At GreenPortfolio, a platform that helps individuals align their investments with their climate values, I tackled projects that streamlined operations and expanded user education. My primary focus was enhancing the Advisor Matching Service, which connects users with financial advisors who can meet both financial and environmental goals. Working closely with the chief operating officer and chief executive officer, I identified opportunities to optimize and automate internal workflows, reducing manual tasks and eliminating redundancies. I also piloted a new content‑creation process across emerging social media channels to educate audiences on using financial decisions to combat climate change. In addition, I implemented search‑engine‑optimization and AI‑driven tactics to increase company visibility, conducted competitive landscape research to identify partnership opportunities, and leveraged my cloud‑platforms background to debug architectural issues. Collectively, these efforts supported GreenPortfolio’s mission by making climate‑aligned investing more accessible and scalable.

My MBA program at Columbia Business School provided the tools I relied on throughout the summer. The learning‑team experience taught me to juggle multiple priorities and communicate clearly in a lean environment. Executive coaching sessions improved my presentation skills and ability to collaborate effectively. Marketing coursework provided frameworks for understanding user personas, which I applied to target climate‑conscious investors. The Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center’s Summer Startup Track exposed me to go‑to‑market strategy, AI tools for scaling businesses, and digital marketing fundamentals. This extracurricular involvement also offered peer connections that helped me navigate the unique challenges of an early‑stage start‑up.

The biggest hurdles stemmed from working in unfamiliar domains. I had never operated in an early‑stage start‑up environment, nor had I worked in climate or finance. Both fields involve regulatory considerations, so I had to learn compliance principles while devising marketing strategies. Adopting formal marketing techniques such as search‑engine optimization required foundational knowledge I did not previously possess. To overcome these gaps, I leaned on the supportive culture at GreenPortfolio, consulted online resources, and refined my hypotheses through team feedback. Identifying what I knew, what I did not know, and what I needed to know became a key strategy for tackling new problems.

This internship clarified my career aspirations and underscored my interest in mission‑driven start‑ups. I gained insight into how individuals can align financial decisions with their values through educational resources and webinars, and I discovered the creativity and problem‑solving involved in building a company from scratch. Although the unstructured nature of a start‑up challenged me, it also strengthened my ability to experiment, learn quickly, and develop scalable solutions. Going forward, I plan to deepen my exposure to early‑stage ventures by taking courses such as Launch Your Start‑up and Growth Hacking, engaging in hackathons, and leveraging New York City’s tech community. I look forward to applying these lessons in future roles and to continuing my work with the Tamer Institute.