Hahn Wook Kim ’13
My Experience
Since IIX is very young company with only seven permanent staff, I had the opportunity to serve multiple roles during my summer at the company. I got to co-develop and roll-out a centralized company-wide database through a web-based CRM platform which completely streamlined investment, research and marketing processes, wrote up case studies for Shujog, which is IIX’s research affiliate, and also conducted background research for the business development team. Though these were valuable experiences and I had fun doing them, my main, and most satisfying role was to support the issuer team by assessing eligibility of potential SEs to be published on the Impact Partners platform. The Impact Partners platform is a private, online platform connecting accredited Impact Investors globally with Asian SEs. I truly enjoyed analyzing the business models of so many innovative and social mission driven start-ups and meeting the highly talented entrepreneurs that started their noble endeavors. Finding the right social enterprise and helping them raise preliminary capital is integral to IIX’s mission to create an exchange for impact investing in Asia because it prepares the social enterprise with a larger capital base before listing on the exchange, creating a starting point for pioneering investors.
Besides the financial analysis, strategic planning and leadership skills I had polished during my first year at CBS, I believe the most significant thing I learned, which helped me most to complete such a meaningful and successful internship, was the ability to work in a culturally diverse team. The first two semesters of my MBA curriculum allowed me to work with team members who had completely different perspectives and ideas I could never have thought of. The CBS experience enhanced my cultural intelligence, allowing me to accept and adapt to differences that may have not been the way I was used to doing things. This experience added a great deal to my personal development since Korea is a very homogenous country and there is very little opportunity to work in such an international setting. The reason I mention cultural intelligence as the most important skill I applied during my summer is because, at IIX and Shujog, a total of 20 staff where from 16 different countries. Truly amazing, and probably the most diverse you can ever get. If I did not have the CBS experience I would not have been able to work well within the team and my internship would not have been such a success.
As mentioned, the company is very young and though filled with passion and drive, it is without a stable revenue stream. This means that it is currently lacking facilities to accommodate the manpower it employs. The working environment during the first couple months for me was quite interesting. I did not have my own desk or a computer so I constantly moved from empty seat to seat with my personal laptop, sometimes even just sitting on a chair with no desk. Very often would my thighs get too warm from the heat of the computer on my lap. I can’t actually call this a challenge because I had fun during the process and I consider it to have been a great experience unfathomable in a large company.
The biggest challenge was carrying out multiple roles and finishing projects on a very limited timeline. I got to dabble in some projects I wanted to work on but I feel for some I did not get the exposure I desired since management had to account for the short time I was to be with the company. However, this is probably an issue with every summer internship. There were quite a few challenges with the business itself but I shouldn’t mention them here. If anyone interested in working at IIX has questions, I would be happy to answer them off the record.
Coming from a career in fixed-income asset management where all investments are made in large public companies, it was exciting to take part in an assessment process in which I had the opportunity to review the financials and business models of innovative start-up SEs while also taking into account the social and environmental impact of its operations. I also learned the importance of investing in IT and having a centralized database of information that the entire company could rely on. I was given the responsibility to co-lead the setup of a CRM system that IIX had not implemented during its three years of operations and launched it successfully. Databases within the company were fragmented and, at the expense of efficiency and accuracy, many internal reports were made manually.
Most importantly, my biggest take away was the long-lasting friendships I made at IIX. Even though my time at there has been the shortest I’ve ever spent at a single organization, I don’t think I’ve ever become so close and made as many treasured memories with work colleagues in the past. I cherish the friendships I have made there and I’m certain that they will last a lifetime. After my summer, I learned that I want nothing more than to work in a very culturally diverse setting where I can work with people who have different experiences, perspectives and talents. I believe that I will learn more and be able to contribute more in such an environment.
