This summer was a unique opportunity to do transition work for an organization I care deeply about, Microlumbia Impact Fund. Outside of coursework and internships, building Microlumbia Impact Fund was my number one priority as an MBA student at Columbia Business School. Aligning with my own ambitions as an early career investor, Microlumbia helps educate the next generation of civic-minded CBS investors while financing promising startups making the world a better place. There are few other outlets at CBS where students can get hands-on buy-side investor experience. Microlumbia helps Columbia MBA students see first-hand how they can make a career around investing, and particularly, investing in social enterprise.

Given my passion for and proximity to the fund as chief investment officer, there was a natural opportunity for me to add value to Microlumbia following May graduation. In partnership with the Tamer Center, we scoped a fellowship for me to build out materials for investment operations (a “playbook”) and fundraising (a pitch deck). The turnover of student leadership each year makes for constant disruption to the fund. I sought to build material that would accelerate ramp time for the incoming student management team and new first-year Microlumbia members. I had the rare opportunity to focus on succession planning and long-term strategy without the draws I had during the school year, operating a 38-student Microlumbia investment team.

My MBA has been an invaluable education, heightening my experience with investing both theoretically and practically. I learned from courses such as Investing in Social Ventures and Climate Tech how to clinically evaluate startups. The insights and skillsets on due diligence, market research, questions to ask founders, financial modeling, investment memo writing, etc., were woven into and applied to my fellowship deliverables. Whether articulating nuance in the investment process (e.g., how to go about a screening call with a founder) or making tweaks to the fundraising deck (e.g., selecting an investor-friendly hierarchy of messaging), my Columbia education was integral.

One challenge I faced was being quite isolated during my fellowship. I was not in an office surrounded by peers working on a common mission. To mitigate this, I had touchpoint calls with the incoming student management team and the Microlumbia board. We would of course discuss their feedback on my deliverables, but separately it helped me return to that sense of community I felt while on the student management team earlier in the year. Scope creep is another challenge I encountered during the fellowship. As feedback came in from the incoming student management team, I had to strike a balance honoring and applying feedback while not allowing the deliverables to veer off course too much. This was a good problem to have as it underscored the ambition of our incoming student management team. It also led to conversations that are driving new strategic workstreams for the student management team (e.g., writing an investment case study on a past Microlumbia investment).

My largest takeaway from this summer is that Microlumbia Impact Fund is in good hands with the incoming student management team. The team worked in the cracks over summer, in spite of many having demanding internships. I have confidence the management will use and continue to improve upon the fellowship deliverables. If summer is any indication, Microlumbia's new management team is doubling-down on last year's momentum.