As many other students at Stern, I came to NYC to take my finance career to the next level. As a former central banker, my background consisted mostly in financial markets, securities, interest rates and financial models and I was convinced that Stern was the place to continue enhancing this expertise. But, I was also looking for something different, an experience where I could increase and apply my knowledge and skills while giving back to society, because no matter how much I enjoy crunching numbers in spreadsheets, throughout my life I’ve always felt that those numbers need to have a stronger and bigger purpose.
With this in mind, I started the famous recruiting process. Trying not to get distracted by all the food and wine served in corporate presentations for the “traditional” career paths, I tried to focus on exploring all the opportunities and exciting industries in the intersection of money and social impact. The more I found out about this industry, the more I got excited about the possibility of using my day to day work to make a positive impact. This is how I ended up pursuing a summer internship in impact investing. Certainly, the search process was not easy, but finally I decided to move to DC in order to join the Capital Advisory Team at the International Executive Service Corps (IESC).
IESC is a nonprofit focused on private sector solutions for global economic development. As part of the Capital Advisory team, I work with social entrepreneurs in developing countries all around the globe that seek capital from the U.S. Government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), other development finance institutions or from impact investors. We guide our clients through every step of the financing process, help them determine the optimal capital structure, the best sources of funding and build their capital-raising package to present their businesses to investors. Throughout the summer I have been able to interact with entrepreneurs in countries like Paraguay, Costa Rica, Liberia, Cameroon and Mexico across different industries such as agribusiness, clean energy and education.
This amazing experience has all been possible because of SIIF. My main objective for the summer was to have a hands-on experience, work in real and relevant projects, and interact with social enterprises all around the world. SIIF’s support allowed me to eliminate the economic compensation variable from the equation and gave me flexibility to choose this opportunity based solely in terms of maximizing my learning experience and impact.
Thanks to SIIF I’m having a great summer in DC. I’m looking forward to sharing with you more details about my day to day work at IESC by the end of the summer!
-Andrea
Sustaining Impact 