"Throughout my summer internship at Veris Wealth Partners I worked on multiple projects. I reviewed the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) efforts and metrics of all portfolio funds, and prepared a summary presentation on the results of this review (with key action points, best practices, and portfolio fund engagement items), which will be used by the investment research team to improve EDI amongst their funds and their investing activities. This work, along with performing interviews with senior Veris staff on EDI efforts internally and externally, assisted Veris in ensuring the firm engages with investments with high levels of ethical commitments. In addition, I researched and prepared a presentation on global sustainability trends to the firm, updating all staff on interesting developments within impact investment activities and trends such as smart cities, decarbonization, regenerative agriculture, and green hydrogen. I also performed quarterly financial and impact analysis on a portion of portfolio funds, assisting Veris in keeping track of investments for the research and client service teams, in order to better serve clients investing in these funds.

During the first year of my MBA, I took various classes in accounting, capital markets, and investing in social ventures. I also held a role as an investment VP with Microlumbia, where I perform due diligence on financial inclusion-focused startups for investment. The skillsets I learned during my time at CBS provided me with ample background to tackle the investment research, impact measurement, and financial analysis projects within Veris

The most challenging parts of this internship were the remote-working nature (due to COVID-19 pandemic considerations), and initially getting to grips with the entirety of the investment portfolio at Veris, including fund type and impact themes of each fund. Fortunately, my colleagues and supervisor were extremely supportive in this process and ensured I had genuine learning takeaways from my internship experience and access to information on a wide range of impact investing funds and asset types, as well as their activities

In addition, the team at Veris made me feel extremely welcome (we even had a firm origami-making happy hour!) by being kind, social, and available to provide insights and coaching. The team is relatively small, yet all of my colleagues had clear personal convictions toward the same impact goals, which was extremely refreshing and manifested as a fantastically well-run organization.

My career goals are to launch or work within a fintech that increases financial participation and education/literacy, particularly in the retail investing space. The experience I gained at Veris understanding true impact generation and metrics will assist me in creating an organization that generates positive impact. Additionally, understanding ESG investing as an asset theme is extremely important to myself, given the increasing prevalence of ESG investing. Overall, my time at Veris provided me with a rich learning experience and the opportunity to contribute toward allocating/managing capital with a social impact benefit."