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Ep 138: The Beauty of Streamlined Solutions | Viren Desai (Listen) 

Alishahal Macknojia
University of Houston
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Sandra Johnson, Founder, CEO & CTO, Global Mobile Finance, Inc., Cary (35.7° N, 78.7° W)

Most people do not envision themselves in the positions they end up later in life. The same held true for Dr. Sandra Johnson. In our conversation, we talked about Dr. Johnson’s journey from her undergraduate years to being a CEO, engineer, patent creator, and one of Inc. Magazine’s top 100 women entrepreneurs of 2020.

Dr. Sandra Johnson is CEO of both Global Mobile Finance, Inc. and SKJ Visioneering where she bridges the gaps between the blockchain technology and mobile app development for sub-Saharan African markets. She graduated from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering. She received her master’s degree from Stanford University and PhD from Rice University. She was the first African American woman to receive a PhD in computer engineering in the United States. She was also an IBM technical leader and is an IEEE fellow. In our conversation, we discussed how her engineering background and time spent at IBM helped her become successful later in her career.

During her college years and beyond, her engineering education has taught her how to think about approaching a problem from a broad perspective. She has applied the experiences she gained in her college and post-graduate years to all aspects of her life, not only to engineering problems. I especially enjoyed hearing about her long career at IBM during the height of IBM innovations and her part in the design team that developed the prototype for the IBM Scalable Parallel Processor (SP2), which is the base machine for the Deep Blue chess machine.

In her current career as an entrepreneur, her focus is on giving back to the community and creating a deep impact; specifically, she wants to use her technology background to help the people in sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries. To achieve her goal to this end, after leaving IBM, she started her own global remittance company to make money transfers to Africa more secure, cheaper, and easier.

She also talked about the importance of networking and having a mentor for career development. Connecting with people in positions of power helped her advance her career to the next phase. It gave her more mobility and insight into what she wanted to do in her career. These past experiences led her to search for new mentors with entrepreneurial experience when she left IBM and started her own company.

Dr. Johnson’s advice to students interested in a similar career path is that “they should go for it” if they are passionate about it. If you have an interest and passion, then you can develop the STEM skills needed for emerging technologies to expand your future horizon. With a genuine passion, Dr. Johnson encourages anyone who decides to pursue this field and says that “the world is your playground.”

Highlights from the interview:

Everyone’s family, community, and life circumstances create an initial role for them in society. What was expected of you growing up? And did you stick to it? Or did you stray from it?

What was expected of me from my family is that I go to college, get a good job, make a better life for myself, and make a positive contribution to the community. From my perspective, I did live up to that.

You were named among top 100 women entrepreneurs of 2020 by Inc. Magazine. You are an entrepreneur, CEO, consultant, innovator, and patent creator. When did you first envision yourself in any of these positions?

I never really envisioned myself in any of these positions. I walked into them without even putting up a plan in place to make it happen. When I first arrived at IBM, after I graduated from Rice University, I was in the research division, at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, just outside of New York City. I did some work that was initially an extension of my PhD thesis at Rice; I had some preliminary results, and I sat down with my manager to review the results. He said he believed that my work was patentable. Very surprised, I drew up a patent application based upon that work, and it did eventually become a patent. I can share with you many more examples like that, where I walked into without even planning. I was just doing what I thought was interesting and exciting work, work that was satisfying to me, and it happened to be innovative and creative as well.

How do you think college years, and engineering background specifically, benefited you the most?

During college and especially Ph. D, you are trained on how to think to look at all the angles of an issue. The process of learning how to think about approaching any topic from a broad perspective was the most valuable experience that I learned. And I have applied that to all aspects of my life, not just education.

How did you validate the market for your product or service, and what was the assessment that made you think ” I’m ready and confident enough to pursue this full time.”?

I have worked for IBM for 26 years. My last role at IBM was Chief Technology Officer for Central, East, and West Africa. I lived in Nairobi, Kenya. In that role, and the one before that, where I was in Dubai for two years, I spent three years traveling around the Middle East and Africa. Traveling to many different countries, learning about the cultures, meeting with C-level technology executives and business executives made me think about what I wanted to do next in my career. I really wanted to focus on leveraging my technology skills to help the people of sub-Saharan Africa specifically, but even more generally, people in developing countries and make an impact. I came to the conclusion that if I could not find another role that will enable me to do that and have a significant influence within IBM, then I would be willing to leave IBM and become an entrepreneur to make that happen. When I lived in Nairobi, I used mobile money; when I came home for a vacation and tried to send money back to that part of the world or other countries, I experienced the pain of remittance. When I used mobile money in Nairobi, Kenya, it was like a financial account or a cash app associated with a mobile telephone phone service, not backed by a bank because more people have mobile phones there than bank accounts. So, I put two and two together; remittance where the money is transferred into the mobile money accounts of the recipients, and that’s how I got the idea of starting my own company.

What was the scariest moment in your career? And what was the solution?

Most financial institutions across Africa and Middle East that are IBM customers have very high-end services that use IBM servers for most of their major banking needs. There was a situation where the system of one of these banks went down, and they couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was scary. It got to the point where the president of the country started calling IBM to say what’s going on. We, being IBM, worked with a team to do root cause analysis and concluded that the IBM has the skills to solve this problem for various corners of the world. So, we had to get on the phone and call the IBM people literally from every corner of the Earth to get on a plane and go to this country as soon as possible. Finally, they worked through the problem and resolved the issue. That one was a little fearful because if we did not resolve that issue within some reasonable period, the banking operation would have gone to a halt for several days.

Did you have any mentors that you worked with either right out of college, or when you first started your business?

In my interview trip to the IBM Research Center, I had a female host, who greeted me at the door; she put my interview schedule together and ensured that I was moving along throughout the day. She eventually became my mentor. I did not know at the time that she was a highly regarded researcher in a different field. And she went on to become the first female IBM fellow and also the first female to win the ACM Turing Award, which is the highest award you can get in computing. So, even before I started working there, I had her as a mentor. When I arrived at IBM, I also connected with a few others who were in positions of power and influence to make things happen for me, especially when I encountered obstacles. Given that experience, once I left and started my own company, I also searched for mentors with experience in entrepreneurship. And I did connect with a couple of them who have been very helpful.

Can you give an example of any current or past projects you have worked on?

I can give a brief description of the one that was probably the most fun. It was when I worked with a team of about 30 people on a research project called Vulcan, which eventually became an IBM server product. I was part of a sub-team of that project, which was designed to be a very powerful supercomputer and targeted to be one of the fastest in the world. I worked on the design of one of its subsystems. Once a research project reaches a certain point, then it is productized; i.e., we work with the developers to turn it into a product. There was a team within the research project who took that product and added just a few accelerators to it to make it a chess machine, called the Deep Blue chess machine, which played with the world chess champion two separate times. The first time, the human won. The second time, the machine won. IBM attempted to get Garry Kasparov to a third match. But he said no. I think he was smart enough to realize that in a couple of years between the two matches, the machine became more powerful. It was just raw computation looking at the moves back and forth; 12, 13, 14 moves straight, and another couple of years, it would be able to go deeper and faster than any human can. Kasparov knew that and didn’t want to lose again. It was fun working on that project.

How is technology reshaping the work that you do? Do you foresee any changes coming in the next five or 10 years?

I am definitely leveraging technology; what I do is a mobile app. But I am also leveraging analytics. Looking at customer behavior to gain insights to make predictions for the customer for additional remittances or for suggestions. Part of what this app does is to enable the sender, which is our customer, to contribute to a nonprofit organization that focuses on transforming lives from a list that we provide, take a percentage of the transfer fee, and deposit it into an account that they can control. And then save that money for the recipients, future milestone events, like starting a business or going to school. Much of that is driven by analytics, by looking at customer behavior, to make suggestions to the customer. We are leveraging quite a bit of technology as part of the process, in addition to a basic mobile app technology, and I can see even more insightful results from analytics in the future. The other thing is that right now, we are partnering with a b2b, business-to-business, that already has a global payments network. In the future, we want to look at the blockchain technology to leverage that to create our own global payments network, but that’s something we want to do in the future and it’s not part of the solution at this time. These are just a couple of examples of how we are leveraging technology.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing your industry?

I think the biggest issue is that FinTech companies are coming into this space. There are players that have been around a long time, like Western Union and MoneyGram. But FinTechs are coming in and providing faster and cheaper service. So, the business is becoming more of a commodity, and profits and gains that “the old timers” may have benefited from may not necessarily be sustained. When a business becomes a commodity, you address the issue of revenue and margins and build a value on top of that commodity. That is what we are doing; we are building the value of developing the customer, the relationship with the customer, and the customer experience.

Do you think it is beneficial for college students who want to become entrepreneurs to join the accelerator programs such as AngelPad and Y Combinator?

I think it is beneficial to connect with entities that will provide you with the guidance and direction that you need. A lot of it depends upon the experience of the founders. So, for example, I have been in corporate America for 26 years, and what I learned in those 26 years enables me to teach in an accelerator program. So, it really depends on the experiences of the founders as well. Many accelerators, and incubators to some extent, require some amount of equity in your company, whether is 4–5%, sometimes 10–15%. But, you can get a similar amount of information, education, and knowledge through programs that are free. It may require some due diligence to find them. I have been in three accelerated programs, and none of them have required that I give up equity. What I learned in those free programs and in those that do require equity are approximately the same. So, I would encourage anyone to focus on the knowledge that they need, but also on getting that knowledge without paying, without the cost of giving up equity in your company, because there are programs out there that enable you to do that. You just have to find them.

What advice would you give to students interested in your field?

If they are interested in my field and they have a passion for it, they should go for it. Electrical and computer engineering is a wide-open field. When I think about the technology of the future on the horizon, there is a critical need for individuals with these types of skills, with STEM skills in general. The world is your plate, your playground. So, if you have an interest and passion for it, go for it and have fun.

Do you have anything else you would like to mention?

I have a few closing words I would like to share. First of all, know your purpose and then do that well, even if it has nothing to do with what you went to school for, or what you’re in school for. Also, please do relax, have some balance, but by doing something that you are passionate and excited about. Chances are your purpose is associated with that. You will be happier, you will probably have less health-related issues associated with work, and as a result, you will be a more productive, positive contributor to the society. So, find your purpose and then pursue that and be happy.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.

Armando Sanchez
University of St. Thomas
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Justin Gross, Product Manager, Capital One, Washington, D.C. (38.9° N, 77.0° W)

According to a study from Pew Research Center, 49% of American workers say they are very satisfied with their current job. How can someone become part of this statistic and find a career that aligns with their various personal interests?

Justin Gross is a product manager at Capital One. He graduated from Rice in 2015 with a bachelor of arts in Economics. I was especially interested in interviewing him because my goal is to combine my interests in technology and finance into a career; something he has been able to do quite effectively. After I reached out to him, we were able to arrange a Google Meet for the interview.

At seven years old, Justin started running track, which he continued throughout his school years. He also did hurdles, long jumping, and multi events in track and field. This put him in a good position to enter college, where he became a decathlete at Rice University. Justin mentioned that his father encouraged him to gain a diverse skillset by doing as many different things as possible so that he could have more opportunities later in life.

Straight out of college, Justin got a job managing portfolios as an investment analyst at WMS Partners, LLC, an investment management company in Maryland. After working there for nearly a year, he decided it was not something he wanted to do long term. Justin identified this as a critical point in his life. He had to make the decision to leave a promising career to pursue something he had a passion for. He got a job at 2U, a software company that focuses on education. Justin entered the company as a financial analyst, but ultimately, he became a business intelligence analyst. Early in 2019, he left the company to start his current position at Capital One.

As a product manager, Justin is responsible for managing his team as they develop new software features and improvements to mobile apps. Developing secure, scalable applications is already a complicated process. The need to identify how each feature contributes to the product from a business perspective makes development even more difficult. This is where Justin comes in. He must manage this process from a business perspective, keeping the company’s bottom line in mind. Software development can get expensive extremely fast; thus, it becomes necessary to identify the essential features to be prioritized. He must also know the risks associated with adding each new feature.  Finally, he must break up work and keep his team organized so that they can bring new features to the market within a reasonable amount of time. On a daily basis, he meets with the tech team to define acceptance criteria to determine when a screen is complete according to their standards. Justin says that knowing how to code is not considered essential to his position, but having some knowledge gives him a better insight into the development process.   He completed an iOS development bootcamp to have a better understanding of what the development process is like from a coder’s perspective.

When I asked Justin about entrepreneurship, he seemed quite enthusiastic about the idea. He suggested that working many different positions in the span of five years has allowed him to learn many different aspects of running a business. Every experience he has had working for these companies will enable him to be better prepared if he does start his own business. Justin also expressed caution towards entrepreneurship that focused on monetary gain. Ultimately, your ability to succeed comes down to the product or service that you offer and its ability to benefit the consumer.

In many ways, entrepreneurship can be a great answer to the question I originally posed. Instead of finding a job that fits, you create your own. The risks of starting one’s own business cannot be overstated, but if one is successful in finding an entry into an increasingly competitive market, it can be extremely rewarding. Though this oversimplifies the process, I think it explains why so many people are eager to be entrepreneurs. By using skills acquired from working different jobs, an entrepreneur is able to bring a new perspective and add value to the world through their work.

Highlights from the interview:

Family, traditions, environment we grow up in, and circumstances impact our development as a person and choices we make. What were your parents’ expectations of you?

Both my parents were first in their families to attend college, and they’re both math majors. My parents had different expectations of me. My mom being a straight A student expected straight A’s, but what fueled me more aligns with my dad’s expectations of me. He would always tell me that he doesn’t really care about my grades; he cares about the effort. If the effort is there, the grades will improve. No matter what you have an interest in, do it at 110%. That is the mentality that I try to approach everything with; I continue to find new things to get involved in. You’re always at your best when you have options and diversify your skill set, but make sure you do all of them with a lot of effort.

What kinds of skills? Career-related or something else?

I grew up running track. I have started at the age of seven as a middle-distance runner, and then I got into the hurdles, long jumping, and doing multi events. That put me in a good position to get a scholarship to go to college. What my dad taught me at a young age was that the more things you can do and do well, the more options/the more opportunities you will have. This mindset put me in a good position to go to Rice.

At Rice, I was an economics major, which allowed me to pivot into various directions. I started my career off as an investment analyst and a trader, and then moved over to corporate finance. Then I worked in customer insights and strategy in marketing and finance [departments] at an EdTech company, where I also did data science. I’ve been working professionally for five years with one and a half being at Capital One. I partner with an Android and iOS team to deliver on our strategic roadmap while performing data analysis on our products at a major financial services company. I’ve also worked in investment management, corporate finance, marketing, and data science prior to my current role in product management. This variability resonates with what was expected of me as a young kid; get involved in as many things as possible and do well in those things and that’ll set you up to have options. In my early career, I learned a lot of different skills. Now I can kind of pick and choose where I want to go [in the future].

Your current position involves working with the development team to what extent? How much coding do you do? What is the relationship of your position with the development side of things?

At Capital One, I mostly work on the business side; I work in fraud and disputes. We want to make digital services available to our customers, but we also want to ensure that we’re providing the right information that we’re protecting against risks. We take the business intent, package it, and go to our partner teams. We ask the following questions. How can we break this down into small units of work? When will we be able to go to the market with it? What are some of the challenges, what are some of the requirements? Do we need more information? Do we have to partner with another team? What are the risks associated with it? On a daily basis, I meet with the tech teams; we groom stories and define acceptance criteria. The more coding you know, the better off you’ll be, but it’s not a requirement to be successful. At my last job, I worked on data science and from the development standpoint, it helped me speak the language, but I also completed an iOS development bootcamp that has furthered my knowledge in that area. Now when I’m talking about the business intent, I can act as a middleman and try to get things out to the market more effectively.

Did you have a significant failure at any point in your path? And how did you resolve that?

Probably six months into my first job, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do and it threw me for a loop. I asked myself, “how do I put myself in a position to have a fulfilling career?”. Sometimes you may have to move sideways or backwards to get to the right place. I wouldn’t consider it a failure, but it definitely realigned me and re-centered me in terms of motivation and future plans.

Do you have any interest in entrepreneurship, working for yourself?

Yes, definitely. If you can identify something that you’re passionate about and if you can find customers whose lives you can improve in some material way, you can use it as an input to a business idea. At this juncture, I’m just working through ideas, but I haven’t gotten to the point where I feel like it’s time to take it to the next level. It’s key to ensure that you’re doing it for the right reasons because there’s a lot of risk that comes with it.

What advice would you give students who look for a career? What type of jobs should they pursue especially straight out of college?

Figure out two things you can do at the same time; one of them will likely be your full-time job and the other one will be a personal passion. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to feed those interests at the same time. Ultimately, what experience do you think would be most beneficial to you? You can’t go wrong if you’re truly interested in either one of those two. As long as you have the talent and skills, you’ll be able to get a role, especially within the software development field. Decide the type of company you want to work at, the type of role you want to have, and figure out what you want to do on a daily basis .

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.

Selim Tira
Sciences Po
Paris (48.8° N, 2.3° E)

featuring Micah Johnson, founder of an investment partnership, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

After seven years as a senior analyst and co-portfolio manager for Smith Warren and Associates, a leading wealth management team of Merrill Lynch, Micah Johnson launched his independent investment partnership. Throughout his career, Micah’s goal has always been to make the best out of his clients’ capital by investing in assets in the financial markets. 

Listening to Micah’s journey, from his early entrepreneurship experiences to his most recent position as a senior analyst and co-portfolio manager at Smith Warren and Associate, and finally to his current project, is a lesson on how to take an entrepreneurial path in the investment world. Interviewing him was extremely enriching for multiple reasons. First, he describes his professional journey as “the intersection of finance and entrepreneurship.” Second, his experience building a career during the 2008 recession helps him now to better understand financial challenges linked to the coronavirus crisis.

Micah’s interest in entrepreneurship appeared early in his life and took many forms. He believes that it first manifested when he created his music band as a teen, which he not only performed in, but also managed. At the age of 15, he successfully managed to book a tour, which he considers “a business venture in itself.” Going around the big state of Texas with his band mates, he got early glimpses into operating and managing a project.

Micah defines entrepreneurship as “organizing around some objective you have or idea that you want to put into action, whether it’s a product or a service, and execute on that.” That was what he did when he started a car wash business at 16 years old. At its peak, the venture employed about 18 of Micah’s closest high school friends. Entrepreneurship and management were his first entry into the business world, and over time, his interests shifted to investment. He wanted to “understand what made a company not just a great company, but a great investment.”

Micah also underlines the important roles that mentors played in each step of his professional and personal life. He identified three “primary mentors” that have had a huge impact on his continued move forward. The first ones were his parents; as a child, watching them grow their business was extremely helpful. “The younger you are exposed to certain qualities, the more it’ll become a part of your DNA, that is human nature.” There was also a restaurant owner who willingly answered all Micah’s questions and let Micah follow him around and learn all about his business. Micah reached out to his third mentor, Bruce Greenwald, via email when he was 20 years old. As the head of the Investment Program of Columbia University in New York, Bruce advised Micah on his career. They talked over a cup of coffee and since then they meet almost every year. Micah remarks fondly, “He is a wealth of knowledge”.

Micah joined Smith Warren and Associates in 2012. He graduated from University of Houston at Clear Lake with a bachelor degree in finance in December 2008, but because of the great recession, it was a very challenging time for recent graduates to secure jobs. Micah boldly offered to work for free as an intern when he heard that one of the analysts left. The team agreed to offer him an intern position. He applied a very strict work ethic as the first to arrive in the office and the last to leave and showed them that he had his place in their team. After six months, the team offered him a position as a full-time analyst. His experience shows that even in the most difficult times, there is no such thing as a closed door if you have enough determination.

Micah spent seven years at Smith Warren and Associates and gradually gained more experience and earned more responsibilities. Prior to leaving the firm, he was a senior analyst, co-portfolio manager, and senior trader for 12 ultra-high net worth discretionary portfolios totaling $1.2 billion in client assets. According to Micah, it is very important to stay at the top of the game in terms of technical knowledge and understanding of investment strategies. For him, you must keep learning whatever your field is, that is why he took the Chartered Market Technician and Chartered Financial Analyst exams. He now holds the CMT designation and is a Level III Candidate in the CFA program; the two globally recognized professional designations that have allowed him to deepen his financial and technical knowledge.

Micah also emphasizes the importance of understanding investment dynamics to be a better manager. “At the CEO and CFO role of any company, it is pertinent that individuals understand the investment side also because it creates so much more value. Make sure that the overall direction of the firm is oriented towards creating value and positioning its brand based on the industry’s competitive dynamics in a way that will maximize the value of the business over time.”

Exchanging with Micah was a unique occasion to peer into the mind of a wealth manager and entrepreneur. Along these lines, Micah gives me very good general advice that can be applied in all investment situations, whether you buy a car, a house, a stock, or a company: “Buy great assets at fair prices, or fair assets at great prices.”

Lastly, Micah says, “Those who you surround yourself with professionally and personally will play a material part in the outcome of your path, whether career or personal. Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.”

Highlights from the interview:

How did you get your first job?

I was trying to get into the investment business when I graduated in December 2008, which is the equivalent of graduating right now in the current coronavirus environment. We were going through the financial crisis and trying to get a job in the financial industry was very challenging, so you needed to have experience. I did not take on any internships in college because I was too busy running my business, which looking back, was a mistake. I should have also taken on internships to get my foot in the door.

I talked to my mentor Bruce Greenwald about this, and he advised me to stay in Houston and find a team that I had a personal relationship tie to because with a bachelor’s degree and no experience in the field, it would be difficult to secure a position elsewhere.

Therefore, I had to do a little extra work reaching out to try to secure a position. My goal was not to secure just any position, but to secure the position that I was looking for. The one that would allow me to learn, better understand capital markets, and get excellent hands-on experience in portfolio management.

I got word that a Smith, Warren and Associates’ analyst had left. I showed up at 7:30 the next morning, my resumé in hand, and told them that I was willing to work for free if they gave me a chance. Fortunately, if you are persistent enough and you have put in the effort, sometimes it can work out. It did in that case.

How was your first job experience?

I was the first guy in the office, the last guy out. I just wanted to understand capital markets and learn portfolio management. That is the only team I have worked on, and it was a fantastic experience for seven years. I was an intern for about six months. I was not paid but it was ok because I knew that once I had that internship within the fourth largest team at Merrill Lynch, I could go to any other wealth management shop and get a job as an analyst.

I made sure I learned the right things and gave them a reason to not want to let me go by taking care of everything I possibly could for them. I just basically tried to take the weight off their shoulders. In the end, they offered me the job. And then, as I continued to apply the same work ethic over time, they gave me more and more responsibilities.

And then once I got the job it was just about working as much as I could, which included going through the CMT program to learn technical analysis, going through the CFA program to learn fundamental analysis, and improving my skills.

Why did you decide to leave Merrill?

My goal was to learn capital markets. Once I realized that I achieved that, I thought, “OK I’ve been here seven years, I understand capital markets, and I’m ready to apply this elsewhere.” In my college years, the expectation from my family was that I would take more of a management route, but I ultimately changed to finance. And while I believe that I learned management skills from my parents and other mentors, I ultimately decided that I could also apply those management skills to my passion for investing and build an investment firm. I left Merrill in August 2019 to start my own shop and go after my own deals because I was starting to find excellent opportunities. When I left, they wrote me a very nice recommendation letter saying that I was their best and hardest working investment analyst that they had had in their 25 years as a team.

What would you say were the main skills that were necessary to work as a wealth manager?

You can go in still being semi-new to it, but you must be dedicated to research every day. And you must be dedicated to understanding that research, which constitutes a lot of reading. You need excellent Excel skills, and that is something you can develop over time, but you need to have a strong base going in. When I was on the team, I had an internship program where I would bring on interns. And I would always give them an Excel test. And at most job interviews for an analyst position, you will get an Excel test, so you need to be prepared for that. You need to learn over time how to use a Bloomberg terminal and similar sources. And then, I would say attention to detail is very important. You cannot make mistakes when you are trading portfolios of $1 Billion+ size. You will inevitably make a mistake at some point, but you must minimize those as best you can and make sure that you never have a massive error. If you do, you’re not paying attention to details. I think what really allowed me to progress in that position was both my attention to details and making sure everything was always accurate. The team could count on me to almost always find all mistakes and always correct them before execution.

And then lastly, like I said, being the first one in the door and the last one out and really trying to be the hardest worker on the team is very important. It is something you can always do, and people will always respect you for that. It will always give you the opportunity to move higher and higher and do more and more and more. And so, I always try to apply that.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.

Armando Sanchez
University of St. Thomas
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Andrew Yuwen, Leadership Development Program, Investment Management, Phoenix (33.4° N, 112.0° W)

What motivates you? What goals do you strive to accomplish? Would your ideal future self look back at what you are doing right now and see you making progress toward him? These are some questions that I contemplated after interviewing Andy Yuwen, who graduated from Rice University in 2018 with a BA in chemical and biomolecular engineering, mathematical economic analysis, and managerial studies. Andy is now in a leadership development program at a large investment management firm that allows him to work in different parts of his company, rotating positions every six months. He has answered questions from 401(k) participants, worked as a project manager in a cost basis department, and worked in a leadership position on the trade floor. Currently, he is an investment analyst supporting relationship managers and salespeople. 

Since Andy is based in Arizona, we agreed to have the conversation through Google Hangouts.  Andy is relatively fresh out of college, but he already has a wide skill set and many opportunities in his future. Therefore, I was especially curious about the energy and motivation that has driven him to his current position in life. 

Andy pursued various interests at Rice. One of the classes that had the biggest impact on him was Probability and Statistics. He explained how the general public lacks a basic understanding of statistics. He pointed out that the knowledge he gained from this class, which he took as a freshman, could be applied to virtually any job in any field. Being able to filter out noise and randomness from data sets is crucial when working with investments in his current position. 

What makes Andy unique is his perspective on the relationship between his life and his career. The child of Chinese immigrants, Andy has always been passionate in all his activities. He was able to excel simultaneously in both academic and extracurricular pursuits. Growing up, he learned to play violin and also played tennis competitively. One can only make significant progress when their work becomes a lifestyle. An athlete must not only put in hours on the court to be good, he must also allow the sport to seep into every aspect of his life; from diet, to research, to sleep schedule, every aspect is affected. It is the same for a musician; taking lessons is one thing but to progress as an artist, one must dedicate their lifestyle to the craft. It is clear Andy has these characteristics. Even while pursuing multiple majors and working part-time, Andy found the time to lead Rice Club Tennis. He also became a teaching assistant for the statistics class mentioned earlier. After graduation, this mindset has not faltered; he continues to maintain this energy at the dawn of his professional career.

I was getting a sense of his mindset throughout the interview process and Andy’s answer to my final question really solidified my impressions. He explained that he was not interested in the idea of success or failure; he was there for the experience. He told me, “I don’t think you should be driven by success. I don’t think that’s a healthy or sustainable mindset because you are going to have failures.” I came to the conclusion that life is not about working to achieve something in the future; rather, life is about achieving something through work in the present. 

Highlights from the Interview

What led you to your current position?

During college, I had the opportunity to be a leader in many regards. I led Rice’s Club Tennis team, I led a community service organization, and I was on the executive board of our student admissions council, which is the student wing of the admissions office. Through those kinds of leadership experiences, I thought I might want to be a leader in industry. That’s what led me to join a leadership development program at a large investment manager.

I’m about 20 months into my program so far and I’ve had a lot of different shifts. My first role was on the phones, answering questions from 401(k) participants. My second role was as a project manager in a cost basis department. It was a very generalist role in a very technical department. And then my third rotation was on our trade floor as a people leader, leading some of our analysts who provide data for our front-office and back-office functions. Through those experiences, I decided I did not want to go into formal leadership. So, I’m currently in an investment analyst position where I’m answering investment questions for our relationship managers and sales executives who are interacting with institutional clients and their consultants. I launch from this program in August, and then we’ll see where that takes me.

Along the way, you figure out what you’re interested in. And for me, I’m interested in almost everything. So then you figure out what skills are most useful for you to develop early on in your career and then you navigate towards that. And I think you can benefit a lot from being open-minded about what exact goal that means. I didn’t necessarily script out every move that I’ve made so far. I’ve learned a lot from allowing some chance or randomness in my career. 

What specific class or classes do you think prepared you the most for this position?

I didn’t take many classes at Rice that were specifically applicable to this position. We didn’t have a business major for undergraduates, and I only took about two classes in our business school. But I would say that the most generally applicable class I took my freshman year was Probability and Statistics. I was taking it with a new professor at the time, Philip Ernst, and did really well in the class, so I ended up TAing for him my sophomore, junior, and senior years. In finance, and actually in almost every field, you have to have a good understanding of probability and statistics. I think that’s absolutely crucial, and it’s something that not a lot of people have. It’s definitely a gap in the market because there’s a lot in the world that is random and being able to cut through all the randomness and the noise to get to the bottom line, or understand what’s really going on behind all of the noise, is crucial.

So, for instance, I get a lot of questions from institutional clients and consultants that are asking about why certain funds are underperforming. If you do a statistical analysis, then you’ll realize that pretty much every fund is going to underperform for extended periods of time and that’s just noise, that’s just randomness. So, it does teach you to take a longer-term view and be a little bit more strategic about the way that you invest and the way that you think about problems. Because the short term doesn’t always matter much. You need to think about problems far away and think about investing, for instance, from a 30-year, 40-year type of timeframe.

Do you like your current position?

I’m in a rotational program. I rotate every six months. And my program is coming to an end, so at the end of this six-month rotation, I’ll be in a more long-term role. I do really like my current position; I am learning a lot from my peers as well as from more senior strategists and analysts. And I’m learning a lot about investments and products and the way that mutual funds and ETFs [exchange-traded funds] are managed. I also think that, in general, in your early career, you benefit a lot from moving around and getting different experiences. So, in four months when I’m done with this rotation, it’s likely that I’m not going to be in this role anymore, and that’s kind of bittersweet. I’ll miss my teammates and some of the experiences and the things that I get to do in this rotation. But I’ll hopefully move onto a role that’s going to teach me new things and provide me with a different perspective.

Looking at your LinkedIn, you have definitely accomplished a lot; you’ve done a lot of things. How were you able to stay motivated in all that?

There are a couple of answers to that question. It depends on what drives you fundamentally and how you view your life and your career. I do think that a lot of people view their life and career as being separate, and their life is something where they have friends and family, and their career is a way of financing that life. I personally take a different view. I think there’s two parts of my career. There’s my interest in both developing myself intellectually and developing myself as a person, which also makes me better in my personal life. And then there’s also the impact side. I have a very strong service mindset, and I want to dedicate my career to service. Different people take different approaches to this; some people go into public service and become public defense attorneys or policymakers or policy analysts. For me, I think the way that I’m best able to contribute to the community is to further the conversation on investments. Understanding wealth generation, understanding how people should invest, and bringing those products to those investors is what currently makes me passionate.

But going back to previous parts of my career, I don’t think you should be driven by success. I don’t think that’s a healthy or sustainable mindset because you are going to have failures, and you can look at my LinkedIn and see all of the successes that I’ve had, but there’s obviously been a lot of failures along the way. And if you’re only motivated by success, those failures would be absolutely devastating. But for me, I try to keep a long-term and developmental view in which I’m constantly comparing myself to the person that I’m going to be in 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And focusing on how I can make myself a better community servant. And so, when I fail, that’s an opportunity for me to learn. It’s oftentimes a misalignment; if I don’t get a job, it’s because I wasn’t ready for that job, or I was not aligned to that job. And that’s completely fine. And that allows me to immediately start thinking about what the next opportunity is or what the next thing that I could do might be. 

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. 

Bilge Arslan
Yale-NUS College
Singapore (1.3° N, 103.8° E)

featuring Lissa Glasgo, Manager, IRIS+/IMM, The Global Impact Investment Network, New York (40.7° N, 74.0° W)

There are numerous social enterprises all around the world that strive to make the world a better place. I have always wondered how to measure the impact of their social work in addressing various social problems. Lissa Glasgo is involved with a relatively new industry that deals with this question called impact investment. Lissa’s nonlinear path that carried her to this sector makes her story even more interesting to me as I still currently explore many different fields in a liberal arts college.

Lissa Glasgo is a manager of IRIS+/Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) at the Global Impact Investing Networks (GIIN). In this role, she builds tools to help impact investors assess the impact of their investments in social and environmental enterprises. As a part of this nonprofit organization, she is responsible for building IRIS+, which is the generally accepted system for measuring, managing, and optimizing impact for impact investments. Lissa found impact investing by surprise—she graduated from Rice University in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in English. After college, she joined the Peace Corps, a US government program, and had the chance to live in Benin in West Africa for two years, where she taught English and engaged with girls empowerment projects. This experience was very transformative for Lissa in that when she returned to the US, she decided to explore the international development field instead of journalism. That is why she conducted research related to sexual and reproductive health and gender roles at the Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University. Then, because Lissa wanted to work with social enterprises, she attended Yale University and earned a master’s degree in global affairs in 2017. This allowed her to get familiar with social enterprises, which then led to her current position at the GIIN.

Even from a very early age, Lissa was exposed to very different environments and meeting people from diverse backgrounds. This is because her father was in the military, and they had to move frequently when she was growing up. She talked about the formative impact of the Peace Corps, which fundamentally changed the course of her career path. “They taught me basic French in nine weeks and they sent me into my village to figure out a whole new life. And I think that was really formative,” she said. Building on this experience, she provided a very valuable insight: “If you’re going to work in impact investing, social enterprise, international development, anything that’s global and anything that has an impact focus, I would very strongly recommend living somewhere unfamiliar to you for an extended period of time. It makes your work better and you as a human better.” I agree with this advice, considering how moving to Singapore for college has been a truly eye-opening experience for me so far.

Talking to Lissa, I also explored impact investment as a potential sector I can try in the future. Impact investing will probably become more and more useful as the world faces many complex problems such as climate change and income inequality, Lissa explained. GIIN ensures that people who want to use their money to tackle some of these issues are making a positive impact. To this end, collecting and managing data has a key role. Lissa described what IRIS+ does by saying that they “want to make sure that as people are collecting more data, that it’s actually good data. And that they can use it effectively to make decisions.” Lissa works with a number of investors, social enterprises, and academics to examine possible investment opportunities in a particular space. Depending on the project, such as an agricultural investment or a clean energy project, different metrics are used. “It’s all about understanding what’s important and how we make sure we’re improving projects to make the best impact possible,” added Lissa. These make research and data analysis skills important for the impact investment sector. Lissa said that this is “a growing and evolving” industry and people from various backgrounds contribute to it by bringing in diverse perspectives.

Throughout the interview, I noticed that Lissa emphasized her nonlinear path, which encompasses a master’s degree in global affairs, and the merit in being open to exploring new fields and subjects at every stage of your life. As a global affairs major, I found this very exciting and relatable as I keep thinking about what kind of opportunities this field can offer me. Lissa’s journey also allows me to see that extracurricular life experiences outside of academics can be as significant as one’s focus area in college, both in discovering new passions and acquiring some soft skills that are useful in a career at a later stage. In light of this, my main takeaway from this interview with Lissa is the importance of being adventurous and courageous by creating occasions to get out of my comfort zone to see places, connect with people, and try to understand different lives by experiencing them on the ground. Only after we challenge ourselves enough are we really equipped to make a world a better place.

Highlights from the interview:

When did you first envision yourself as a part of this global impact investing network, or sector? Or have you ever envisioned yourself to be in this sector?

I don’t think that I really ever had a clear picture of where I would land in my career, and I think it’s still evolving, which is something that I wish somebody had told me when I was younger—that you don’t really have to have a plan, and that it’s almost more fun and sometimes more effective to just figure out what you’re interested in, figure out what you’re good at, and then jump for the next challenge that you see. I have found a lot of continuity in that, but I didn’t know impact investing existed until a couple of years ago. And I’m really happy in this field.

Did someone act as a mentor who helped cultivate your interests?

A lot of them over time. I found professors who encouraged me to do different things—to practice writing, to take a class that I wouldn’t have taken otherwise, or to study abroad. And then, when I was in Peace Corps, there were certainly people in my community and other Peace Corps volunteers that helped me test different ideas and understand a little bit better. And then bosses and mentors within jobs…I think it’s incredible the way that people are willing to give advice and coaching and help people who are a little bit further down on the ladder, and that’s something I want to do for other people as I advance.

What led you to your current position and what does this position entail?

It was a very nonlinear path, but one that I think makes sense in retrospect. In college, I studied English literature and wanted to be a journalist, but I also wanted to travel. So, after college, I joined Peace Corps, which is a US government program where you sign up for 27 months, just over two years, and they send you to a country…And they sent me to Benin in West Africa. I was there for two years. Being there and living in a village alone with people there, getting to know them, and teaching English, and doing girls empowerment projects, really changed what I wanted to do with my life.

And so, when I came back, instead of looking for jobs in journalism, I looked for jobs in international development. And I liked that a lot. I worked in an organization that did sexual and reproductive health and gender roles projects, and I learned a ton, both about managing a program and about research. And I really liked research in particular, but I decided that I didn’t like international development itself quite as much.

So, I went back to grad school with the intention of getting into social enterprise, which is a business that has a social or environmental goal. And I learned how to do research and learned a lot about social enterprises and then when I was looking for jobs afterward, I applied to a broader set of jobs, and ended up getting this job in the impact investing space. It was a surprise [to land in impact investing], but it makes sense because impact investing is the money that helps those social enterprises grow. And so, my role at the GIIN is really about helping those impact investors understand how to measure the impact of their investments of the social enterprises, and doing that in a way that relies on evidence that is not too difficult for the social enterprises themselves. My work is really about understanding if we’re doing what we’re saying when we’re saying that impact investing is making the world a better place. 

What are the skills that you find yourself utilizing the most?

Things that I think anybody uses in this field are the ability to manage a project and work with really diverse people. Since we are a global industry, it’s important that you’re able to communicate from afar and interact with people who are from different cultures. But then there’s just some really hard skills—like the ability to write well, to set up a project plan and follow it, and do really high-quality work. And then, for me, research skills are key because of the specific work that I do, so it’s important that I understand how to build a theory of change, how to select metrics and collect data and analyze data.

Just to get a more complete idea of the impact investing scene, can you give a brief example of the kind of projects you work on?

My role with the GIIN is to build IRIS+, which is the generally accepted system for measuring and managing impact, of impact investments. And what that means is that I work with a bunch of investors and social enterprises and academics to look at what evidence exists in a particular space. For example, in affordable housing or in smallholder agriculture—what is actually possible for us to do via investments in this space, and based on that, what are the core pieces of information that most people should be, or that most investments should be collecting? You may have different metrics if you’re looking in investment in a small farm in Rwanda, or in India, versus a clean energy project somewhere else. It is all about understanding how to measure, and then make decisions based on the information that you’re collecting.

Could you can describe the dynamics of a team that works on the project in terms of structure organization and other important characteristics?

The GIIN as a whole is about 32 people. Within that, there are a number of project teams. My team, which is the IRIS+ and Impact Measurement and Management team, is five people. It’s a relatively small team and we do a lot of work. What’s important for us is both a clear distribution of activities—it’s really important that I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes when I do my work—but then also a lot of trust. We have to communicate really well, and we have to trust that everybody else on the team is doing good work and that we can lean on them when we need to. 

What aspects of Global Impact Investing Network, such as company culture or support for professional growth, make it stand out as a great place to work?

The people are incredible. All of my colleagues are really smart and really driven. But it’s also one of the few places I’ve ever worked where there’s absolutely no competition. It’s very collaborative, it’s very supportive, which is an awesome thing, to be able to go to work and be able to rely on that. In terms of company culture, the GIIN has done a lot of work to support the staff—from having really good benefits to professional development. We have a certain amount of money allocated for each one of us for the year that I can use to take a class, or to do a certificate program, or to do some sort of seminar that allows me to learn something that will help further my abilities. They put a lot of emphasis on helping managers be really supportive, helping them learn how to give feedback really well, so that you feel like you’re constantly learning and constantly supported. 

How are science and technology reshaping the work you’re doing, and what changes do you foresee in your specific area?

There has never been more available data or easier ways of getting that data, I suppose. So now that much of the world has at least one mobile phone, it’s far more possible to send out a quick survey to all of the people who have purchased a product, who have gotten a loan, or something like that…I think you’ll see more and more data; that’s not always a good thing…it is possible to ask a bunch of questions that don’t add up to anything. I think what you see much of the industry doing is really trying to harmonize and to figure out what those key pieces of information are, and that’s what IRIS+ does, so that’s where I sit within the industry. We want to make sure that as people are collecting more data, that it’s actually good data. And that they can use it effectively to make decisions.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing your industry?

I feel quite optimistic about the industry as a whole. I think we have to maybe two things. One is that I think impact investing is poised to grow pretty rapidly in the next couple of years. I think we’ve seen lots and lots of big issues coming to bear like climate change, income inequality…And there seems to be more recognition than ever that impact investing can have a role in fixing some of those things to some degree. 

One challenge, or one potential challenge, is that we need to make sure that we’re not just—that the term is greenwashing or impact-washing. We want to make sure that as people are saying that they’re putting their money in something positive that that is actually proving true. And the way that you do that is measuring and managing impacts, of course. We need to make sure that it’s an expectation and a requirement that people are measuring and not just putting a pretty logo on something.

What advice would you give a student interested in your field?

Learn as much as you can about both the impact side and the financial side. I didn’t have a strong financial background before a few years ago, and I had to learn quickly when I got here. Classes covering economics and business would be useful, as would sociology or climate-related classes to get an understanding how impact can happen in different spaces.

Build the hard skills that you’ll need while at school, if you can—the basics, like writing well, using Microsoft Office suite, and managing a project…but then if you’re interested in impact measurement, you would also want to learn how to do data collection and analysis. 

What was your most memorable experience in your career that helped develop you as a person?

Joining the Peace Corps. I moved to Benin; they taught me basic French in nine weeks and they sent me into my village to figure out a whole new life. And I think that was really formative because it taught me a lot about the fact that people live very different lives, but that there are commonalities amongst us all. Career-wise, it completely shifted what I wanted to do, and also created a really fundamental belief in me that people are inherently generally good and generally are trying to do their best for their communities and the people around them (including me, when I was there). That belief has driven a lot of my interest and my motivation in working in international development and impact investing since then.

If you’re going to work in impact investing, social enterprise, international development, anything that’s global and anything that has an impact focus, I would very strongly recommend living somewhere unfamiliar to you for an extended period of time. It makes your work better and you as a human better—more empathetic, more aware of challenges and risks to projects you drive, and more connected to the impact we’re all trying to drive.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Alishahal Macknojia
University of Houston
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Kenneth Misner, Regional Vice President, Touchstone Investments, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Kenneth Misner is a regional vice president at Touchstone Investments. He graduated from Rice University in 2014, majoring in Spanish and business, and also completed a summer semester at Yale University in financial accounting in 2012. After graduating from Rice, Kenneth started as an internal sales consultant and rose to regional advisor consultant at Invesco prior to his current role.

We practiced social distancing and conducted our interview remotely while both of us were in Houston. I had the opportunity to ask Kenneth about how he acquired both the relationship building and technical skills that he uses today. Growing up, he was always naturally drawn to the financial services industry and eventually found his mission in wholesaling to financial advisors. At Invesco, Kenneth realized the importance of treating other wholesalers as peers rather than just competition. This opened my eyes to seeing sales, which is normally associated with an aggressive competitive strategy, in a more pacifist and friendly light. The same wholesalers who covered the same region and advisors are in contest with you, but they do not necessarily always oppose you. This professional network of other wholesalers benefited Kenneth when he moved to Touchstone Investments and advanced his career.

I also learned that Kenneth’s father, who also spent considerable time in the same industry, is now one of his clients. In our conversation, we discussed what it was like to be working with a family member. He told me about the benefits of having him as a “sounding board” and person he can go to for advice with less judgement.

Kenneth highlighted to me the value of communication skills in his role as a regional vice president. Since his clients are the advisors who are working with people at a personal level, his job demands a lot of relationship skills. Much of his time is spent meeting with advisors in person and traveling to regions like Louisiana.

I think that Kenneth’s background in humanities and his time spent learning business communication have helped him convey himself to his clients successfully. He discussed how to write concise emails and why he chooses to do follow-up emails and handwritten thank you notes. From our conversation, other people coming out of college can discover if they have any of the qualities or interests that are needed to follow opportunities from portfolio management or internal sales to wholesaling.

Claire Wang
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Esther Tricoche, Head of Global Partnerships, RippleWorks, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

Esther Tricoche is the head of global partnerships at Rippleworks, where she works to bridge Silicon Valley expertise with social enterprises to tackle social injustices and provide more basic services to people around the world. Esther is a graduate of Rice University with a degree in cognitive science. In our conversation, we discussed Esther’s path to venture philanthropy and impact investing, challenges and misconceptions of the industry, the pressures of interfacing with CEOs and experienced professionals, and her best advice for college students hoping to break into the industry.

Impact investing and venture philanthropy are truly fascinating and relatively new spaces that are difficult to break into. Rippleworks, a philanthropic cryptocurrency fund, is even more interesting: Rippleworks is a nonprofit foundation, whose endowment is not in fiat currency (such as USD) but instead the cryptocurrency XRP, which was created by a Rippleworks cofounder. At Rippleworks, Esther’s typical day involves connecting with impact investors and CEOs from across the world and working with social ventures to grow and expand their social impact.

As a female student, it was insightful to hear about Esther’s experiences as a woman in social entrepreneurship. Unsurprisingly, it’s still an uphill battle for female founders and investors in the space, with certain challenges, such as common gender stereotypes domestically and internationally that mean women have to work harder to be recognized. Nevertheless, Esther continues to make significant impact and pursue her passion for social good and the insular nature of the industry is something that she is working to change.

An important takeaway from my conversation with Esther is that, as students, perhaps the best thing we can do right now as we begin our professional journey is to take advantage of each opportunity to create work products and to develop strong marketable skills. For Esther, one of her first marketable skills was her ability to condense an entire global sector into a single page of literature review that earned her the position at Arnold Ventures, which kicked off her career. That same analytical ability is what brought her to where she is today and earned her national recognition.

Something else that really stood out to me was the role that managers and mentors play in the early stages of your career. For Esther, she feels fortunate to have supportive managers who helped open up life-changing opportunities and helped her build a national platform. These opportunities, combined with dedication and hard work, led her to achieving a spot on “Forbes 30 Under 30 2016: Education” and now her current role at Rippleworks. Choosing the supervisors who believe in you and are willing to foster your professional growth will greatly benefit you in the long run, which may have more impact than higher compensation and job prestige. Learning from her story, it’s vital to choose a job and company based on the leadership.

Highlights from the interview:

What led you to venture philanthropy and impact investing?

The best way to think about the work that I do now is global partnerships at the intersection of impact investment and venture philanthropy.

What led me there in the first place is [when] I started off at Rice, I majored in cognitive science and focused on neuroscience. I was really fascinated with things like memory retention or language processing.  I had a professor at Rice at the time who was focusing on translational research into higher education classrooms, so I wanted to think about how can you best design different classrooms with strong educational outcomes. I was a senior when it started, so I didn’t get to go all that far with it due to graduation, but it really got me started to think about how this level of research or thought process could influence how things were run in the real world. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I had spent pretty much the five summers before, during, and after Rice, interning, and worked in a variety of organizations, mostly focused on policy. It was anywhere from city government to nonprofit to working for a Fortune 500 company—helping them to overhaul their human rights policies.

And I put the two together and thought, “Okay, I think I’m a little bit too impatient to follow the research pathway.” If you want to go really far in neuroscience, you have to become a PhD, and for me, I just realized that I would grow impatient working on trying to discover something in the scientific realm because it typically requires years and years and years of research before you come to an end result. So I started to channel that scientific mindset into policy, and that eventually led me to being a part of the founding team for what was, at the time, called the Laura and John Arnold Foundation—and since they’ve changed their name to Arnold Ventures. The concept there was [to] use data-driven policy research to change policy in order to create social change. They’re a philanthropic foundation, and the idea is that instead of primarily supporting simply the growth of nonprofits, they would really focus on the policy conditions to allow an ecosystem where even more solutions could flourish. I came in as a policy analyst, and a few years later I ended up essentially leading our education division, which was our largest body of work at the time. I managed $130 million in grants, worked with nonprofits all across the country—anywhere from community engagement organizations to helping school models to scale—and thinking about all of the teacher and student and family supports that are needed to do that. And that, for me, was the usage of scientific research approach but applying it to something where change happens much faster—in policy.

My journey from there to where I am now really also came down to impatience. In the policy sector, you can see wide-scale change when policies change, but those policies can also be rolled back. I really wanted to shift to think more about a market approach, bottoms-up where markets are driven by meeting the demands of the end users. And so, still in education, I shifted from primarily focusing on education nonprofits to focusing on education technology companies.

I ended up moving from Houston to San Francisco to work at a venture philanthropy fund that essentially helped to start the entire concept of venture philanthropy, which is a mix of high-risk but deep support from venture capital alongside a focus on impact from the philanthropy sector. The idea is use philanthropic dollars to help support earlier-stage solutions. There, I focused on how to make the education technology market deeply meet the needs of students, teachers, and families, especially when it came to particular content areas or particular learner types that disproportionately represent underserved students.

After that point, I realized I could never leave the world of education, but also there were a few other social impact areas that were deeply meaningful to me and I really wanted to be a part of creating more change in them. And so, in 2018, I joined the world’s largest philanthropic cryptocurrency fund. Now I’m based in Silicon Valley, and I work with scaling social ventures all around the world. My organization is structured as a nonprofit foundation, but we work with hundreds of investors and ventures who operate in 60 countries across education and healthcare, financial inclusion and economic empowerment, and human rights, amongst other issues.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about your job or field?

There are so many misconceptions, especially because the field of impact investment is still so new. Venture philanthropy has been around, at this point, for roughly 20 years. Impact investing, as a term, was coined about 10 years ago. And so I think often a misconception is trying to understand how organizations can both pursue impact and profit, especially on the for-profit social enterprise side. I think it’s a common misperception that if an organization is a for-profit company that they are not primarily also focused on impact or meeting the needs of underserved populations. People see them as diametrically opposite, and in this sector, they absolutely go hand in hand.

Can I ask you about your experiences as a female in this space? What kinds of challenges do you face?

I think the challenges in the field are probably similar to challenges that are unfortunately still persistent in the workplace for women. So I’d say it’s things like having to work a little bit harder to be recognized in, say, conversations with people who may not know you personally. I think that from an investment perspective there are a lot of stories of women who are founders who go to pitch to investors about their ideas, and the investors won’t really understand the ideas or have preconceived notions about the entrepreneurs themselves because the investors are still overwhelmingly male. There are stories after stories of now incredibly successful female founders, who in some cases have products that are aimed toward the general public or in some cases, an audience of women whose ideas aren’t heard or seen in large part because of the dramatic difference in the richness of diversity in the general population versus the demographics of who is typically on the investor side of the table.

Since you mentioned recognition, I really want to ask about your Forbes 30 Under 30: Education—congratulations! What do you think contributed most to your success?

If I am completely honest, it’s having amazing bosses who turned into mentors who believed in me, who opened up opportunities that I never would have been able to open on my own. I can think of a few—two in particular—at the first fund that I was at, who were just game-changing to my career and continue to be amazing mentors years later. I think I had the unique opportunity to have such a strong national platform, and also had the sense of responsibility of using that platform to really create change…

[That recognition] was during the last year of my 20s, so I felt like I just snuck in at 29. But it’s been really rewarding to get to know other people across the world, across all of the Forbes 30 Under 30 categories. Last year I actually served as a judge to select last year’s round of Education 30 Under 30s to pay it forward and help to identify even more game-changing leaders.

How did your college years prepare you for your career?

I really appreciated how much Rice focuses on research in almost every facet…this concept of being involved in research early on really resonated with me, and it created this mindset in me of digging deep—what we call due diligence in the investment space. And that same mindset is what made me able to thrive in my career in the very beginning, when I came in as a policy analyst, and later was able to lead a body of work. And, honestly, I credit it for what made me a successful investor on the venture philanthropist side, and it now really drives how I pick the companies that I’m going to help grow in scale around the world.

What are the skills you find yourself utilizing the most in your current position?

A lot of research, a lot of analysis. So there’s often a lot of intrigue around the world of investment in general, and I would say, by association, philanthropy and impact investing. What it comes down to is really recognizing patterns so that you can make quick decisions. So, tons of pattern recognition…looking at company after company after company after company. And then I would say, beyond that, it’s being able to really dig in and understand the stories behind the stories. It really requires you to be a good investigator, to be able to go from first meeting a CEO to being able to deeply understand the business as is, and the challenges that CEOs are facing as they’re growing and scaling.

Can you tell me a little bit about your typical day?

I spend the majority of my time chatting with impact investors and chatting with CEOs. So, to give context, in the last week, I’ve chatted with a handful of African CEOs, chatted with an organization based here in the US that’s focused on behavioral health for youth, and a few others in Southeast Asia and Latin America focused on financial products for the global poor. I spend time on these calls assessing organizations and their business models, getting to know those CEOs and understanding their motivations for starting the businesses that they have. I also dive into some of the financials behind companies, their growth metrics, understand their top roadblocks to growth and strategies that they’re implementing (or help they need) to address those challenges. Then I’d say a lot of my time is also spent internally within my team. There is a strong sense of working together across the organization. We have a lot of outside impact in the world, but as a team we’re roughly 15 people, we’re really small.

Is it ever intimidating to talk to all these CEOs and impact investors?

I’ll be honest—once upon a time it was. And I think, in large part, the equation in my head was—these people have more years of experience than I do. They know their businesses inside and out, and in many cases, especially in this role, I might not be a subject matter expert…I spent most of the first decade of my career solely focused on education, and now I’m working across other sectors. But what I realized is, at the end of the day, it comes down to skill in pattern recognition, right? You don’t have to know everything about the world. You do have to know enough to be able to have a meaningful conversation about it, and I would say the things that are similar across any one of these companies are the fundamentals of business. It’s typically the same five or six types of challenges that might take on very different flavors that CEOs around the world have—technology, human capital, sales, marketing, product, et cetera. If I can give advice to my younger self or give advice to people who are graduating now, the content of what you know is less important. It’s the way that you can organize information and understand patterns that really is going to get you from point A to point B.

Do you have any more advice you’d like to share?

I do. One is general advice and the second is industry specific. I would say, in general, if I could go back to my just graduated former self, what I would say is focus on a marketable skill—find ways that you can add value to things that you’re really interested in as a way to gain experience with that marketable skill that you have. Mine just so happened to be research and due diligence. Because again, I think the content becomes less important over time. It’s really about flexing that muscle on those skills that allow you to dig deep, understand patterns, and apply context to whatever content you’re facing.

And then, specific to the impact investing/venture philanthropy/venture capital sector, I would say, if you’re really interested in the space, it’s a small industry and it’s tough to break into. I would start with really understanding the fundamentals of business and gain experience in finance, which is really important in this space. If you think about giving money to organizations, you really have to understand the financial situation of the organization and be able to make assessments on their business models and execution. Another way that people enter the space (and this was really the route that I took) is developing deep expertise about a particular content area. And you know, for so long that was education for me, and I was able to parlay that across many more sectors.

I’ve been listening a lot to this one podcast called How I Built This, and I’ve realized how valuable having specifics is. And I think the most difficult thing is landing that first job in an area that you’re really interested in. I mentioned having interned for five summers. The one thing that I felt set me up for success the most was using those internships as a way to generally gain experience and learn on the job, because everybody is far more willing to explain things to a bright-eyed intern, who they can tell is ambitious and really wants to learn.

The last intern role that I did was really focused on a large research project, and as a part of that role, I created a work product. It was an overview of an entire global sector, how each of the key players addressed human rights alongside key frameworks and therefore what the organization should improve to be better at how they operated globally. And all of this research ended up boiling down to one simple overview page. A year or two after I started working at Arnold Ventures, my boss admitted to me that she was so impressed by that one-page work product where I was able to boil things down into a simple form, and that that was a huge reason behind why she hired me. So, I would say as much as possible, to differentiate yourself, think about a portfolio of work products that you can show to demonstrate your marketable skills. And in mine, I could show how I could do strong due diligence and boil an entire summer of research down to actionable insights and suggestions about how a company should operate in a global market. I think that will not only help students in their first job, but it will also help throughout careers in a world where workers are increasingly busier. Situations are always complex, and there is real power in communicating simply and clearly.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Alishahal Macknojia
University of Houston
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Moody Heard, Senior Investment Analyst, Mercury Fund, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Moody Heard is a senior investment analyst at Mercury Fund in Houston. He graduated from Washington and Lee University with a degree in business administration and geology. I had the privilege of interviewing Moody to discuss how his history of working for a startup and his innate curiosity prepared him to pursue venture capital as a career.

Unlike many of the traditional students who focus strictly on finance as an entryway into the venture capital industry, Moody did not have some of the professional guidance that others may have had. He simply expected to give his best efforts in the classroom and athletics. He noticed a lot of people around him were working in or working toward the oil and gas industry and decided to double major in geology and finance to make himself a good candidate. When Moody spoke with a friend’s father who was a CEO for a well-known oil and gas firm, however, he realized that the industry would change by the time he entered it. He then became interested in technology startups after talking with some of his older friends.

After college, Moody chose to join Venture for America as a fellow and worked for a consulting firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. At Queen City Fintech, he was able to work with others to solve the problems of competing in an innovation economy; this provided him with the toolbox of skills and knowledge of how to make early-stage investments and the general operations of startups. While he was in Charlotte, he homed in on the missing piece of Charlotte’s innovation economy, venture capital investments in startups. He helped launch a seed fund for the purpose of investing in the entrepreneurs and talent in the city.

As he learned more about venture capital, he decided to make the move to Houston and work for Mercury Fund. As a senior investment analyst, he spends much of his time sourcing (meeting and evaluating startups) and travels frequently to the 10 cities where Mercury Fund makes investments. He provides support to the four partners at Mercury Fund whenever they need help in keeping these business relationships active. If Mercury Fund decides to move forward with a startup, he spends up to three months getting to know the company and analyzing their product, competition, and market to evaluate if it’s a good investment to make. Some of his other duties include being a board observer at board meetings and giving his input to entrepreneurs on their potential projects and expansions. The projects Moody spends most of his time on are the due diligence process to create a research-driven deal memo on a monthly or quarterly basis, as well as providing the answers to any questions to confirm if it’s a good investment to make.

During our conversation, I appreciated Moody’s insight into what makes someone successful in venture capital, and I found him to be a very interesting person to interview. I think Moody’s curious personality is a unique asset for his exploratory work. His interdisciplinary background from a liberal arts school meant he took a variety of classes and practiced reading and writing research, which, combined with the competitiveness he had from playing football as a student athlete, prepared him for the exploration and evaluation of industries and companies that he does in his current position. I think a key takeaway was Moody’s line toward the end of our discussion, “If it fails, I’ve got a good story. If it succeeds, I’ve got a better story.” This attitude is something that students can take almost as a mantra on how they should approach the meaningful work they do.

Highlights from the interview:

Everyone’s family, community, and life circumstances create an initial role for them in society. What was expected of you? Did you adhere to it, or did you stray from it?

I grew up without a ton of expectations about my career; the only expectation that I had was that I would excel in whatever that career was. In fact, I would go as far as to say I didn’t have a ton of professional guidance growing up. I’ve just had an expectation that I would put my all into whatever it was that I chose to do, in high school and in college.

I went to college at Washington and Lee University and went to high school at different points in Houston.  I was at a private school. I was really focused on excelling in the classroom and then in sports, specifically in football. I played football through high school and through college. I was involved in student government as a president of a student governing body on campus, and then was double majoring, and at that point, I figured—again, without a ton of professional guidance—that everybody I saw as successful in Houston was involved in oil and gas. I decided to study geology and finance, [thinking] that if I had a geology technical skill set, combined with some business job, that I could go make a name for myself in oil and gas in Houston.

And then really the first piece of professional guidance that I got from anybody who had been successful in the field was from the father of a friend. He had been the CEO at one of the large oil and gas companies in Houston, and essentially his advice was like, “Hey, this game is going to change in the long term, and by the time that you’re coming of age as a professional, you know, getting the stride of your career, you’re going to be basically working in a different oil and gas industry than the one that we, the current, incumbent business leaders in the oil and gas sector, grew up in and made a lot of money in.” It was at that point that I started talking to some friends who are couple years above me, got really excited in startups…I figured if I can build a technology company, that’s where people are making money today, building successful careers, and that I can even do that in Houston. And so fast forward only about three and a half years out of school… have a job that I consider my dream job and already starting to plan out what the rest of the career looks like.

Did you think your fellowship with Andrew Yang’s Venture for America had any influence on your road map to working for Mercury Fund and building a network with other early-stage entrepreneurs?

Yeah, it one hundred percent did. When I joined Venture for America, it was because I had some really, really close friends who were older than me and got excited about the program and joined it. I basically just joined with the fundamental thesis, which was all I really know is that I want to start a company one day, and this program is promising to give me the toolbox to be able to go out and start a company when the time is right. 

I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina through that program right out of school. I got picked up by a consulting firm who was working with the big banks that are headquartered in Charlotte…And Charlotte, just like every other city, like Houston, was trying to figure out where can they compete on a national scale, and their answer to that was financial technology. They wanted to bring in financial technology entrepreneurs from around the world to spend time in Charlotte and work with the banks. And so I was in the interesting situation which was, “Hey, let’s pull together all these corporations, pull together people involved in the city, and then pull together people in the entrepreneurial scene and try to wire together that entire ecosystem and direct their efforts towards financial technology innovation.”

When I decided I wanted to go back to Houston, Mercury Fund stood out. They have a very similar thesis, which is they only staffed in the middle of the country, so traditionally overlooked innovation ecosystems. My two years of experience right out of school dovetailed nicely with Mercury Fund’s thesis, and that was definitely a function of my involvement with Venture for America.

When did you first envision yourself as an investment analyst?  

I didn’t know a ton about venture capital when I moved to Charlotte through VFA, but it didn’t take very long to figure it out. The thing that Charlotte was missing at the time was an early-stage venture capital fund; there was nobody investing in startups really in the city besides an angel fund. So I started heavily researching venture capital because I saw it as a missing component of Charlotte’s innovation economy, which I was focused on for the time I was there. I was like, “Somebody’s got to invest in startups in Charlotte,” and so I actually helped launch a fund, a seed fund in Charlotte, that was investing in entrepreneurs that we were bringing into the city. Through that experience, I learned a ton about the nuts and bolts of venture capital investing. When I decided that I really wanted to be in Houston, I started talking to the few venture capital investors in the city of Houston.

Can you tell me a little bit more about what your position entails?

At Mercury Fund there are about 10 different cities that we see as systemically important to our fund making new investments. Our constraint is that we have four partners, they’re sitting on boards of five portfolio companies each, this takes up a lot of time, and so they need help finding and making sure that they’re keeping relationships in all these cities up to date. And so frequently—I’d say on a weekly basis—I’m in any one of these cities in the middle of the country, meeting with entrepreneurs. I’ve spent a lot of time sourcing, just taking pitches from entrepreneurs and trying to evaluate whether or not it makes sense to have another conversation with them. And then once we decide it makes sense to have a follow-up conversation, and we really want to dig into one of them, then we’ll spend up to three months really getting to know an entrepreneur and his or her company. And that’s a very analytical, research-driven process where we try to get a firm grasp on the market they’re trying to get into, we try to get a firm grasp on their product, on their competition, and ultimately try to evaluate whether or not it’s a strong investment opportunity.

So that’s what I spend most of my time on. When we do make an investment I’m a board observer, so I join their board meetings. And those entrepreneurs would frequently come to me with projects they might ask me to help them out with.

What skills do you find yourself most utilizing in your current position?

I would say really strong interpersonal skills. I think probably the best thing to know when you want to communicate with entrepreneurs is understanding the right questions to ask.  That’s probably the most important skill in the early diligence for the sourcing path. If I’m trying to get a cursory understanding of whether or not this would be a good fit for our fund, that means having a really firm grasp on what makes a good investment, and specifically, what makes a good investment for Mercury Fund. And you can’t really ask the right questions until you understand that.

Beyond that, I’d say the standard skills like financial—for instance, in the diligence process, we need to get an understanding of if we put X amount of money into this company, how much do we own after the deal happens? It’s not quite as simple as some people might think. That’s what we call evaluating the capitalization table or the cap table. That process has its own unique form of math. I would say so much of it is just purely analytical. It’s like, can I balance a bunch of seemingly disparate ideas in my head to pull together a comprehensive story of whether or not this is a strong investment opportunity.

I’d say…being creative as well. Everyone that we’re looking at is working on something fundamentally new or different. It’s trying to understand what it’ll take for an entrepreneur’s vision to become a reality. There’s just so many variables in that equation, and so being analytical, being creative, having a strong intuition, strong interpersonal skills, and then add into that some, financial and Excel modeling jobs, that’s maybe 80 percent of the way there on the skills.

How did your college years prepare you?

There’s a venture capitalist named Peter Fenton, who is a general partner of a firm called Benchmark; they’re famous for a lot of investments, Uber being one of them…I think it was Peter Fenton. I once heard him say that the two most important characteristics of a venture capital investor are one, being hyper-curious, and two, being hyper-competitive. That really resonated with me.

I would say on the hyper-curious side, I’ve always been that way. I’ve almost always gotten in trouble for asking too many questions. If you’re not incredibly curious about learning new things, you’re not going to enjoy the job, because everything is—every single deal you’re looking at is fundamentaly new and different, at least it should be if it’s a good deal. I’d say going to a liberal arts school, where it’s super interdisciplinary, you’re forced to take a lot of different classes, and then just being around a lot of people who are asking tons of questions about things that we always did, that most people assume are just universal truths, that was such a great environment to then enter this world where you should be continuously questioning everything. And so, in that sense, a liberal arts education, being surrounded by a pretty diverse group of people and a group of pretty inquisitive people, was super helpful. 

The other piece is being hyper-competitive. I think I’ve always—I love football because…I loved competing. That behavioral drive is the thing that fuels me to go out and just have hundreds and hundreds of conversations a year, and work towards making a name, and ultimately helping to make great investments, in the sense of competition and being the absolutely best at this game.

Can you give me an example of the kind of projects you work on?

The projects that I work probably the most on are when we engage in the diligence process. Ultimately, what we are working towards is a deal memo…anywhere from a 10- to 20-page document. It’s super, super research driven. I actually really enjoy putting those together. I always liked writing papers in college, and in high school, and this is just an incredibly research-driven, analysis-driven document. By the time you finish reading it, it should make decisions for why we’re deciding to make this investment. 

Can you describe the dynamics of a team in terms of structure, organization, and other important characteristics?

We have four partners, and we have two analysts—of which I’m one. It’s typically one of the partners who gets really excited about a deal, and they come to me and they say…“Hey Moody, I’m interested in this deal. I’m going to run point on it, and you’re going to do a bunch of research to back me up on it.” So I’m basically helping to fill in all the gaps and questions they have as they are getting to know the entrepreneur and trying to figure out if it’s an investment they want to make. And so, the dynamic is really just partner runs point on the deal, analyst does a lot of the leg work and documentation and digging into the numbers, and then helps define it with a partner so that we can call up the entrepreneur and continue to ask more, better questions during the next conversation.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing your industry?

One, without a doubt, is diversity and inclusion. It is an issue for venture capital as a whole. It’s something that a lot of firms, including Mercury Fund, are starting to become really thoughtful about, and I think Mercury has been a really strong leader in that field. We just hosted a huge women-in-tech event in our office earlier this week…and if you just looked at our team, it’s a pretty diverse group of people, which is awesome, but the industry as a whole has been dominated by a pretty homogenous subset of the population. I think that’s one issue.

Another issue,—it’s just pretty slow to change, and I think there are a lot of opportunities to get creative with, not necessarily technology, but the financial instruments that are used to finance a company. And by that I mean, depending on the business model of the startup you’re investing in, it doesn’t always make sense to just say, “Hey I’ve got two million dollars, and I want 20 percent of your company.” There are other creative ways to invest in startups that are less dilutive to the entrepreneur and are less risky to the investor that are also helping to finance their business. You’re starting to see some really creative ways of financing startups, and I think we’ll start to see some more of that.

A good example of this is in Houston, there are so many exciting hardware and material sciences and robotics companies. Most VCs are really just interested in investing in software, because you write a line of code once and then you can sell it a million times. There’s no variable cost to producing another unit of software. In the hardware business, VC’s don’t want to put money towards supply chain stuff, like financing working capital, and so there are a lot of great businesses that don’t get VC funding. Houston should really be competing right now in renewable energy and clean technology. If there were investors who can figure out a way to get excited about investing in material companies or hardware companies or robotics companies…but that just hasn’t quite happened yet. I think anyone in Houston who figures out how to do that will, (a) be able to make a lot of money, and (b) be able to solve a pretty big problem that helps a lot of entrepreneurs.

 What advice would you give to students interested in your field?

I would say my biggest regret was not taking computer science courses during undergrad. I really wish that I had; it would have been so valuable. I’ve tried to go back and teach myself some of that just so I can speak more intelligibly with entrepreneurs and understand their businesses better.

The issue with breaking into the world of venture capital is there just aren’t that many jobs. For instance, a lot of firms don’t even have analysts. I mentioned that firm Benchmark—they don’t even have analysts; it’s just partners…they run the entire process themselves…And so, most of the people who broke into venure capital…it’s some function of both being hardworking, smart, and having the right resume—but then, on top of that, just being in the right place at the right time. I definitely say I was. It’s completely driven by personal relationships, and you just have to play the long game. If you’re really interested and passionate about it as a career, start by reaching out to somebody like me and getting to know them in a few different ways. One way to do it is when I was in Charlotte, I just volunteered as an analyst for the local angel fund, and I was writing diligence reports for them completely for free, just so I could get experience doing it and say that I’ve worked on deals before…That was one way that I did it, and I think through a truly demonstrated interest in the startup process—whether it’s working for a startup, working for an accelerator, an incubator, working for an angel fund, like I mentioned…those are all good ways to just prove that I’m actually interested in this.

 What was your most memorable experience in your career that helped you develop as a person?

I have this one memorable experience where I was really frustrated with this position I had taken in Charlotte, just because there wasn’t a really clear road map for where we were going, and we were struggling to scrounge enough money together to make investments. I went for a long run to clear my mind. And on that run, I had two thoughts that struck me. One was, “Okay, there’s…not a clear-cut path, but I just need to fully commit to this, and give it my absolute all, because it either fails and I’ve got a story, or it’s successful and I’ve got an even better story…” And then the second was…I just almost had an epiphany and thought of a way that we could restructure the way we’re working with startups and also the way that we are positioning ourselves. I went back and talked to my boss, and we reimagined the way we were approaching this business…That was a memorable experience. I just had this moment of full recommitment and that brought a lot of clarity to what the next steps were.

 Is there anything else that you want to mention?

I would say one thing that’s really, really important—beyond just the allure of the type of company that you’re working for or whatever you think is interesting or exciting about an opportunity that’s sitting in front of you—I would say there’s really nothing that’s more important than the people that you’re going to be working for, working with…I think working for somebody who (a) you trust, and (b) has an incredible reputation, and (c) is just really, really good at their trade or their craft—that’s really, super important. I think it’s way more important than however much money you’re going to make or anything else, the name of the company. That’s been super important to me. For instance, the individuals I work for at Mercury Fund right now have a phenomenal reputation. I love getting to show up to work with them every day and I feel like they have my best interest in mind. That would be my one piece of advice…I think just doing what you’re passionate about and doing it with really good people.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Alishahal Macknojia
University of Houston
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Amber Lo, corporate credit analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Dallas (32.7° N, 96.7° W)

Amber Lo is a corporate credit analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. She graduated from Rice University in 2017 with a BA degree in economics and managerial studies and a minor in business. Over the course of our conversation, Amber and I spoke at length about her background, day-to-day duties, and the direction she thought credit risk was headed.

As an undergraduate student, Amber was encouraged by mentors and through hands-on learning experiences to pursue accounting and mathematics. As an accounts payable intern at Sonic Air Systems, she discovered firsthand how data-driven accounting could be, which led her to seek out a career in finance. Leading up to her current role, Amber developed analytical and technical skills through her experiences as an associate financial analyst at Fractal Labs in London and as an investment analyst with the Rice Finance Group.

Some of the responsibilities that Amber holds as a corporate credit analyst consist of underwriting and monitoring loans for multinational companies and negotiating terms for ancillary cash management and traded derivatives products. Understanding the company’s operating history, management, and key risks is critically important when considering whether to extend credit. When we discussed the different groups and organizational structure of Amber’s company, I found it very informative that the skills are similar across different groups and that there is a clear structure to the work of the analyst, associate, and the vice president in each group. Before our interview, I had the impression that analysts were pigeonholed into specific industries and was surprised to find out the scope of different clients in a portfolio. I was glad to have cleared up some of the job-related misconceptions I had about credit risk.

Nearing the end of our discussion, I was very pleased with the answer Amber gave about where she thought the future of credit risk lies relative to changes in her role. I recognized that this was a tough question to answer since it was a complete hypothetical guess into the future. The parts that caught my attention were when she mentioned that there has been an outsourcing of financial analysis and a consolidation of teams to create efficiency. With decreasing demand for analysts, organizational leaders want to maximize an employee’s value by adding new responsibilities to the same positions. I appreciated that Amber tied it into what future college graduates can expect to see from the role and the changes to portfolio management and underwriting in the next five or 10 years. What I took away from her answer was future graduates would be entering a highly competitive but interesting field.

Highlights from the interview:

Everyone’s family, community, and life circumstance create an initial role for them in society. What was expected of you? Did you adhere to it, or did you stray from it?

Both my parents studied finance and got their MBAs right after graduation. My parents encouraged me to study accounting and focus on math, and I did find that to be my best subject. When I was in college, I got an opportunity to further my technical skills in an accounting internship. I worked in the accounts payable department in a small company that sold factory equipment, and it was a good experience because I realized that it was very technical and involved a lot more data analysis than I expected, which ultimately made me think I wanted to do something slightly different. Because of that, I started pursuing finance.

At Rice, they don’t have a robust undergraduate business program, they just have a business minor, and so I didn’t have a very strong finance background until I started interning at other companies. I saw that finance was a really broad field and I could go into a lot of areas within that, and I liked the detail-oriented, logical thought process involved, which was what drove me to my current job.

Did you have anyone that acted as your mentor who cultivated your interest?

I have to say this [was] probably my aunt. She was the one who connected me with my first internship as a freshman in that accounts payable position. As a freshman, it is difficult to get internships because companies always want to hire juniors and give them return offers so they can start right after graduation. So I was really grateful that she found that opportunity for me, as she did encourage me to look for positions that used my skills. My aunt was an important mentor for me—she gave me industry research and books to read and always talked to me about what she’s working on. She was the CFO of her company and had been in finance for several decades. She really inspired me and got me excited about that field because I probably wouldn’t have gotten a chance to learn more about the inner workings of a company if she hadn’t openly shared about her thoughts about the job. She was also helpful in connecting me with other contacts that I jumped on a call and had informational interviews with, like this one right now, that helped me figure out why I wanted to go into finance as well.

What led to your current position, and what does the position entail? If possible, could you give me an hour-by-hour rundown of your typical day?

Rice has a really great career center, and we were able to interview on campus. So I did apply [to jobs] through the online portal, and I went to a bunch of information sessions before then with various banks—JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, et cetera—because I wanted to learn more about what they do, the day to day and how I would fit into the process. I wanted to find a role that did involve a little client interaction, so I wouldn’t just be sitting in my cube all day, but [one that] would allow me to directly help customers find solutions to their financial problems. I applied for an internship at Bank of America’s wholesale credit division and received the return offer at the end of the summer, and that is where I still am two and a half years later.

My current role is underwriting and monitoring loans in the global corporate and investment banking division. In addition to structuring loans and determining pricing for credit facilities, we also offer cash management services and manage their derivative trading by working across all groups in the bank including sales, corporate banking, investment banking, and operations. Getting to engage with different product partners has been very interesting to me because no two days are the same. I would say every day, there is a new transaction request and you’ll need to figure out why the bank would be comfortable with that client, so every transaction is a new challenge.

So my day to day…We have a team meeting about once a week, so we would have those in the morning typically. I would go through my emails, read The Wall Street Journal, get up to date on the news, and then I usually go through my portfolio and see what deliverables we have due that day. If we’re working on structuring a new loan facility or approving trades at the company, I’ll have various meetings with a VP, other groups within the bank, and the client themselves to negotiate terms and determine what exposure we’re comfortable with within our risk profile, and what covenants we need to put in place to ensure repayment in case the company defaults. As analysts, we’re responsible for creating credit documents that will cover company financial analysis and key risks, in addition to reviewing the bank’s exposure to a company on a regular basis. We enforce strict deadlines in which companies must send us a compliance certificate and financial statements within a grace period by the end of the fiscal period, which we review and ensure that they are within limits.

What do you think was the most important thing that you learned as an undergrad that you apply to your current position?

Many of the business classes that I took that were relevant to what I’m doing now taught us how to view companies’ business models and financial performance with a critical lens, but I benefitted most from learning how to communicate effectively and clearly, which, in my role, it’s important to format your analysis and structure your argument to make a strong recommendation to drive decision making. I think being very resolute in your stance is important because you don’t want to be seen as wishy-washy. You want to make a strong case and stick with it. In terms of the most useful courses in undergrad, that would probably be my financial accounting class and then my corporate finance class. In those classes I learned concepts that I use pretty much every day when we’re looking at companies.

It seems like you learned a lot of soft skills at Rice, but most of your technical skills came from on-the-job training, is that correct?

That is correct. I was an economics-managerial studies double major, but really my econ classes were purely theoretical. It would have been useful if I had gone into that field, but I decided to go into finance. So I am very thankful that my job had a strong training program.

Do you think there are any misconceptions that people have about your job? 

Well, the first and very basic [misconception] is when I tell some people that I work at Bank of America, they assume I work at a local branch servicing individual customers. However, my division only serves multinational corporations, a division which actually has a larger loan book than the consumer banking division. I think people also assume that credit is a role that involves a significant amount of back-office work, which is partly true as we aren’t as client facing as corporate or investment bankers.

However, we do work very closely with many teams, and we get good interaction with clients, usually the treasurers and CFOs. We go on diligence meetings, meet the clients face to face, talk about what their issues are, and how we can help solve them.

Can you describe the dynamics of a team that works on a project, in terms of structure, organization, and any other important characteristics?

For every client in our portfolio, we have three credit coverage associates assigned. There is an analyst, a vice president, and a portfolio monitoring associate. And within that team, I think the work split is very clear, which I do appreciate that structure.

The analyst does company research and pitches recommendations to the VP. The VP will take that and present information to our internal partners or to the clients themselves. The portfolio monitoring associate will assist with paperwork and ensure our internal records are updated. My industry overall team is pretty small, I think there are 10 of us. We’re within a larger group that covers US companies, and then we have our counterparts in Asia, Europe, Africa, et cetera. So we can reach out to them anytime and ask for help, which is useful.

You work on the wholesale side. What is the difference between wholesale and commercial credit risk?

I think that is a term that we use, so I guess instead of saying wholesale credit, I could just say I work in corporate credit, versus commercial credit. So corporate credit covers large, mature, established companies. Commercial credit would cover smaller businesses that may not be global and may not be name brand. And because we get to cover such large companies, we’re able to work on transactions in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We sometimes get to see our companies make the news if they were merged with or acquired by another firm, which may then involve bridge financing, and seeing how high profile these transactions are is pretty rewarding.

What aspects of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, such as company culture or support for professional growth, make it stand out as a great place to work?

The first thing would be their training program. They did a three-week program in their headquarters going over the basics of accounting, bank processes, policies, and that was really helpful because we got to network and meet people from all over the bank and make connections from day one. When I got back to the office, we had peer coaches that were assigned to me and showed me how to use systems and answer any questions that I had. They were all very patient. And I think that the work culture there is great, and everyone has a team mentality. They’re willing to offer help even if they’re busy. We have a pretty young team as well, so everyone is friends outside of the office, too.

I also think that this job offers great work-life balance. My hours are not as crazy as investment bankers in the way that we can still go home on the weekends and not have to worry and stress about work 24/7. You can still do things after work. Once in a while, when [your] workload gets busy, you’ll have to stay late and work a few weekends.

That’s pretty interesting. What little I know about credit risk from the past few years, there seems to be a lot of regulation impacting things, especially with trading and counterparty risks. Do you see a greater demand for analysts who can analyze these risks, and do you expect your role in industry to change in the next five or 10 years?

I would say it really depends on the industry because our team is divided by industry rather than by region. So because our industry has been going through a lot of M&A and our portfolio has changed, and processes are getting automated and outsourced, there has been less demand for as many analysts as in the past. However, our work responsibilities do fluctuate, and the number of people on our team does accordingly. 

We used to outsource some of our functions including financial spreading, which is inputting financial statement data into our system. I know that some banks are sending off their financial analysis every quarter to companies in India, because of the lower cost of labor. I think it really depends on what bank.

What advice would you give to a student interested in your field? Is there anything unique that college students or young professionals can do to separate themselves from the crowd?

You have probably heard this one before, but I would say finding mentors is huge to helping you find what you’re passionate about. The opportunity to hear from someone who is in the industry, and knowing their day to day, helps guide your decision a lot more than just reading about it or hearing about it in school. You should get the information from someone who has actually done the job before.

Another point is getting as much internship experience as possible. I realize now that as I’m also doing recruiting for my company, there is a lot of emphasis on what experiences they have had in the past, are they a go-getter, are they pursuing as [many] opportunities as possible? So, if you’re looking at a role that you aren’t sure about, [an internship] is a good way to figure what you’re passionate about and also have something tangible to discuss when people ask about your prior experience.

And I’ll also say go to as many info sessions that your school offers as you can. I have gotten to meet a lot of people that way who have also referred me to other positions before. Go to info sessions [for] positions you didn’t think you’d be interested in, rather than limiting yourself to preconceived notions about an industry.

What keeps you motivated?

I really enjoy talking to people, getting to know their stories and what drives them. I think making connections every day is really important to me and actually motivates me. So that’s why I’m happy to have a job where I get to talk to people all day. And after work, I prioritize catching up with friends. That’s why I didn’t want to take the accounting position, because it was pretty isolating, and I didn’t feel like I had a chance to learn from other people and interact as much. Because that aspect was important to me, I had to find a position that also accommodated that.

Is there anything that I asked, or didn’t ask, that sparked anything that you’d like to mention?

Another piece of advice I could share is that you may not know exactly what career pathway you want until you’re actually in a job and realize you do or don’t like it. So it’s important to not put so much pressure on yourself as a student to figure that out from the get-go because there is a lot of pressure that you receive from other people to figure that quickly. And I think I wasn’t able to really figure that out until I started my first job as well. Know that it might take you a couple jobs to get to where you want to be, and that’s okay.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.