved exclusively for rising-seniors, as only a rising junior—owing to the firm’s interest keeping me on board long-term: in fact, I was the only such intern at Rothschild in at least North America, if not the world. I worked on various projects ranging from a live deal, to constructing pitch decks, to managing a deal’s two-party database of confidential documents. At the end of the internship, I was given a return offer for Summer 2021, and was able to negotiate another internship during the upcoming winter break, making me not just the only intern for my graduating year, but the only intern at all. 

I also worked as a venture capital analyst for Ulu Ventures—a rising venture capital firm specializing in early-stage B2B startups—as the first intern in firm history. In addition to building presentations and representing the firm in various pitch competitions and conferences, my primary project focused on researching and curating a list of other VC firms on the basis of their commitment to investing in underrepresented founders. One of the pillars of Ulu’s investment thesis is investing in diversity, motivated by the wealth of research that supports the notion that diverse companies outperform their non-diverse counterparts. While I initially had to basically guess a firm’s commitment based on the language on their website, the diversity of their investment team, and their relevance in URM venture capital media, I transitioned into building my list through quantitative data research. Given the opacity of venture investment statistics, this involved scraping data for the number of diverse investments a firm has made, the frequency, and the success of the investment, measured by the rate at which these investments received an additional round of funding. Using databases like Crunchbase and Pitchbook, I was able to analyze firms according to over 20 metrics and build a thought-leading report for Ulu by analyzing emerging data for a fairly novel purpose. Ulu extended my internship from a summer position to a fall co-op, and is currently building a second extension through the Spring. As my research continues to disseminate around our extended network of partners and investors, I will be kept busy with more presentations to give to more prospective investors.