Amid this uplifting atmosphere comes two recent success stories from our Advanced Track interns. In this article, we would like to share with you our two success stories happened recently:
AndyT found his way into our finance industry, from commodity trading house
We first got to know AndyT at one of our SMU roadshows in July 2013. During that roadshow, Yoman & his core group of SpringBoard mentors painted an unbiased picture of our finance industry to the SMU postgraduate students. AndyT was clearly interested in joining the finance industry, but he had a couple of personal issues to resolve first. After sorting out his own issues over the next few months, he could commit his full attention and signed up for our Mentorship Programme in Dec 2013. He demonstrated great passion in learning and also embraced Yoman’s slogan to “Continue Learning and Keep On Networking”.
After learning well under JS re the top-down &bottom-up style of investing, AndyT swiftly progressed to the Advanced state after Chinese New Year, where he was given numerous learning opportunities. He was resourceful enough to combine SpringBoard’s referrals with his own networking efforts to his full advantage. The more significant SpringBoard referrals for him were: (1) a job interview opportunity with a global investment bank looking for research associate; and (2) a special internship opportunity with a senior property analyst, where he could work and learn full-time from that analyst about how he runs his investment processes. Besides rigorous modelling and research skills, he also had opportunities to join numerous quarterly/annual analyst briefing to greatly enhance his knowledge about the sector. He was also lucky enough to participate in the full cycle of a pre-IPO project from data gathering, modelling, research to marketing and sales. He thus gained extensive industry insights about equity business from research to sales trading and investment banking that he never exposed to before.
After learning well on SpringBoard platform, AndyT was very resourceful and leveraged on his own private contacts to find his way into a Chinese brokerage firm expanding its business in South East Asia, covering stocks on China and Hong Kong talking to fund managers &analysts. This is a perfect example of how hungry and passionate one needs to be to get into front office in our finance industry.
NLH finally make it into a regional investment bank from public sector!
NLH first came to SpringBoard seminar-style events in 2012, prior to the revamped SpringBoard. She had graduated with an Economics degree and was working in the civil service. When SpringBoard platform was revamped in late 2012, she was one of the first few to come on board, in the good hands of our star mentor Ruishan. She learnt her financial modeling skills well under Ruishan, and quickly progressed to Advanced state.
However, things were not smooth sailing for her initially– no doubt she is a very diligent girl but her introverted nature held her back due to the nature of our finance industry. She could not secure any finance job despite numerous job referrals. Yoman strongly encouraged her to “Continue Learning and Keep On Networking”, and she willingly embraced his slogan by attending numerous CFA luncheon talks and having coffee sessions with industry people on a monthly basis. The most significant SpringBoard referrals for her were: (1) an opportunity to learn from a senior equity salesperson highly regarded in our industry; and (2) a special opportunity to work on assignments from a senior bank analyst, where she was learning and working under his close guidance over several weekends, including public holidays. Later, SpringBoard injected more elements into Advanced Programme and organised Stock Pitch competition every 2- 3 months. These stock pitch competitions helped NLH improve her communication skills significantly, such that job interviews started to come her way into 2014.
In the final leg of her SpringBoard stint, NLH received offers from a few employers and she eventually chose to join the senior bank analyst who had by then became Head of Research at a regional bank. What truly impressed the Head of Research was not her financial modelling skills or pitching skills, but her sincere & down-to-earth nature that distinguished her from other candidates he met in the entire process. NLH carried with her this spirit of “How can I help you?”, that Yoman promulgated in the initial stages of SpringBoard platform.
