Professional experiences

The “Professional experiences” category contains posts about the professional experience of contributors (apprenticeship, internship, consulting mission, first job, etc.).

My experience as a machine learning research intern: from social media data to an IEEE publication

by
Anirudh Kumar

In this article, Anirudh KUMAR (B.S. Economics, IIT Kanpur, with a minor in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) shares his experience as a machine learning research intern. From February to August 2024, he worked under the supervision of Professor Swagato Chatterjee on a study of how people respond to Facebook communication about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The project later became a paper in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

About the research project

The project examined a practical communication problem. When an organization posts about a sustainable technology, which parts of the message are associated with likes, comments, shares, and other interactions? We chose hydrogen fuel cell vehicles because the technology is promising but still unfamiliar to many people. Organizations therefore have to explain both its immediate uses and its longer-term potential.

A single subject can be framed in very different ways. A post about a hydrogen-powered bus might discuss lower tailpipe emissions, give technical details about fuel-cell efficiency, announce a government pilot project, or warn about the cost of delaying cleaner transport. The technology is the same, but the topic, readability, and emotional tone are different. Our job was to turn those differences into variables that we could test.

My internship

My missions

My mission was to help build a reproducible pipeline from raw Facebook posts to research findings. I worked on text cleaning, topic modelling, sentiment and emotion measures, model comparison, charts, and short research briefs. Each stage had to answer a specific question: what was measured, why was it measured that way, and could another researcher reproduce the result?

Figure 1. From Facebook posts to research findings
Research workflow from Facebook data to text features, models, and findings
Source: Author’s own work.

The research workflow in practice

Step 1: collecting and structuring the data

The study used Facebook posts collected through CrowdTangle from February 2022 to February 2024. The search combined “hydrogen fuel” with terms such as vehicle, car, transport, train, airplane, traffic, and truck. We kept English-language posts and used the country of the page administrators to divide the sample.

The final dataset contained 9,672 posts: 4,106 observations from developed countries and 5,566 from developing countries. The developed-country sample was led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The developing-country sample included India, China, the Philippines, South Africa, Pakistan, Myanmar, and observations from 72 other countries.

Our outcome variable was the total number of interactions with a post. We also recorded factors that could affect engagement even before considering the words, including the page’s followers and likes at the time of posting and whether the post was a photo, video, status update, or another format.

Step 2: cleaning the text with NLTK and spaCy

NLTK and spaCy are Python libraries for natural language processing. I used them to split text into tokens, remove material that did not help the analysis, and reduce related word forms to a common lemma. For example, lemmatization can map vehicles to vehicle and emissions to emission. This prevents the model from treating simple grammatical variations as unrelated ideas.

A simplified preprocessing example

Illustrative post before cleaning: “Hydrogen-powered buses are not yet cost competitive, but they can reduce urban emissions.”

Illustrative tokens after cleaning: “hydrogen”, “power”, “bus”, “not”, “yet”, “cost”, “competitive”, “reduce”, “urban”, “emission”.

The word not is important. If a standard stop-word list removed it, the sentence could appear more positive than the writer intended. I therefore did not treat preprocessing as a one-click operation. I inspected examples after URL and punctuation removal, after tokenization, after stop-word filtering, after lemmatization, and after the final features had been created. This is what I meant by checking the data after every major transformation.

Consistency mattered too. The forms EV, electric vehicle, and electric vehicles can refer to the same idea. If they are left as separate terms without review, topic frequencies and model inputs can become harder to interpret.

Step 3: finding topics with Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Latent Dirichlet Allocation, or LDA, is a topic model. It searches for groups of words that often occur together and represents each post as a mixture of those groups. I compared specifications with different numbers of topics and used coherence scores as one diagnostic. The final choice also had to produce topics that a reader could distinguish and name.

For developed countries, the model identified 12 topics. Examples included “Battery Technology and Toxicity” with words such as battery, lithium, toxic, electricity, EV, and metal; “Electric Aircraft and Aviation” with aircraft, plane, aviation, and flight; and “Electric Cars and Sustainable Transportation” with vehicle, electric, car, and powered. These three short-term topics had the strongest positive relationships with engagement relative to the reference topic in the final Poisson model.

For developing countries, the model identified 11 topics. Examples included “Government Green Energy Projects”, “Electric Vehicles and Battery Technology”, and “Future Energy Technologies”. The mix was different from the developed-country sample: immediate transport projects mattered, but longer-term energy planning also attracted attention.

This step taught me the difference between an output and a finding. LDA will always return word groups. The researcher still has to check whether those groups are stable, distinct, and useful for answering the research question.

Step 4: measuring sentiment and emotion

I used TextBlob and NLTK WordNet for sentiment measures and NRCLex for emotion categories. Sentiment summarizes whether the language is more positive or negative. NRCLex adds categories such as anticipation, trust, joy, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness.

The distinction matters because two negative messages can invite different reactions. A post expressing sadness about slow adoption may encourage passive reading, while a post warning about an urgent climate or energy risk may evoke fear and prompt comments or shares. In the final models, fear had the strongest positive relationship among the negative emotions in both country groups. Among positive emotions, anticipation was important in developed countries and trust was important in developing countries.

Dictionary-based scores are constructed variables, not direct readings of a person’s feelings. Negation, technical language, and context can change a sentence’s meaning. I therefore checked sample classifications instead of assuming that every automated label was correct.

Step 5: measuring readability

The study measured text complexity with the Gunning Fog Index. The index combines average sentence length with the share of complex words, usually words with three or more syllables:

Fog Index = 0.4 x [(words / sentences) + 100 x (complex words / words)]

Consider three ways to introduce the same subject. “Hydrogen cars are good” is easy to read but says little. “Hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity without tailpipe carbon emissions, although storage and refuelling remain costly” gives the reader both an accessible explanation and useful detail. A paragraph filled with unexplained terms such as proton-exchange membranes, electrochemical conversion, and volumetric energy density may be accurate but difficult for a general audience.

The results showed an inverted U-shaped relationship between the Fog Index and interactions. Engagement rose as messages became more informative, then fell when the text became too complex. The precise turning point differed by context. In the developing-country analysis, the partial-dependence curve reached its maximum near a Fog score of 20.

Step 6: comparing explanatory and predictive models

We used Poisson regression to explain how readability, topics, and emotions were associated with the count of interactions. We then compared Random Forest, Support Vector Regression, XGBoost, and Poisson-based predictive models. The predictive exercise used both in-sample and out-of-sample root mean squared error, or RMSE. A lower out-of-sample RMSE means the model predicted unseen posts more accurately.

The comparison also showed why the training score cannot be the only criterion. In the developed-country sample, XGBoost achieved a low in-sample error but showed signs of overfitting. Random Forest provided a better balance. Its out-of-sample RMSE fell from 4,898 in the baseline model to 3,056 after topic information was added. Adding emotion variables changed the error to 3,171, so the larger feature set was not automatically better.

What the study found

Message complexity has a middle ground

Posts that were very simple could lack useful information, while highly technical posts could demand too much effort from a general reader. The highest engagement appeared between those extremes. For an organization, the practical lesson is to explain the technology clearly without removing the detail that makes the message informative.

Relevant topics differ across markets

In developed countries, short-term topics such as electric vehicles, battery technology, and aviation were more engaging than distant or futuristic themes. In developing countries, the pattern was mixed. Government green-energy projects and battery technology mattered, but future energy technologies also resonated. A single global content plan would miss these differences.

Trust and fear both matter

Trust can make a new technology feel credible, while fear can draw attention to the consequences of inaction. Neither result means that organizations should exaggerate. It means the emotional tone of a message is measurable and should be considered alongside the topic and readability.

Communicating the results

I converted the analysis into topic tables, model-comparison charts, feature-importance plots, and three short research briefs. One chart compared the out-of-sample RMSE of the four predictive approaches. Another summarized the 12 developed-country topics and the 11 developing-country topics. The briefs translated those outputs into communication questions: how technical should a post be, which topics fit each market, and which emotional signals require careful interpretation?

This work exposed weak explanations quickly. If I could not explain why Random Forest was preferred to XGBoost, or what a topic coefficient meant relative to the reference topic, the figure was not ready for another reader.

Required skills and knowledge

The internship required Python, natural language processing, regression, machine learning, and model evaluation. My economics courses helped me define variables and separate association from causation. My AI and machine-learning coursework helped me build the pipeline and compare models.

The work also required careful records. I kept track of cleaning rules, exclusions, topic specifications, model versions, and evaluation results. I treated the code as shared work. A co-author should be able to see what changed and why.

From internship to publication

The project developed into the article Drivers of Social Media Engagement on Organizational Communication on Sustainable Technological Innovation: Insights from Developed and Developing Countries, published in 2026 in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

The manuscript went through several rounds of revision. I learned to treat a changed result as information rather than as a setback. If a coefficient, topic, or model ranking changed after a reasonable specification check, we needed to understand the reason before keeping the claim.

What I learned

The question comes before the model.

I now write the research question in plain language before opening a notebook. In this project, the question was not simply which algorithm predicts engagement best. We also needed to understand which message characteristics were associated with engagement and whether the relationships differed across country groups.

Small decisions need a record.

A stop-word choice can change the meaning of a sentence. A different number of LDA topics can change the labels used in the regression. Weeks later, those decisions are difficult to reconstruct from memory, so I keep a short log of exclusions, transformations, and model changes.

Prediction and explanation are different tasks.

Poisson regression helped us interpret relationships between the features and interaction counts. Random Forest was more useful for prediction. Neither result replaced the other. A strong research design needed both an interpretable explanation and an honest test on unseen data.

Financial concepts related to my internship

Investor attention

Attention is scarce in financial markets as well as on social media. Investors cannot read every earnings call, filing, news article, and management post. Topic and engagement analysis can help researchers study which firms or themes receive attention and whether that attention is associated with trading activity.

Sentiment and textual analysis

Earnings calls, annual reports, and management commentary contain language that can be measured systematically. The internship taught me to inspect how a sentiment variable was built before treating it as a signal. A financial sentence with negation or technical terminology can confuse the same dictionary methods used for social-media text.

Model risk

The XGBoost result offered a direct example of model risk. A model can fit the training data closely and perform poorly on new observations. Out-of-sample tests, sensitivity checks, and readable documentation are essential when a model may influence an investment or business decision.

How I use these lessons now

In my current work as an AI Growth Intern at Pocket FM, I apply the same method to a different problem: a GenAI workflow that converts Hindi audio scripts into Marathi. I work with editors to define quality criteria for emotional beats, narrative hooks, and regional expressions. A fluent translation is not enough if it changes the scene’s intent.

The research internship taught me to make those criteria explicit, inspect intermediate outputs, and document recurring errors. The tools have changed, but the habit of testing each transformation remains useful.

Why should I be interested in this post?

A published paper can make research look linear. My experience was less tidy. A cleaning rule affected the topics, the topics affected the models, and the models sometimes sent us back to an earlier decision. The practical work was in those links.

For students interested in finance, data science, or AI, the project shows how researchers can turn raw language into evidence. Technical skill is necessary, but the result is easier to trust when the examples, assumptions, and out-of-sample performance are visible.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

Looking for an internship or a research experience? You may find useful information in other posts where contributors describe their professional work:

   ▶ All posts about Professional experiences

   ▶ Haiyuan XU My professional experience as a financial research assistant in a green finance institute

   ▶ Anant JAIN My internship experience at Deloitte

Useful resources

Chatterjee, S., Ghatak, A., Meena, A. K. and Meena, P. (2026). Drivers of Social Media Engagement on Organizational Communication on Sustainable Technological Innovation: Insights from Developed and Developing Countries. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 73. DOI: 10.1109/TEM.2026.3665711.

Blei, D. M., Ng, A. Y. and Jordan, M. I. (2003). Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 3, 993-1022.

NLTK Project. Natural Language Toolkit documentation.

Explosion. spaCy usage documentation.

About the author

The article was written in July 2026 by Anirudh KUMAR, who completed a B.S. in Economics at IIT Kanpur with a minor in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He is an AI Growth Intern at Pocket FM and previously worked in product management at AryaVastra and machine-learning research under Professor Swagato Chatterjee. His interests include behavioral finance, empirical research, and AI applications in business.

   ▶ Discover all articles by Anirudh KUMAR.

Trading as Principal in Illiquid Markets: What No Finance Course Can Fully Prepare You For

by
Isaac Fainstein

In this article, Isaac FAINSTEIN, Director at Petrini Valores and Visiting Lecturer at IESEG School of Management (Lille), shares his professional experience as a trader in illiquid fixed income and emerging markets — and what practitioners know that most finance courses never cover.

About Petrini Valores

Petrini Valores is an Argentine broker-dealer specializing in fixed income, equities, derivatives, and financing. The firm operates as a market maker in illiquid corporate and provincial bonds, across multiple asset classes: peso-denominated, USD-denominated, inflation-linked, and dollar-linked instruments. It also participates as a member of underwriting syndicates in primary bond issuances.

As Director of the trading desk, I am responsible for pricing, execution, and risk management across these asset classes on a daily basis.

Logo of Petrini Valores.
Logo of Petrini Valores
Source: Petrini Valores.

Trading in practice: what the desk actually looks like

I have been trading fixed income and foreign exchange in Argentine markets for over fifteen years. Over that same period, I have taught applied finance courses at IESEG School of Management in Lille — courses built around the situations I encounter at the desk every week. What follows is an attempt to bridge those two worlds.

Agency, intermediation, and principal trading: three different jobs

Most finance programs teach students how to price securities. Fewer teach them what it actually feels like to put the firm’s capital at risk to make a market. The distinction between agency trading, intermediation, and principal trading is more consequential than most courses suggest.

In agency trading, you act on behalf of a client — executing their order in the market, taking no position yourself, earning a fee for the service. The client bears the market risk. You are their agent.

Intermediation — what practitioners often call riskless principal — is already a form of proprietary trading, technically speaking. You act as principal on both legs: you buy from one counterparty and simultaneously sell to another, earning the bid-ask spread. Because both legs close at the same time, your market exposure is minimal. You are not an agent of either side. You are a counterparty to both, just briefly, and without meaningful inventory risk.

Principal trading with inventory risk is something else entirely. The firm puts its own capital on the line with no guaranteed exit. You buy a bond from a client with no buyer lined up on the other side. You sell from your own inventory because a client needs to buy. You absorb the spread — and the full market risk that comes with holding the position until you can unwind it. The longer you hold, the more exposure you carry. This is the mode that no simulation fully replicates, and the one this article is about.

Pricing illiquid bonds: when there is no obvious answer

A large portion of my daily activity involves corporate and provincial bonds that do not trade on a liquid exchange. There is no visible order book. There is no Bloomberg mid-price that everyone agrees on. There is a fragmented OTC market where each dealer forms their own view of value.

When a client calls and asks for a bid or offer on one of these bonds, I have to produce a price — quickly, without full information. I know what I think the bond is worth. What I do not know is whether the client is a buyer or a seller.

This asymmetry is at the heart of market-making in illiquid securities. If I quote too tight a spread, I may find myself on the wrong side of a pre-arranged trade. A client may call five dealers simultaneously, collect our offers, and hit the best one — while already having a buyer on the other side paying more than my offer. In that case, I have sold bonds below what the market was willing to pay, and the client has effectively traded through me.

I use this scenario in class regularly. Students are always surprised. They assume that being a good trader means knowing what something is worth. It does — but it also means understanding the information game you are playing with the person on the other side of the phone.

Then there is the moment that every trader knows: you have priced the trade, the client has everything they need to decide, and then — nothing. They go to lunch. They are in a meeting. They are closing another trade. You are sitting there holding a price in a moving market, watching the bid shift while you wait for a response that may or may not come. No simulation I have seen fully replicates the specific discomfort of that moment.

Primary market underwriting: when commitment meets reality

Beyond secondary market activity, I participate as an underwriter in primary bond issuances for Argentine corporates, as part of the underwriting syndicate organized around each deal. This is a different kind of principal risk — one that is taken on before the bond even exists.

When a company decides to issue a bond, I commit to underwriting a portion of the deal. This is a real financial commitment: if investor demand is insufficient to cover the full issuance, I absorb the remainder onto my own book. In Argentina, primary markets typically use a Dutch auction format — investors submit bids specifying the coupon rate they are willing to accept and the quantity they want. The issuer then sets a clearing rate that satisfies the target issuance amount.

On auction day, I am simultaneously placing bonds with my own client base, managing my underwriting exposure, and monitoring where the clearing rate is likely to land. If I have covered my commitment with investor demand, I am in good shape. If not, the unsold portion of my underwriting commitment ends up on my balance sheet at the clearing rate — and I work that position off over the following days or weeks, offering it into a market that may or may not be ready to absorb it.

This is textbook principal risk. It is also something that very few students have any mental model for before entering the industry.

FX mismatches and capital controls: the Argentine laboratory

Argentina has operated with capital controls for years. At their peak, the gap between the official exchange rate and the blue-chip swap rate — a market-implied rate derived from the implicit FX embedded in cross-market bond transactions — reached several hundred percent. Today the gap has narrowed significantly, but the structure remains.

This creates situations that no standard finance course addresses. A bond denominated in dollars can be bought and sold in different currencies. If I buy a USD bond paying dollars and sell it against pesos, I receive pesos for an asset I paid for in dollars. I now have a currency mismatch on my book: I am effectively long pesos, short dollars. I can hedge that exposure immediately by buying back the dollars in the FX market, or — if I have a view that the implied exchange rate will move in my favor — I can hold the position and let it run.

The decision is not mechanical. It depends on my reading of the regulatory environment, the direction of the blue-chip swap rate, and how much currency risk I am willing to carry on the book at that moment. This is daily life on the desk. And it is very difficult to teach without the context that produces it.

When models break: the lesson of negative oil prices

In April 2020, front-month WTI crude oil futures briefly traded at negative prices. Physical storage constraints had overwhelmed the market’s mechanics, and sellers were willing to pay counterparties to take delivery of crude oil they had nowhere to store.

I watched it happen from the desk in real time. What struck me was not the price itself — it was the reaction across the industry. Many traders assumed it was a glitch. Some platforms were simply not built to display or process negative prices, and brokers whose systems could not show the quotes found themselves liable to clients who could not see — let alone act on — what was happening in the market. Several firms had to absorb losses because their technology had never contemplated the possibility.

I use this episode as an opening in class — not to explain futures mechanics, which students can read in any textbook — but to ask a different question: what do you do when the model produces an answer that the real world seems to reject? What is your decision framework when your screen shows something that looks impossible? The answer is that you need to understand the why behind the price before you can act on it. That understanding is not something you can look up in real time. Either you have built it, or you have not.

The most important rule on a trading desk

Every trader makes mistakes. A wrong-way position, a misread signal, a fat-finger entry. What separates good trading culture from bad is not the absence of errors — it is what happens in the first thirty seconds after one occurs.

The worst thing a trader can do is wait. Hiding a mistake, even briefly, turns a manageable problem into a serious one. A position that could have been closed at a small loss will compound. The bid-ask spread you avoided paying once will have widened by the time you are forced to act.

The most important rule on any trading desk is this: when you make a mistake, communicate it immediately. No fear of consequences should outweigh the cost of silence. A well-run desk creates an environment where immediate transparency is rewarded — because the alternative is invariably more expensive. This is not a financial concept. It is a cultural one. And it may be the most practically useful thing I can tell any student before they sit down at a real trading desk for the first time.

Argentina: the best trading school you never attended

With a World Cup recently concluded — and Argentina’s performance still fresh in everyone’s memory — there is a useful analogy worth making. Argentina’s best players did not all come through polished academies with perfect pitches and controlled conditions. Many learned on uneven surfaces, in chaotic environments, where improvisation and resilience were not optional. Those conditions, more often than not, produced technically complete and mentally durable players.

The same logic applies to trading in an environment like Argentina. Multiple asset classes, multiple yield curves, structural illiquidity, capital controls, and macroeconomic volatility — all simultaneously, all the time. Traders who come through this market and move to larger ones — Brazil, Mexico, or developed markets — typically find the transition smoother than expected. They have already navigated conditions that most traders in more liquid markets never face. When you learn to trade in the mud, the rest feels like solid ground.

Financial concepts related to this article

I present below four financial concepts central to my daily work as a trader in illiquid and emerging markets.

Principal trading and inventory risk

In principal trading, the broker-dealer buys or sells securities using its own capital, taking market risk onto its own balance sheet. This contrasts with agency trading, where the firm executes on behalf of a client and earns a fee, or with intermediation (riskless principal), where the firm matches both sides simultaneously and earns the bid-ask spread without holding inventory risk. The critical difference is time: in principal trading, the firm holds a position that may not be unwound immediately, and the longer it is held, the greater the market exposure.

Underwriting syndicate and book runner

In a primary bond issuance, several broker-dealers form an underwriting syndicate, each committing to place a portion of the deal with investors. The book runner is the lead of this syndicate — it manages the investor order book, coordinates pricing with the issuer, and oversees the allocation process. Other syndicate members, such as Petrini Valores in many Argentine corporate issuances, commit to their own underwriting tranche and are responsible for placing it with their client base. If a syndicate member cannot fully place its portion, the unsold bonds remain on its balance sheet at the clearing rate.

Dutch auction in primary bond markets

A Dutch auction is a price-discovery mechanism in which investors submit bids specifying both quantity and the coupon rate they are willing to accept. The issuer sets a single clearing rate that satisfies the target issuance amount. All successful bidders receive bonds at the clearing rate, regardless of their individual bids. This format is widely used in Argentine primary markets for corporate bond issuances.

Blue-chip swap rate and capital controls

In markets with capital controls, such as Argentina, the blue-chip swap rate (also known as the contado con liquidación or CCL rate) is an implied exchange rate embedded in cross-market bond transactions. It reflects the market’s assessment of currency value in the absence of free convertibility and can diverge significantly from the official rate. Managing positions across currencies in this environment requires an understanding of the regulatory framework and a constant read on the gap between official and market-implied rates.

Why should I be interested in this post?

If you are a finance student planning to work in sales and trading, fixed income, or any market-facing role, the situations described here are among the ones you will encounter earliest — and none of them are fully captured in a simulation or a pricing model.

The gap between finance education and market reality is not about knowledge. Most graduates know their bond math. The gap is about judgment: knowing how to act when information is incomplete, the counterparty is not responding, and the market is moving. Understanding how principal risk, illiquidity, and currency mismatches interact in real time is the difference between arriving prepared and arriving surprised.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

   ▶ All posts about Professional experiences

   ▶ Abel ARAYA Inside the Markets COO Office at HSBC: Understanding How Trading Floors Are Managed

   ▶ David GONZALEZ Discovering the Secrets of a Bank Trading Room

   ▶ Mickael RUFFIN My Internship Experience as a Structured Finance Analyst at Société Générale

   ▶ All posts about Financial techniques

Useful resources

Academic research

Gkillas K. and Longin, F. (2018) Financial market activity under capital controls: lessons from extreme events, Economics Letters, 171, 10-13.

Martellini, L., Priaulet, P., Priaulet, S. (2003) Fixed-Income Securities: Valuation, Risk Management and Portfolio Strategies, John Wiley & Sons.

Hull, J. C. (2021) Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives, 11th edition, Pearson.

Business resources

Petrini Valores — Argentine broker-dealer specializing in fixed income, equities, derivatives, and financing.

FINRA Tools and Calculators — public source for US bond transaction data and pricing context.

About the author

This article was written in July 2026 by Isaac FAINSTEIN, Director at Petrini Valores and Visiting Lecturer at IESEG School of Management (Lille), where he has taught applied finance and trading courses for over 10 years.

   ▶ Discover all articles by Isaac FAINSTEIN.

Inside the Markets COO Office at HSBC: Understanding How Trading Floors Are Managed

by
Abel ARAYA

In this article, Abel ARAYA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025) offers an inside look at the Markets COO Office at HSBC Continental Europe. Through his one-year apprenticeship, he shares how this central function coordinates trading activities, manages budgets and risks, and ensures that the Markets division operates with efficiency and strategic discipline.

About the company

HSBC was founded in 1865 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to finance trade between Europe and Asia, and has since grown into one of the world’s leading financial institutions. Headquartered in London and listed in London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Bermuda, it held around 3.2 trillion US dollars in assets at the end of 2025, employed roughly 211,000 people across some 56 countries and territories, and served more than 40 million customers.

On the wholesale side, its corporate and institutional clients are covered by the Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) division, which generated around 27.6 billion US dollars in revenue in 2025. Within CIB, the Markets and Securities Services teams provide liquidity, financing and risk-management solutions across fixed income, credit, FX, equities and securities services to large corporates, financial institutions, asset managers, hedge funds and governments. In this business HSBC competes with the other major global markets houses, such as JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs in the United States, and Deutsche Bank, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Société Générale in Europe, differentiating itself through its international network and its historical strength in Asia.

I worked at HSBC Continental Europe, the group’s Paris-headquartered subsidiary covering continental Europe. Since the sale of its French retail banking business on 1 January 2024, it has refocused on corporate and institutional clients, with a consolidated balance sheet of 251 billion euros in total assets at the end of 2025.

Logo of HSBC.
Logo of HSBC
Source: the company.

During my apprenticeship, the Markets division was in the process of being integrated into the broader Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) structure. This reorganization involved significant changes to how the division was managed, reported, and resourced, which made my experience at the COO Office particularly rich in terms of exposure to strategic and operational transformation.

My internship

My missions

As a Business Manager Assistant within the Markets COO team, my work covered a wide range of financial and operational responsibilities. I contributed to the production of internal reports and presentations for senior management, summarizing the performance, expenses, and headcount of the Markets division. These documents were used in management meetings, financial steering committees, and due diligence reviews conducted during the restructuring process.

I was closely involved in cost forecasting and budget follow-up, helping the team anticipate upcoming expenses and identify deviations from plan. One of my key projects was the annual broker review, which required consolidating trading flow data across all asset classes to assess the efficiency, transparency, and compliance of relationships with external counterparties. This involved close coordination with traders, operations, and compliance teams across Paris, Germany, and India.

I also supported the preparation of headcount reports and organizational charts used by senior management to steer the restructuring of the division. These deliverables required precision and a thorough understanding of how each desk contributed to the overall structure of the Markets business.

Required skills and knowledge

This role required a combination of analytical and interpersonal skills. On the technical side, strong proficiency in Excel was essential for building budget models, consolidating large datasets, and producing financial summaries. Familiarity with the structure of a markets division, including the roles of front office, operations, compliance, and finance, was also important to contextualize the data I was working with.

Soft skills mattered just as much. Coordinating with stakeholders across multiple countries and hierarchies required clear written and oral communication, the ability to manage competing priorities, and a high level of attention to detail. The pace of the environment also demanded adaptability: priorities shifted quickly, and producing reliable output under time pressure was a daily reality.

What I learned

This experience gave me a deep understanding of how financial institutions manage their operations behind the scenes. I learned how budgets are built, how costs are tracked and challenged, and how strategic decisions made at senior level translate into concrete actions on the trading floor. I also developed a much clearer picture of how risk is monitored and how compliance frameworks shape the day-to-day behaviour of a markets division.

Working across teams in Paris, Frankfurt, and India gave me direct exposure to how global coordination works in practice. I learned the importance of data quality and rigour: a single inconsistency in a report could lead to misunderstandings or delayed decisions at the highest level. This reinforced my attention to detail and my commitment to producing work that is both accurate and clearly communicated.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: cost and budget management, change management, and due diligence.

Cost and Budget Management

Cost and budget management refers to the process by which an organization plans, monitors, and controls its financial resources to ensure that spending remains aligned with strategic objectives. In a markets division, this involves tracking a wide range of costs: staff compensation, technology infrastructure, external service providers, and regulatory compliance expenses. The budget is typically set at the beginning of the year based on business forecasts and strategic priorities, and then monitored on a monthly basis against actual expenditure.

In my role at the Markets COO team, cost and budget management was one of my primary responsibilities. I contributed to the monthly budget follow-up by consolidating cost data from different desks and entities, identifying variances between forecasts and actual figures, and preparing summary reports for senior management. When a desk was running significantly above or below budget, the COO team would investigate the drivers and, if necessary, escalate to management for a decision. I learned that in a large institution like HSBC, even small deviations in cost forecasts can have a significant impact on the division’s overall financial performance, particularly during a period of restructuring where cost targets were closely scrutinized.

Change Management

Change management is the structured approach through which an organization transitions from its current state to a desired future state while minimizing disruption to operations and people. In the context of financial institutions, it often involves reorganizations, mergers of business lines, technology migrations, or regulatory-driven transformations. Effective change management requires clear communication, stakeholder alignment, and careful sequencing of decisions to ensure continuity of service during the transition.

During my apprenticeship, HSBC’s Markets division was undergoing a major strategic restructuring: the Markets and Securities Services unit was being integrated into the broader Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) structure. This was not a minor adjustment, but a fundamental reorganization of how the division was governed, resourced, and reported. I observed the effects of this transformation directly through my work: headcount reports were being revised regularly, cost allocation frameworks were changing, and the responsibilities of the COO team were evolving to reflect the new organizational model. I worked closely with the COO based in Germany, who was managing part of this transition, and I saw first-hand how much coordination and precision are required to keep a large division functioning smoothly while simultaneously reshaping it. Change management, in that context, was not an abstract concept: it was a daily operational reality.

Due Diligence

Due diligence refers to the comprehensive process of investigating and verifying information before making a significant business decision. In investment banking and financial services, it is most associated with mergers and acquisitions, where a buyer conducts a thorough review of the target company’s finances, legal situation, and operations. However, the concept applies equally to other contexts, including the assessment of external service providers, the validation of financial data before it is presented to management, and the review of counterparty relationships.

In my role, due diligence took the form of the annual broker review process. This involved systematically reviewing the trading flows directed to each external broker, verifying the accuracy of the data, and assessing whether the allocation of business to each counterparty was justified by objective performance criteria. The process required gathering data from multiple sources, reconciling inconsistencies, and presenting findings to senior management with clear supporting evidence. I also contributed to due diligence exercises conducted during the restructuring process, where the COO team was asked to validate headcount and cost data before it was presented to the executive committee. These experiences taught me that rigorous due diligence is not just about finding problems: it is about building the trust and confidence that allow organizations to make well-informed decisions.

Why should I be interested in this post?

If you are a student in business and finance considering a career in financial markets, this post offers a perspective that is rarely covered in mainstream discussions about finance careers: the operational and strategic backbone of a trading floor. Most students aspire to front-office roles in trading or sales, and rightly so. But understanding how a markets division is actually run, how its costs are managed, how its risks are monitored, and how major transformations are navigated, is an invaluable foundation for any finance career.

A role in a Markets COO or Business Management team is particularly well-suited for students who want to develop a transversal understanding of markets while building strong analytical and organizational skills. It is also increasingly recognized as a credible path toward front-office positions: many senior traders and sales managers have spent time in COO or control functions early in their careers, and this experience gives them a level of business awareness that pure front-office profiles often lack. Whether you are targeting trading, sales, risk, or corporate finance, the skills and perspective gained in this type of role will give you a genuine advantage.

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   ▶ David GONZALEZ Discovering the Secrets of a Bank Trading Room

   ▶ Louis DETALLE A quick review of an Analyst in Transaction Services’ job

   ▶ Mickael RUFFIN My Internship Experience as a Structured Finance Analyst at Société Générale

Useful resources

HSBC — Corporate and Institutional Banking

ESMA — MiFID II and MiFIR

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision — Sound Practices for Operational Risk Management

About the author

The article was written in July 2026 by Abel ARAYA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025).

   ▶ Discover all articles by Abel ARAYA

What I Learned on a Trading Floor at HSBC: Understanding Markets from the Inside

by
Abel ARAYA

In this article, Abel ARAYA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025) shares his experience on HSBC’s trading floor in Paris. He explains how this opportunity helped him understand how a global markets division operates, how teams interact, and what makes the environment of a trading floor so unique.

From private banking to markets

Before joining HSBC, I was working in private banking at Milleis Banque Privée. It was a good introduction to finance, but I wanted to understand how the markets worked behind the scenes. Joining HSBC Continental Europe as a Business Manager Assistant within the Markets COO (Chief Operating Officer) team gave me the chance to discover that world for the first time. The COO function within a markets division is responsible for the operational and financial oversight of the trading floor: it sits at the intersection of strategy, finance, and day-to-day management, supporting the front office without being directly involved in trading itself.

About the company

HSBC was founded in 1865 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, created to finance trade between Europe and Asia. More than a century and a half later, it has become one of the largest banking and financial services groups in the world. Headquartered in London and listed in London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Bermuda, the group held around 3.2 trillion US dollars in assets at the end of 2025, employed roughly 211,000 people across some 56 countries and territories, and served more than 40 million customers.

On the wholesale side, where I worked, HSBC brings together its corporate and institutional clients under the Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) division, which generated around 27.6 billion US dollars in revenue in 2025. CIB was created on 1 January 2025 by combining the former Global Banking and Markets business with commercial banking activities outside the UK and Hong Kong, with the ambition of ranking among the top three global wholesale banks. Within CIB, the Markets and Securities Services teams provide liquidity, financing and risk-management solutions across fixed income, credit, foreign exchange, equities and securities services.

Its clients are large corporates, financial institutions, asset managers, hedge funds and governments that rely on the bank to trade, hedge and finance their activities across the world. In this space HSBC competes with the other large global markets houses, such as JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs in the United States, and Deutsche Bank, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Société Générale in Europe. Its main differentiator remains its international network and its historical strength across Asia and emerging markets.

My apprenticeship took place at HSBC Continental Europe, the group’s Paris-headquartered subsidiary covering continental Europe. Since the sale of its French retail banking business on 1 January 2024, HSBC Continental Europe has refocused on corporate and institutional clients, with a consolidated balance sheet of 251 billion euros in total assets at the end of 2025.

During my apprenticeship, this reorganization was still under way, which made it a particularly interesting time to observe how such a large organization adapts its structure while continuing to run its business day to day.

Logo of HSBC.
Logo of HSBC
Source: the company.

My apprenticeship

Within the Markets COO team, my work focused on the financial and organizational aspects of the trading floor. I contributed to budget monitoring, forecasts of upcoming expenses, and internal reports related to costs and resources. I was involved in the broker review process and in the preparation of financial summaries presented to management.

This position gave me a transversal view of the Markets division and helped me understand how each team contributes to the overall structure. I interacted with many different stakeholders: the COO in Germany, who was managing a restructuring process, teams in India working on operational data, and senior managers in Paris overseeing the desks. These collaborations taught me how coordination and communication are essential to keep such a large platform running efficiently.

Life on the trading floor

Working so close to the trading floor was one of the most rewarding parts of my experience. Even though my role was on the management side, I was constantly in contact with the desks. I often visited traders, salespeople, and structurers to better understand their activities and the financial implications of their operations. One moment that stayed with me was a conversation with a rates trader during a period of elevated volatility in the European bond market. He explained how the sudden widening of spreads between Italian BTPs and German Bunds was forcing him to adjust his hedging positions in real time, something I had only ever read about in textbooks. These interactions helped me connect the numbers I was analysing to the real market dynamics they represented.

The atmosphere on the floor was intense and collaborative at the same time. Information flowed constantly between desks, from rates to credit to repo, and decisions were made quickly. Observing this rhythm every day helped me understand how interconnected market teams are, and how much relies on clear communication and mutual trust.

What I learned

This experience gave me a real understanding of how a trading floor operates, both economically and humanly. I learned how a large institution like HSBC manages its costs, allocates resources, and balances strategic priorities with budget realities. I also saw how economic pressures, regulatory changes, and internal dynamics influence decisions at every level of the organization.

Spending time close to the Fixed Income desks gave me a concrete sense of how sales, traders, and support teams work together. I realized that beyond products and numbers, markets are built on relationships, coordination, and constant adaptation.

Most importantly, this experience taught me the value of curiosity and initiative. By going to speak directly with teams, asking questions, and trying to understand their world, I gained insights that no spreadsheet could have given me. It made me appreciate both the complexity and the humanity of financial markets.

This one-year apprenticeship was a very strong first step into the world of markets. It helped me confirm that the natural next step for me would be a front-office internship as a Sales in Fixed Income, where I could build on what I learned and continue to grow within a trading environment.

Financial concepts related to my professional experience at HSBC

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: market liquidity, collusion risk, and profit and loss (P&L).

Market Liquidity

Market liquidity refers to the ease with which a financial instrument can be bought or sold in the market without significantly moving its price. A liquid market has many buyers and sellers, tight bid-ask spreads, and the ability to execute large transactions quickly. An illiquid market, by contrast, forces participants to accept worse prices or wait, which can turn a theoretically profitable position into a loss once execution costs are taken into account.

In fixed income markets, liquidity is not uniform: it varies by product, by maturity, and by the time of day. Sovereign bonds such as French OATs or German Bunds are among the most liquid instruments in the world, with spreads of just a few basis points. Corporate bonds, by contrast, trade far less frequently and can see spreads widen dramatically in periods of stress. Structured products and exotic rates instruments can be even harder to unwind quickly.

One of the things I discovered at HSBC is the central role brokers play in providing liquidity. Not all brokers are equal: some are specialists on particular products or market segments. For example, inter-dealer brokers such as TP ICAP or Tradition are well known for their activity in rates and repo markets, where they connect banks anonymously to facilitate large transactions. During the annual broker review process that I participated in, traders would assess which brokers had provided the best liquidity, the most reliable pricing, and the fastest execution across different products. This review directly influenced how trading flows were allocated across brokers the following year. It made me understand that liquidity is not just a market property: it is also a relationship, built and maintained between institutions over time.

Collusion Risk

In financial markets, collusion risk between traders and brokers refers to a specific form of conflict of interest: a trader systematically routing a disproportionate volume of transactions to a particular broker, not because that broker offers the best execution, but because of a personal relationship, reciprocal favours, or informal arrangements. This behaviour is harmful to clients, who are entitled under regulation to receive the best available price and execution, a principle known as best execution, enshrined in the MiFID II directive in Europe.

The risk is subtle and not always easy to detect. A trader may genuinely believe that their preferred broker is the best, when in reality they are simply more comfortable with them. Over time, this can result in a concentration of flows toward one or two brokers that is not justified by objective performance criteria such as pricing quality, speed of execution, or market access. In the worst cases, the relationship can involve gifts, entertainment, or the sharing of confidential information, all of which are strictly regulated.

This is exactly what the annual broker review process at HSBC was designed to monitor and prevent. As part of my role in the Markets COO team, I contributed to this review, which involved analysing the distribution of trading flows across brokers and comparing it against objective performance metrics. If a trader was sending a significantly higher share of their volume to one broker without a clear justification, that anomaly would be flagged and discussed. The process ensured that broker relationships remained grounded in performance rather than personal preference, protecting both the bank and its clients. Working on this review gave me a direct understanding of how compliance and governance function in practice on a trading floor, and why they matter.

Profit and Loss (P&L)

Profit and Loss (P&L) is the daily measure of how much money a trading desk has made or lost. It captures the combined effect of market movements, trading activity, and fees. In my role within the Markets COO team, the P&L was one of the most important indicators I worked with. Each morning, the desks produced a flash P&L report, and my team consolidated these figures to produce management summaries that were reviewed by senior leadership. I also contributed to the analysis of P&L trends over time, identifying which desks were performing above or below forecast and understanding the drivers behind deviations. I learned that P&L is not just a financial result: it is a real-time signal of how well a desk is managing its positions, its risks, and its client relationships. Monitoring P&L every day gave me a concrete and dynamic view of how financial markets translate into business performance.

Why should I be interested in this post?

If you are a student in business or finance thinking about a career in financial markets, this post can help you understand what to expect from a first experience on a trading floor. Many students have a strong theoretical background in finance but are uncertain about how these concepts translate into day-to-day work. Through my experience at HSBC, I discovered that even a non-front-office role offers an exceptional vantage point: by working within the Markets COO team, I was exposed to P&L reporting, liquidity management, broker reviews, and budget processes that are central to how a bank manages its markets activities.

This post is also relevant if you are considering roles in Markets COO, Business Management, or Finance Control within a bank. These positions are often overlooked by students who focus exclusively on trading or sales, yet they offer direct exposure to the full scope of a markets division and are increasingly valued as a stepping stone toward front-office responsibilities. Whatever your target role, understanding how a trading floor operates, its rhythms, its pressures, and its culture, will give you a real advantage in interviews and on the job.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

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   ▶ Mickael RUFFIN My Internship Experience as a Structured Finance Analyst at Société Générale

Useful resources

HSBC — Corporate and Institutional Banking (including Markets and Securities Services)

ESMA — European Securities and Markets Authority

BIS — OTC Derivatives Statistics

About the author

The article was written in July 2026 by Abel ARAYA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025).

   ▶ Discover all articles by Abel ARAYA

When custom software becomes a management decision

by
Axel RUDLOFF

In this article, Axel RUDLOFF (founder and President of Koragence, and a student at ESSEC Business School, Grande Ecole Program – Master in Management (MiM), 2025–2029) shares observations drawn from building and managing software engineering projects involving system integration, artificial intelligence (AI), DevOps and custom business applications. The article explains why a software project is not only a technical investment: it is also a managerial decision about productivity, risk, operating processes and capital allocation.

Introduction

Companies rarely decide to develop custom software when existing systems no longer support the way the business actually operates. An enterprise resource planning system (ERP), such as SAP, may need to exchange data with a customer relationship management system (CRM), supplier application programming interfaces (APIs), document-management tools or applications developed internally. Difficulties arise when these systems must share data reliably, enforce specific business rules and support critical processes without repeated manual entry.

At Koragence, the projects I supervise often involve synchronising ERPs, integrating partner APIs, automating document processing with AI, rebuilding business workflows, or implementing DevOps architectures. DevOps refers to the practices and tools used to automate, secure and monitor the development and operation of software. Depending on the business criticality of a project, the architecture may target 99.95% availability, or up to 99.99% when the infrastructure supports multi-region redundancy, load balancing and advanced incident-recovery mechanisms.

About Koragence

Koragence is a French digital-services company specialising in custom software, web engineering, and process automation. The company designs business applications, software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, internal tools, customer portals and technical integrations for companies, startups, associations and public organisations.

Koragence has delivered more than 20 projects for clients located in more than six countries and works with a network of more than 50 active collaborators and partner companies. This model makes it possible to assemble a team according to the specific needs of each assignment, including software development, user experience and user interface design (UX/UI), cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, accessibility and data engineering.

Logo of Koragence.
Logo of Koragence
Source: the company.

My experience as founder and President

As founder and President, I am responsible for turning a business problem into a project that can be delivered economically and technically. This includes business development, qualification of client needs, project scoping, pricing, team selection, contractual discussions, delivery governance and long-term client relationships.

I also remain directly involved in product and technical decisions. On a typical assignment, I help identify the critical workflow, define the minimum useful scope, choose which components should be standard and which should be custom, coordinate the specialists involved, monitor delivery and manage relationships with clients.

My main responsibilities

My work can be divided into five areas: identifying operational problems with measurable business consequences; translating those problems into functional and technical features; building the right project team; controlling scope, budget, quality and delivery risk; and ensuring that the software creates value after deployment rather than becoming an additional tool that employees do not use.

Required skills and knowledge

This role requires both technical and managerial skills. Technical knowledge is necessary to assess architecture, security, integrations, databases and infrastructure. Business knowledge is equally important because the best technical solution is not always the best investment. A founder must also understand margins, cash flow, pricing, negotiation, contractual risk and the opportunity cost of allocating a team to one project rather than another.

The most important soft skills are active listening, synthesis, communication and decision-making under uncertainty. Clients rarely describe their problem in technical terms. It is therefore necessary to distinguish symptoms from root causes, challenge assumptions with diplomacy, and explain trade-offs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

What I have learned

The main lesson is that the quality of the initial diagnosis, the clarity of responsibilities and the realism of the scope have a major impact on project cost and delivery.

The invisible cost of a fragmented information system

One of the most frequent problems is the repeated entry of the same information into several systems. In one project for an industrial group with several hundred employees, a team spent more than 1,600 hours per year re-entering information from supplier catalogues into an internal database. Beyond the labour cost, this process created entry errors, inconsistencies between reference systems and disputes caused by contradictory information.

The software project removed this break in the information flow. Supplier data were collected automatically through standardized AI document extraction, checked for consistency and integrated into the internal SAP system. The economic value came from reducing labour and disputes with suppliers.

Integration has become a central management issue

Suppliers increasingly expose APIs, ERPs provide connectors, CRMs publish webhooks and most business software can exchange data automatically. This creates opportunities, but every external connection also becomes a dependency. A partner API may change version, become unavailable or modify its behaviour. Reliable software therefore requires monitoring, logging, error recovery, security controls and ongoing maintenance.

In another project, Koragence developed a platform capable of supervising more than 15 industrial machines through supplier APIs while centralising more than 1,100 alerts and distributing notifications across several channels. The architecture was designed to scale to 100 machines without replacing the underlying technical model.

This type of project illustrates why integration is a strategic issue. The system must not only work on launch day; it must continue to work when the number of users, machines, documents or external dependencies increases. Maintenance is therefore part of the investment decision from the beginning.

Artificial intelligence changes the economics of software and automation

In the past, automating supplier catalogues, technical data sheets, invoices and other documents required highly standardised formats and rules written separately for each source. In practice, these standards were often incomplete or inconsistently applied. AI models can now interpret a much wider variety of documents, extract useful information and feed databases or business software. This makes some automations faster and less expensive to implement.

However, AI does not remove the need for architecture, control and human judgment. A 2026 study of more than 100,000 software developers found that autonomous coding agents produced very large gains in coding activity, but smaller gains at the level of completed projects and actual releases. The authors interpret this difference as evidence that human and organisational bottlenecks still limit final output. In other words, writing code faster does not automatically mean shipping reliable software faster.

This distinction matters for managers. AI can lower the marginal cost of implementation, but the investment remains rational only when the company has correctly defined the workflow, data model, responsibilities, controls and expected return. The decision is therefore not “AI or no AI”; it is how AI can be integrated into a dependable operating system.

Economic, financial and business concepts related to my founder experience

I present below three concepts that are directly connected to my work at Koragence: transaction costs and the make-or-buy decision, return on investment and payback period, and operating leverage through reusable software assets.

Transaction costs and the make-or-buy decision

A company can buy standard software, adapt an existing product, outsource a custom development or build internally. The licence price is only one part of the decision. Managers must also consider transaction costs: integration work, manual reconciliation, training, vendor coordination, contract management, switching costs and the risk created by dependence on a supplier.

Standard software is usually preferable when the process is common and the product already satisfies the essential requirements. Custom software becomes more rational when the workflow is strategically important, highly specific, poorly served by standard tools or expensive to operate manually. My role is to help clients compare these alternatives rather than assume that custom development is always the correct answer.

Return on investment and payback period

Return on investment (ROI) compares the economic gains generated by a project with its total cost. For software, the benefits may include labour hours saved, fewer errors, faster sales cycles, reduced downtime, better compliance or additional revenue. The cost must include not only development, but also hosting, maintenance, training and change management.

The payback period measures how long it takes for cumulative benefits to recover the initial investment. For example, if an automation costs €40,000 and creates €5,000 of measurable monthly savings, its simple payback period is eight months. This calculation is not sufficient on its own, but it creates a common language between operational teams, finance teams and technical providers.

Operating leverage and reusable assets

Software can create operating leverage because the same technical system can support a higher volume of transactions without a proportional increase in labour. A platform designed for 15 machines and capable of supporting 100 machines illustrates this principle: the client can grow while avoiding the need to multiply manual supervision at the same rate.

The same logic applies to Koragence. Reusable components, documented deployment processes, quality controls and specialist partnerships reduce the cost and risk of future projects. Nevertheless, reuse must not become generic copy-and-paste delivery. The objective is to standardise the reliable foundations while preserving the business-specific layer that creates value for each client.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This topic is relevant to students interested in entrepreneurship, corporate finance, consulting, operations, private equity or digital transformation. Software investment decisions increasingly affect company valuation, operating margins, scalability and risk. Understanding these projects therefore requires more than technical knowledge.

For a finance student, custom software provides a concrete example of capital allocation: management commits resources today in exchange for expected future cash flows, cost savings or strategic flexibility. For a future consultant or entrepreneur, the article also shows why technology projects must be framed around measurable business outcomes rather than features alone.

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   ▶ All posts about professional experiences

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   ▶ Alessandro MARRAS, Venture Capital 101: A Quick Overview

Useful resources

Academic research

Brynjolfsson, E., Li, D., & Raymond, L. R. (2025). Generative AI at Work , The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(2), 889–942.

Demirer, M., Musolff, L., & Yang, L. (2026). Writing Code vs. Shipping Code: Productivity Effects Across Generations of AI Coding Tools , NBER Working Paper No. 35275.

Williamson, O. E. (1989). Transaction Cost Economics , in Handbook of Industrial Organization, Volume 1, 135–182.

Lacity, M. C., Khan, S. A., & Willcocks, L. P. (2016). The role of Transaction Cost Economics in Information Technology Outsourcing research: A meta-analysis of the choice of contract type , The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 25(1), 32–48.

Koller, T., Goedhart, M., & Wessels, D. (2020). Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies, Seventh Edition, Hoboken (NJ), John Wiley & Sons.

Business resources

Koragence — Company website

Koragence — When custom software still makes sense in 2026

National Bureau of Economic Research — AI coding tools and software delivery productivity

About the author

The article was written in July 2026 by Axel RUDLOFF, founder and President of Koragence and a student at ESSEC Business School, Grande Ecole Program – Master in Management (MiM), 2025–2029.

   ▶ Discover all articles by Axel RUDLOFF.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena — Learning Derivatives Sales from the Trading Floor

by
Marco SIMONETTI

In this article, Marco SIMONETTI (ESSEC Business School, MSc in Finance, 2025-2027) shares his experience as an Off-Cycle Sales & Trading Derivatives Intern at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena in Milan. The internship gave me direct exposure to how a corporate and investment banking desk transforms market information into practical hedging and trading solutions for corporate clients.

My role sits at the intersection of markets, corporate finance and client advisory. On one side, I follow macroeconomic and market developments in real time; on the other, I help translate those developments into concrete ideas for clients exposed to commodities, foreign exchange and interest rates.

About the company

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) is one of the major Italian banking groups and is widely known as the world’s oldest bank still in operation, with origins in Siena in 1472. Today, the Group operates across retail banking, corporate banking, wealth management and capital markets activities.

My internship is based in Milan, within Sales & Trading Derivatives. The desk works with corporate clients that are exposed to fluctuations in commodity prices, exchange rates and interest rates. For example, an industrial company may need to hedge the cost of energy or raw materials, while an exporter may need to manage the risk that currencies move against its future revenues.

The value added by this type of desk is not simply to sell a financial product. It is to understand the client’s business model, identify the risk exposure, structure an appropriate solution and coordinate with traders to deliver an executable price. In other words, the role combines technical knowledge, market timing and commercial judgment.

Logo of the company.
Logo Bbanca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Source: Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

My experience as a Sales & Trading Derivatives Intern

My missions

Client coverage and needs identification: I supported the coverage of a portfolio of around 20 clients, helping identify hedging and trading needs across commodities, foreign exchange (FX) and interest rates. In practice, this meant understanding what each company buys, sells, imports, exports or finances, and how market volatility can affect its margins, cash flows and planning.

Market intelligence: I prepared real-time market reports and macro-driven trade ideas using Bloomberg. Bloomberg is a professional financial data platform used by banks, asset managers and corporates to monitor market prices, news, analytics and execution tools. My work involved following central-bank decisions, inflation data, interest-rate curves, energy markets and metals prices, then summarizing the implications for clients.

Product structuring: I worked on vanilla and semi-structured products such as forwards, swaps, options, collars and TARNs. A forward locks in a future price or exchange rate; a swap exchanges one stream of cash flows for another; an option gives protection or upside participation; a collar combines options to create a protection band; and a TARN (Target Redemption Note) is a structured product that terminates when a predefined target is reached.

Pricing and execution support: I worked day to day with traders to understand derivative pricing, bid-ask spreads and Greeks. The bid-ask spread is the difference between the price at which a dealer is willing to buy and the price at which it is willing to sell. The Greeks are risk measures used for options: for example, delta measures sensitivity to the underlying price, vega measures sensitivity to volatility and theta measures sensitivity to time decay.

Transaction process: I followed transactions from the client request to trade execution. This made me understand that the job requires both technical precision and process discipline: the client problem must be clearly identified, the structure must be suitable, the price must be executable and the documentation must be aligned with internal and regulatory requirements.

Commercial impact: From a core group of clients, the activity contributed approximately EUR 10k of daily revenues, primarily across oil & gas, energy and metals. This gave me a concrete view of how client relationships, market timing and product structuring can translate into measurable business results.

Required skills and knowledge

Hard skills: The internship requires knowledge of derivatives, fixed income, FX, commodities, option pricing, Bloomberg, macroeconomics, financial modeling and risk management. It also requires the ability to understand payoff profiles, compare hedging alternatives and interpret market data quickly.

Soft skills: The role also requires clear communication, attention to detail, speed under pressure and the ability to simplify complex market information. In derivatives sales, technical knowledge is useful only if it can be translated into a clear and relevant message for the client.

What I learned

The main lesson I learned is that derivatives sales is a bridge between markets and the real economy. A company does not hedge because a model says so; it hedges because volatility in oil, gas, metals, currencies or interest rates can directly affect its margins, debt service or investment plans.

I also learned that the quality of a trade idea depends on three elements: the market view, the client fit and the execution level. A correct macro view is not enough if the product is too complex for the client, too expensive to execute or misaligned with the company’s risk appetite.

Finally, the experience showed me the importance of discipline. Every price, spread, scenario and payoff profile must be checked carefully because derivatives can create both protection and risk. This is why sales and traders must work closely together before a transaction is executed.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship experience:

Hedging with derivatives

Hedging means using financial instruments to reduce exposure to an unwanted risk. In my internship, typical risks include commodity price risk, FX risk and interest-rate risk. A commodity consumer may use swaps or options to stabilize future input costs; an exporter may use FX forwards to lock in an exchange rate; and a borrower may use interest-rate derivatives to reduce uncertainty around future financing costs.

Bid-ask spread and market making

The bid-ask spread is the difference between the price at which the bank can buy and the price at which it can sell a product. In derivatives, this spread compensates the bank for liquidity, hedging costs, market risk and operational complexity. Understanding the spread is important because it affects both the client’s execution level and the bank’s revenue.

Greeks and option risk management

The Greeks measure how the value of an option changes when market variables change. Delta measures sensitivity to the underlying price, gamma measures the change in delta, vega measures sensitivity to volatility, theta measures time decay and rho measures sensitivity to interest rates. These measures help traders hedge the risks created by client transactions and manage the desk’s exposure.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post is relevant for ESSEC MiF students because it shows how financial theory becomes operational in a real banking environment. Courses on derivatives, portfolio management and financial markets provide the analytical foundation, but the internship shows how these tools are used under time pressure, with real clients and real market constraints.

For students interested in sales & trading, corporate banking or risk management, the role demonstrates that technical excellence and commercial understanding must go together. The best solutions are not necessarily the most complex ones, but the ones that are suitable, executable and useful for the client.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

   ▶ All posts about Professional experiences

   ▶ Posts about derivatives and financial markets on the SimTrade blog

   ▶ Posts about trading and market making on the SimTrade blog

Useful resources

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena — Group website

Banca MPS — Commodity derivatives

Banca MPS — Foreign exchange derivatives

Banca MPS — Interest-rate derivatives

About the author

The article was written by Marco SIMONETTI (ESSEC Business School, MSc in Finance, 2025-2027), based on his experience as an Off-Cycle Sales & Trading Derivatives Intern at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena in Milan.

   ▶ Discover all articles by Marco SIMONETTI

Cristoforo Travel — From Zero to Exit: My Founder Story

by
Marco SIMONETTI

In this article, Marco SIMONETTI (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025-2026) shares his founder experience building, scaling, and exiting Cristoforo Travel (2021-2025), a traveltech venture focused on B2B software and analytics for travel agencies and tour operators.

About the company

I founded Cristoforo Travel in early 2021 to help travel providers rebound after the pandemic with better technology and analytics. A traveltech company applies digital tools to the travel industry: for example booking engines, payment integrations, inventory management, pricing automation, customer data, and forecasting models. In our case, the objective was to help travel agencies and tour operators sell more efficiently, integrate fragmented systems, and use data to improve margins.

The company combined consulting with custom development to integrate booking and payment rails, automate inventory and pricing, and deliver lightweight forecasting tools. This hybrid model generated revenue quickly while compounding reusable IP. IP, or intellectual property, refers to proprietary assets that a company owns or controls; for Cristoforo Travel, this included connectors, software modules, analytics templates, and technical documentation that could be reused across clients. Reusing this IP reduced implementation time over successive engagements and made each new project easier to scale.

Our clients were mainly travel agencies and tour operators, ranging from independent agencies to larger B2B accounts. Among the most recognizable names, we worked with clients such as Alpitour and Evaneos. The value added was practical and measurable: we helped clients connect booking and payment systems, structure cross-selling flows, improve inventory visibility, and test pricing or demand assumptions with data instead of intuition. Cross-selling is now common across tourism: once a traveler buys a flight, hotel, or package, providers try to add insurance, transfers, activities, excursions, upgrades, or ancillary services. Our role was to make those add-on opportunities easier to manage and monetize for professional travel sellers.

The competitive landscape included traditional booking engines, travel CRM/ERP providers, destination-management software, and larger travel technology platforms used by agencies and tour operators. We competed less on brand size and more on flexibility, speed of integration, and the ability to combine product development with hands-on business consulting. Compared with large off-the-shelf platforms, our added value was the capacity to customize workflows for each client while gradually transforming repeated requests into reusable software modules.

Over time, I built a global partnership footprint – more than 90 partners across six continents – and secured enterprise-level agreements that pressure-tested reliability, security, and scale. Commercially, the business reached approximately €2 million in annual sales. As is typical in B2B travel services, gross margins were relatively low and varied by contract, usually between 5% and 20%, with an average of around 10% over five years. After operational costs and personnel expenses, the business generated approximately €30k-€40k per year of personal income for me, which I used to finance my studies abroad.

In June 2025, I sold my shares through a clean share sale. Due to confidentiality obligations, I cannot disclose the name of the acquiring company. However, I can say that it is listed on a Milan startup/SME stock market segment and operates with a business model very close to ours, which made the strategic fit natural.

Logo of the company.
Logo of Cristoforo Travel
Source: the company.

As founder and CEO, I led capital raising, product and delivery, sales and partnerships, and financial planning – owning the P&L, forecasting, and investor relations.

My experience as founder at Cristoforo Travel

My missions

Capital & financing: I raised €200k in seed funding from two angel investors to accelerate product and commercial rollout. I built a lean operating plan that linked hiring and product sprints to cash runway. Cash runway is the number of months a company can continue operating before running out of cash, based on its cash balance and monthly burn rate.

Product & delivery: I shipped integrations for booking and payments, pricing automation, and demand-forecasting tools. I balanced bespoke implementations with reusable modules: the first projects were more customized and lower-margin, but each engagement helped us identify features that could later become standardized modules.

Go-to-market: I created partnership playbooks, prospected and closed over 90 global partners, and established enterprise agreements with travel agencies and tour operators. I showcased our solutions at international trade fairs to generate pipeline, validate pain points directly with buyers, and compare our positioning against larger travel technology providers.

Data & strategy: I developed macro leading-indicator models for Southern Europe to guide market sequencing, inventory focus, and pricing experiments. These models helped prioritize which geographies, destinations, and product categories were more likely to convert depending on demand signals and seasonality.

Exit & integration: I negotiated a clean share sale in June 2025. A clean share sale means selling shares through a straightforward transaction with limited unresolved liabilities, clear ownership transfer, and clearly defined post-closing obligations. After the transaction, the technology and client logic were prepared for integration into the acquiring company, whose name I cannot disclose for confidentiality reasons. The acquirer is listed on a Milan startup/SME stock market segment and has a business model very similar to Cristoforo Travel.

Required skills and knowledge

Hard skills: financial modeling and runway management, pricing and unit economics, SaaS implementation and systems integration, data analysis for forecasting, and contract structuring, including SLAs, security, and compliance. SaaS means Software as a Service: software delivered online, usually through a subscription or recurring-fee model, instead of being installed and maintained locally by each client. SLA means Service Level Agreement: a contractual commitment that defines expected service quality, such as uptime, response times, support obligations, data protection, and remedies if service levels are not met.

Soft skills: enterprise sales storytelling, stakeholder management with investors, partners, and customers, cross-functional leadership, negotiation, and execution under uncertainty. In a small traveltech company, the founder often has to sell to clients, translate their operational problems into technical specifications, manage developers, and keep cash discipline at the same time.

What I learned

I learned that in traveltech, the best product ideas often come from concrete client problems. Our clients – travel agencies and tour operators, including accounts such as Alpitour and Evaneos – did not simply want software; they wanted fewer manual operations, better cross-selling, faster integrations, and more reliable data for pricing and inventory decisions. Competitors were often larger platforms or generic booking/CRM systems, but our advantage was speed, customization, and the ability to turn repeated client requests into reusable modules.

I also learned that consulting and development can fund product while accelerating learning. With around €2 million in annual sales, margins in B2B travel remained tight: contracts usually delivered 5%-20% gross margin, with an average around 10% over five years. This forced disciplined capital allocation. After costs and personnel, the company generated around €30k-€40k per year for me personally, enough to finance my studies abroad. That outcome taught me that a startup does not need to become a unicorn to create real value: it can also finance education, build professional credibility, and create strategic exit options.

Finally, selling at the edge of the roadmap validated security and compliance early, while clean interfaces and documentation made future M&A or platform integration smoother. The most important lesson was that sustainable growth depends on linking product decisions to client demand, cash discipline, and unit economics rather than chasing growth for its own sake.

Financial concepts related to my startup project

I present below three financial concepts related to my founder experience:

Seed financing, dilution & runway

Raising €200k from angel investors required balancing valuation and dilution with the operating runway necessary to reach commercial milestones. I built cash-flow forecasts, set hiring gates, and linked product sprints to liquidity checkpoints to avoid premature scaling. In practice, runway management meant asking: how many months can we finance development, sales, and support before the next cash inflow or funding milestone?

Unit economics & operating leverage

Our hybrid model began with lower margins from custom work but improved contribution as reusable modules, connectors, and templates reduced delivery time. Tracking gross margin by engagement type and CAC payback by partner cohort guided where to standardize and where to remain bespoke. Since B2B travel margins can be low, the key was to increase repeatability: each reusable connector or analytics template improved future unit economics.

Valuation, deal structure & integration

For my share sale in June 2025, I evaluated considerations beyond the headline price: representations and warranties, transition obligations, confidentiality, and the strategic value of integration into a listed company with a similar business model. Clean interfaces and documentation lowered integration risk and preserved the long-term value of the technology.

Why should I be interested in this post?

If you are an ESSEC MiF student curious about venture building or fintech-adjacent B2B business models, my story shows how financial discipline can combine with product-market execution to create real optionality. B2B means business-to-business: a company sells products or services to other companies rather than directly to consumers. In my case, Cristoforo Travel sold to travel agencies and tour operators, so success depended on enterprise trust, integrations, contract discipline, and measurable ROI for professional clients.

The broader advice is simple: start from a painful operational problem, sell early, measure margins contract by contract, document everything, and build reusable assets whenever a client request repeats. That combination can support profitable growth, finance personal and academic goals, and make a strategic exit more credible.

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Useful resources

Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy — Startup innovative

Registro Imprese — Start-up innovative

Alpitour — Company website

Evaneos — Company website

About the author

The article was written in June 2026 by Marco SIMONETTI (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025-2026).

   ▶ Discover all articles by Marco SIMONETTI

My Internship Experience as a Marketing Intern at XING QI Educational Institution

by
Bochen LIU

In this article, Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025) shares his professional experience as a Marketing Intern at XING QI Educational Institution in Beijing, China.

About the company

XING QI is a private educational institution based in Beijing, China, specializing in after-school programs and supplemental learning for primary and secondary school students. Operating in a highly competitive market, the institution focuses on attracting students, improving enrolment, and maintaining high-quality educational services.

I worked within the marketing team, which was responsible for managing digital campaigns, promoting institutional events, analyzing marketing performance, and supporting student recruitment initiatives. The department ensured that promotional strategies reached potential students effectively and that marketing resources were allocated efficiently to support enrollment growth.

My internship

During my studies at ESSEC Business School, I joined XING QI Educational Institution as a Marketing Intern from 2021 to 2022. This experience provided hands-on exposure to digital marketing, campaign management, and event organization, offering insight into how strategic marketing decisions influence organizational growth.

The internship allowed me to observe how marketing activities are planned, executed, and evaluated, and how data-driven adjustments can improve performance and business outcomes.

My missions

I managed online promotions and social media campaigns, contributing to a 35% increase in inquiries and a conversion rate of approximately 20% into enrollments. By redesigning advertising materials and conducting A/B testing, I helped improve campaign return on investment by about 18%, ensuring marketing resources were used efficiently.

In addition to digital campaigns, I supported campus events that attracted over 300 students and generated more than 50 new registrations. Organizing these events required coordination with team members, preparation of promotional materials, and direct engagement with students and parents. These activities demonstrated how marketing strategies directly influence customer behavior and institutional growth.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required both technical marketing competencies and interpersonal communication skills. I used digital advertising tools, analytics platforms, and performance tracking methods to monitor campaign effectiveness and optimize promotional strategies. Applying marketing principles helped ensure campaigns were targeted and efficient.

Collaboration and communication were equally important, as I worked closely with the marketing team to coordinate campaigns, collect feedback, and refine event planning processes. Critical thinking and problem-solving were necessary when analyzing performance data and proposing improvements.

What I learned

This internship deepened my understanding of how marketing contributes to organizational growth. I learned the importance of continuously measuring campaign performance, understanding target audiences, and applying data insights to improve outcomes.

I also developed project management and coordination skills by working with multiple stakeholders during campaigns and events. These experiences strengthened my ability to organize tasks, manage timelines, and support team objectives effectively.

Furthermore, the internship highlighted the connection between marketing and finance. Digital campaigns and events generate revenue and influence institutional profitability, while evaluating campaign performance involves metrics similar to ROI calculations. My prior exposure to financial concepts through SimTrade helped me interpret marketing data quantitatively and understand how business decisions are assessed in terms of returns.

Business and financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three business and financial concepts related to my internship: marketing return on investment (ROI), conversion rate analysis, and data-driven strategic decision-making.

Marketing return on investment (ROI)

Marketing return on investment (ROI) measures the effectiveness of promotional spending relative to the results generated. By redesigning advertising materials and testing campaign variations, I contributed to improving ROI by increasing the efficiency of marketing expenditures and maximizing enrollment outcomes.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate analysis evaluates how effectively inquiries or leads are transformed into actual customers. Tracking inquiry growth and enrollment conversion rates allowed the marketing team to assess campaign performance and refine targeting strategies, demonstrating how quantitative metrics guide operational improvements.

Data-driven strategic decision-making

Data-driven strategic decision-making involves using performance metrics and analytical insights to guide organizational actions. Through analyzing campaign results and event outcomes, I observed how marketing data supports planning, resource allocation, and long-term institutional growth strategies.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post provides insight into how marketing internships contribute to business performance and strategic development. Students interested in finance, business strategy, or management can understand how campaign analytics, performance metrics, and event coordination influence revenue generation and organizational growth.

The experience illustrates how analytical thinking, data interpretation, and structured planning are transferable skills valuable across marketing, finance, and broader business careers.

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Useful resources

Beijing Weiqi Association official website

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016) Marketing Management, 15th Edition, Pearson.

Farris, P. W., Bendle, N. T., Pfeifer, P. E., & Reibstein, D. J. (2010) Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance, Pearson.

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025).

   ▶ Discover all posts by Bochen LIU

My Internship Experience as an Accounting Intern at Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group

by
Bochen LIU

In this article, Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025) shares his professional experience as an Accounting Intern at Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group in Beijing, China.

About the company

Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group is a Beijing-based state-owned enterprise specializing in the production of asphalt mixtures, high-strength concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete, and other construction materials used in municipal infrastructure projects.

The company operates within the broader Beijing Municipal Road & Bridge system, a large infrastructure group formed through state-owned restructuring and joint investment by municipal entities. The broader group has registered capital exceeding RMB 2.2 billion, total assets around RMB 39 billion, more than 110 subsidiaries, and over 16,000 employees, reflecting the large operational scale of the infrastructure network in which the materials business operates.

As part of this infrastructure supply chain, the materials division supports road construction, bridge engineering, and urban maintenance projects by providing standardized building materials and technical support for municipal contractors.

Logo of Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group.
Logo of Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group
Source: the company.

I worked in the accounting department, which handled transaction recording, supplier invoice verification, project expense tracking, and preparation of monthly internal financial summaries to ensure operational data was accurately reflected in the accounting system and compliant with national regulations.

My internship

During the summer of 2022, I joined Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group as an Accounting Intern. This experience provided hands-on exposure to corporate accounting practices, financial reporting processes, and internal workflow management, helping bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world financial operations.

The internship allowed me to understand how accounting systems function in practice and how accurate financial information supports management decisions and organizational efficiency.

My missions

My primary responsibility was preparing monthly debit and credit financial reports. This required collecting, verifying, and consolidating financial data from multiple departments, ensuring all entries were accurate and compliant with national accounting standards. Through this process, I became familiar with journal entries, reconciliation procedures, and the role of accurate reporting in corporate governance.

In addition to reporting tasks, I collaborated with senior accountants in reviewing financial records and identifying potential discrepancies. By participating in discussions and assisting with verification processes, I supported the team’s application of accounting principles and contributed to improving data reliability within the accounting workflow.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required both technical and interpersonal competencies. On the technical side, I applied accounting principles, financial data verification methods, and report preparation techniques to present financial information clearly and accurately. I also learned how to structure reports so that they were informative, reliable, and useful for managerial review.

Soft skills were equally important. Communication and teamwork were necessary when coordinating with accountants and other departments, while attention to detail ensured data accuracy. These skills helped me contribute effectively to the accounting team and maintain smooth financial processes.

What I learned

This internship gave me a practical understanding of corporate accounting and financial reporting. Corporate accounting focuses on recording and verifying daily transactions, classifying expenses, and maintaining accurate internal financial data. Financial reporting, in contrast, involves summarizing this accounting information into structured monthly reports used by managers to monitor costs and evaluate project performance. Through my work checking invoices, reconciling entries, and helping prepare monthly summaries, I saw how accurate accounting records form the foundation for reliable financial reports and how errors at the transaction level can directly affect managerial decisions.

I also learned how structured reporting supports decision-making. By helping prepare monthly financial summaries, I saw how standardized reports allow managers to track project costs, compare spending across periods, and identify budget deviations. The experience also strengthened my collaboration skills, as I regularly coordinated with procurement and project teams to confirm invoice details and transaction information before the reports were finalized.

Additionally, the internship reinforced my interest in finance by connecting accounting practices with broader financial concepts. My prior exposure to financial markets through SimTrade helped me interpret accounting data in a strategic context and understand how corporate accounting interacts with financial decision-making.

Financial and business concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial and business concepts related to my internship: financial reporting accuracy, internal control and reconciliation, and corporate governance through accounting information.

Financial reporting accuracy

Financial reporting accuracy is fundamental in corporate accounting. Preparing monthly debit and credit reports required ensuring that all entries were properly recorded and verified. Accurate financial reports provide management with reliable information for monitoring performance, planning operations, and making strategic decisions.

Internal control and reconciliation

Internal control and reconciliation processes help prevent errors and detect discrepancies in financial records. By reviewing data with senior accountants and checking financial entries, I observed how structured verification procedures maintain data integrity and reduce operational risk within accounting systems.

Corporate governance

Corporate governance relies on transparent and reliable accounting information. Well-prepared financial reports allow organizations to comply with regulations, demonstrate accountability, and support informed decision-making. My work on monthly reporting illustrated how accounting functions contribute directly to organizational stability and managerial oversight.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post provides insight into how corporate accounting operates within a large infrastructure-related enterprise. Students interested in accounting, corporate finance, or financial analysis can understand how financial reporting, verification procedures, and structured accounting systems support organizational decision-making.

The experience demonstrates how early internships can strengthen both technical accounting knowledge and professional skills, forming a solid foundation for careers in finance and business.

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Useful resources

Municipal Road and Bridge Building Materials Group official website

Anthony, R. N., and Govindarajan, V. (2007) Management Control Systems, 12th edition, McGraw-Hill.

Horngren, C. T., Datar, S. M., and Rajan, M. (2015) Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, 15th edition. Pearson.

Drury, C. (2018) Management and Cost Accounting, 10th edition, Cengage Learning EMEA.

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025).

   ▶ Discover all posts by Bochen LIU

My Internship Experience as an Investment Intern at Kylin Hall Capital

by
Bochen LIU

In this article, Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025) shares his professional experience as an Investment Intern at Kylin Hall Capital.

About the company

Kylin Hall Capital is a Beijing-based venture capital firm investing in early- to growth-stage technology companies in China. The firm focuses on sectors such as advanced manufacturing, clean technology, and deep-tech innovation, targeting startups with strong technological differentiation and scalable business models.

Founded to support innovation-driven companies in China’s rapidly evolving technology ecosystem, the firm operates in a venture capital market characterized by intense competition and high selectivity. Venture investors typically review a large number of potential opportunities each year while only investing in a small fraction of them. Investment decisions, therefore, rely on rigorous screening, structured due diligence, and detailed market analysis.

Kylin Hall Capital evaluates companies based on factors such as market size, technological feasibility, competitive positioning, and long-term growth potential. Its investment process involves industry research, expert interviews, competitor benchmarking, and preparation of analytical reports used by partners to assess opportunities and risks before allocating capital.

Logo of Kylin Hall Capital.
Logo of Kylin Hall Capital
Source: the company.

I worked within the investment research and analysis function, supporting the firm’s deal evaluation process. The team conducted market research, synthesized expert insights, benchmarked competitors, and prepared structured investment reports for partners. This role ensured that investment decisions were supported by reliable information, clear documentation, and consistent analytical reasoning.

My internship

As a third-year student at Queen’s Smith School of Business and an exchange student at ESSEC Business School, I joined Kylin Hall Capital as an Investment Intern in Beijing during 2024–2025. This experience gave me hands-on exposure to investment analysis, market research, and strategic decision-making within a venture capital environment.

Through this internship, I gained firsthand insight into how early-stage investment decisions are grounded in research, critical thinking, and strategic judgment. Investment analysis is not only about numerical evaluation but also about synthesizing diverse information into concise, actionable guidance for decision-makers.

My missions

My missions included summarizing expert interviews, authoring initiation reports, producing investment recommendation reports, and conducting sector research to support the firm’s investment pipeline.

I conducted and summarized expert interviews across multiple technology sectors, identifying market trends, adoption challenges, and competitive dynamics. These summaries created structured knowledge resources supporting ongoing investment analysis.

I authored an initiation report on NL-Tech, in which I analyzed the company’s target market size, customer segments, and revenue model using industry reports, public financial information, and competitor benchmarking tables. I compared NL-Tech’s product positioning, pricing logic, and technological features with key competitors and summarized the findings in a structured memo including market maps, competitor matrices, and a synthesis of expert interview insights. This report provided partners with a clear overview of the company’s market environment, differentiation, and potential strategic risks before moving forward in the evaluation process.

I also prepared an investment recommendation analysis for SAI GAN Technology, examining its business model, technological capabilities, and commercial scalability. I reviewed available company materials, analyzed its competitive advantages and operational challenges, and structured the results into a recommendation note outlining strengths, risks, and potential growth scenarios. The document translated research findings into a concise decision-support format used internally to facilitate discussion among partners regarding the firm’s investment positioning and next steps.

In addition, I researched the nuclear fusion sector, analyzing technological progress, regulatory developments, and competitive landscapes. This work helped identify long-term strategic opportunities and informed the firm’s understanding of emerging investment themes.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required strong technical and analytical capabilities. I used Excel, data visualization tools, market research methodologies, and professional report-writing techniques to analyze complex information. I also learned how to structure investment memos, synthesize findings clearly, and present insights in formats suitable for senior partners.

Soft skills were equally important. Critical thinking was necessary to interpret incomplete or evolving information. Time management ensured deadlines were met, while effective communication allowed me to translate complex analysis into concise recommendations and collaborate efficiently with team members.

What I learned

This experience provided a realistic understanding of how venture capital investment analysis operates in practice.

I learned the importance of structured research and synthesis. Investment decisions rely on combining quantitative metrics with qualitative insights and presenting them in a concise and actionable manner.

I also understood how investment recommendations function as decision-making tools. Reports guide capital allocation, risk assessment, and strategic prioritization, bridging analytical work and actual investment actions.

Additionally, I gained confidence in professional reporting and data presentation. I developed workflows for summarizing interviews, benchmarking competitors, and organizing projections, enabling the team to focus on strategic discussions rather than raw data processing.

Overall, this internship strengthened my interest in venture capital and investment strategy and provided a foundation for future roles in investment analysis, corporate strategy, or portfolio management.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: market and competitor analysis, investment recommendation frameworks, and strategic opportunity identification.

Market and competitor analysis

Market and competitor analysis is fundamental to venture capital investment evaluation. When preparing initiation and recommendation reports, I benchmarked companies within sectors such as NL-Tech, identifying differentiating product features, strategic positioning, and competitive advantages. These analyses informed the firm’s prioritization of investment opportunities.

Investment recommendations

Investment recommendations follow structured evaluation frameworks combining market potential, financial projections, scalability, and risk assessment. I learned to evaluate indicators such as projected revenue growth, technological scalability, and exit potential, integrating these elements into cohesive recommendations supporting partner-level decisions.

Strategic opportunity identification

Strategic opportunity identification involves analyzing emerging industries to anticipate future growth areas. While researching nuclear fusion technologies, I examined technological breakthroughs, regulatory trends, and industry gaps. This process illustrates how venture capital firms align investment strategies with long-term innovation and market evolution.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post provides insight into how venture capital firms evaluate investment opportunities and transform research into actionable decisions. Students interested in investment management, venture capital, or corporate strategy can understand how structured research, analytical reasoning, and professional reporting support real-world investment processes.

The experience also highlights foundational skills such as structured thinking, communication, and strategic analysis, which are essential for careers in finance, consulting, and investment-related fields.

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Useful resources

Anthony, R. N., & Govindarajan, V. (2007). Management Control Systems (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Horngren, C. T., Datar, S. M., & Rajan, M. (2015). Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis (15th ed.). Pearson.

Drury, C. (2018). Management and Cost Accounting (10th ed.).

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025).

   ▶ Discover all posts by Bochen LIU

My Internship Experience at the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC)

by
Bochen LIU

In this article, Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025) shares his professional experience as a Financial Intern at the Agricultural Bank of China.

About the company

The Agricultural Bank of China is one of China’s “Big Four” commercial banks, serving hundreds of millions of customers across retail, corporate, and rural banking segments. With thousands of branches nationwide, ABC plays a major role in financing agricultural development, supporting SMEs, and delivering a wide range of financial services, including deposits, loans, wealth management products, and payment solutions.

Operating at this scale requires robust internal processes such as standardized reporting, regulatory compliance, risk management, and precise handling of customer information. The finance and operations teams ensure that front-line activities align with corporate strategy and risk guidelines, making accuracy and efficiency essential qualities in daily operations.

Logo of the Agricultural Bank of China.
Logo of Agricultural Bank of China
Source: the company.

I worked within the branch environment responsible for financial reporting, operational risk checks, client data processing, and financial product monitoring. This unit coordinated information from multiple departments to prepare performance reports, verify customer records for compliance purposes, and support analysis of retail and corporate banking products. Its role was to ensure that operational data remained accurate, standardized, and available for supervisors, thereby supporting internal control, risk monitoring, and informed managerial decision-making across the branch.

My internship

As a student from Queen’s Smith School of Business participating in the ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, I had the opportunity to join the Agricultural Bank of China as a Financial Intern in Beijing from 2023 to 2024. This experience exposed me to financial operations, reporting workflows, client data management, and retail product analysis within one of China’s largest state-owned commercial banks.

This internship allowed me to witness firsthand how financial operations are supported by structured information flows. Financial reporting and client data processing are not merely administrative tasks; they form the backbone of internal control systems, enabling managers to make timely and informed decisions across the bank’s branches and business units.

My missions

My missions ranged from streamlining weekly management reporting—reducing turnaround time and improving decision-making efficiency—to processing large volumes of client records for daily risk assessment, and analyzing a variety of financial products across retail and corporate banking.

A core responsibility of my role was assisting with weekly management reporting for the branch. I collected financial and operational data from multiple departments, standardized the format, verified accuracy, and prepared consolidated reports for supervisors. By automating portions of the Excel templates and cleaning data more efficiently, I helped reduce the report turnaround time by approximately 20%. This improvement enabled managers to make decisions more quickly and with clearer visibility on the branch’s performance trends.

I also supported the bank’s daily operational risk assessment by processing and verifying large volumes of client records. This included reviewing transaction histories, updating customer information, and ensuring that all files met regulatory and internal compliance requirements. Handling hundreds of records demanded accuracy, confidentiality, and discipline, as small errors could lead to compliance discrepancies or delays during internal audits.

In addition to reporting and operations, I conducted research on over ten retail and corporate financial products, including personal loans, SME credit lines, savings instruments, and investment-linked products. By comparing product structures, pricing, and customer segments, I gained insight into how banks differentiate offerings and balance profitability with client needs.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required both technical and interpersonal skills. On the technical side, I worked extensively with Excel to automate report templates, validate performance indicators, and clean datasets efficiently. I strengthened my understanding of banking products, compliance procedures, and risk management systems.

Equally important were soft skills such as attention to detail, time management, communication, and reliability. Weekly reporting deadlines demanded discipline, while client data processing required precision and structured thinking to avoid compliance-related issues. Through these responsibilities, I developed habits that are essential for a career in finance.

What I learned

This experience provided me with a realistic understanding of operational finance inside a major commercial bank. First, I learned the importance of accuracy. Whether preparing reports or updating client files, even small inconsistencies could affect decision-making or regulatory compliance. This taught me to double-check all figures and maintain clear documentation.

Second, I discovered how reporting frameworks support managerial decision-making. Weekly performance reports acted as diagnostic control systems that helped managers assess branch performance, track deviations, and prioritize resources.

Third, I gained confidence in data processing and product analysis. Working through real client files and financial products strengthened my understanding of commercial banking operations and the financial mechanisms supporting customer services. Finally, this experience enhanced my interest in finance and provided a solid foundation for future roles in financial analysis, banking, or corporate finance.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: management reporting, operational risk assessment, and financial product analysis. These concepts illustrate the connection between my daily tasks and broader financial management practices.

Management reporting

Management reporting is a core component of internal management control. At ABC, weekly reports enabled supervisors to track metrics such as loan growth, customer acquisition, overdue accounts, and product sales. By optimizing reporting workflows, I contributed to more efficient decision-making and improved information flow within the branch.

Operational risk assessment

Operational risk includes failures in processes, systems, or human error. My work processing client data reflected how banks mitigate this risk through documentation checks, standardized records, and compliance verification. Understanding operational risk is essential for evaluating the stability and effectiveness of financial institutions.

Financial product analysis

Financial product analysis involves comparing product structures, pricing mechanisms, customer segments, and risk-return characteristics. Researching retail and corporate banking products helped me understand how banks refine pricing strategies, innovate offerings, and position themselves competitively while respecting regulatory constraints.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post provides a realistic view of a financial internship inside a major commercial bank. Students interested in banking, corporate finance, or financial analysis can gain insight into the operational foundation supporting financial institutions.

The experience highlights the value of structured reporting, data accuracy, and understanding financial products—skills that form the backbone of careers in finance, analytics, and investment management.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

   ▶ All posts about Professional experiences

   ▶ Alexandre VERLET Classic brain teasers from real-life interviews

Useful resources

Agricultural Bank of China official website

Anthony, R. N., & Govindarajan, V. (2007) Management Control Systems (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Horngren, C. T., Datar, S. M., & Rajan, M. (2015) Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis (15th ed.). Pearson.

Drury, C. (2018) Management and Cost Accounting (10th ed.).

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Bochen LIU (Queen’s Smith School of Business, BCom 2023–2027; ESSEC BBA Exchange Program, Fall 2025).

   ▶ Discover all posts by Bochen LIU

My Internship Experience at Société Générale Private Banking

by
Mathis HOUROU

In this article, Mathis HOUROU (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA)) shares his professional experience as an intern in Société Générale Private Banking, showing the role of analytical tools, performance monitoring and advisory support in a wealth management environment.

About the company

Société Générale is a major European banking group with operations in more than 60 countries. As of 31 December 2024, the Group employed approximately 119,000 people, served over 26 million clients in 62 countries, and reported total assets of EUR 1,573.5bn with total equity of EUR 79.6bn. In 2024, net banking income amounted to EUR 26.8bn, while group net income reached EUR 4.2bn.

Logo of Société Générale Private Banking.
Logo of Société Générale Private Banking
Source: Société Generale.

Société Générale is one of the largest European banking groups, offering retail banking, corporate and investment banking, and wealth management services. The Group operates in multiple countries, from individuals to large companies, with diversified financial activities.

Within the Group, private banking represents a very strategic business dedicated to high-net-worth individuals (HNWI). It combines investment advisory, portfolio management, and long-term wealth structuring, relying mainly on a close relationship with the clients.

The role of this segment is crucial for the bank, as high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) create a lot of value. If the bank can’t offer them a service that is differentiating from normal clients, they will go to the competitor. The clients are either coming from the retail segment named SGRF when their account is reaching a certain amount (often around 500k€) or acquired directly from the competitor. In order to do so, Société Générale Private Banking (SGPB) is offering a panel of different investments, exclusive offers, special relationships, and many more.

My internship

During my internship, I worked within the “Maison de Gestion et Conseil” team at Société Générale Private Banking in Paris. My team was responsible for the entire segment of “Banque Privée” and “Gestion Privée” in France, acting as a support function for private bankers and management.

Over a period of 6 months, my role consisted in assisting the team with the day-to-day operation. Being able to help senior managers with precision, professionalism, and efficiency with almost no prior experience was really challenging.

My missions

My main task focused on the development and improvement of analytical and reporting tools, mainly via Excel and PowerPoint, used by private bankers and management teams. These missions aimed at facilitating the monitoring of portfolio performance and the interpretation of market trends.

More specifically, my responsibilities included the design of presentations and analytical materials to close every trimester. Those presentations were crucial for the bank, and I had to make them fast with no error margin. I repeated the operation for every manager with their own suggestions and special demands.

Concretely, I had to take the results from internal tools, bring them into multiple Excel files, rework the data, and make multiple indicators and graphs highlighting the results of each banker and compare them to one another. Then, I needed to repeat the operation for every manager and compute all the graphs in one presentation.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required a solid understanding of the banking industry; analytical skills were necessary to interpret financial data and translate it into meaningful indicators. In addition, great use of Excel and presentation tools was essential to build clear and structured reporting materials.

Now for the soft skills, the role required rigor, adaptability and the ability to communicate effectively with professionals having different levels of technical expertise. For the most part they had a very deep knowledge of the business but were a bit less skilled in Excel and the different tools used for monitoring. The synergy was great since they made me learn about Private banking and management, and I helped them with the technical part.

What I learned

This internship provided valuable insights into how private banking operates on a daily basis. I learned how performance is monitored, how market and geopolitical information is used for decisions, and how analytical tools support client-oriented strategies.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: Assets Under Management (AUM), Portfolio Performance Measurement and Currency Risk, and Interest Rate Spreads and Bank Profitability.

Assets Under Management (AUM)

Assets Under Management (AUM) is a key indicator in private banking, it is the total value of client assets managed by a banker or a region for example. During my internship, AUM was very important in reporting tools, it helps me measure business size and prepare future budget and objectives. It is also useful for comparisons between regions of different sizes by adjusting performance indicators to the amount of assets managed, which was essential in the dashboards and presentations I worked on.

Portfolio Performance Measurement and Currency Risk

Another important concept is portfolio performance measurement, which is essential to monitor investment results and support advisory decisions. Through my reporting work, I learned that performance depends not only on asset returns but also on external factors such as currency risk. For example, in 2025, strong returns from US equities like the S&P 500 has been reduced for European investors because of to the depreciation of the US dollar against the euro. This shows the importance of integrating FX effects for performance analysis.

Interest Rate Spreads and Bank Profitability

Interest rate spreads are crucial for the bank profitability; it is the difference between borrowing and lending rates. Changes in monetary policy and market rates have a huge impact on the bank’s net interest revenue. In private banking, the interest rate environment influences client allocations, which is why these macro indicators were often included in the monitoring presentations I prepared.

Why should I be interested in this post?

For finance students, I would say that private banking offers a unique perspective on financial markets, portfolio management and client advisory.

This type of internship is particularly relevant for students interested in careers in asset management, wealth management, advisory roles, or bankers. It opens a lot of doors and allows you to meet the top of the managing chain in a competitive environment.

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   ▶ Bryan BOISLEVE My internship experience as a Counterparty Risk Analyst at Société Générale

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   ▶ Alberto BORGIA My Experience as a Wealth Management Intern at Nextam Partners – SimTrade blog

   ▶ Samia DARMELLAH My Experience as a Credit Risk Portfolio Analyst at Société Générale Private Banking

Useful resources

Société Générale Private Banking Découvrez la Banque Privée Société Générale

Société Générale Q4 2024 Financial Results restated quarterly series

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Mathis HOUROU (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA)).

   ▶ Discover all articles by Mathis HOUROU.

My internship as a Junior Financial Auditor at KPMG

by
Maxime PIOUX

In this article, Maxime PIOUX (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2022-2026) shares his professional experience as a junior financial auditor at KPMG.

About the company

KPMG is an international audit and advisory firm founded in 1987, operating in more than 145 countries and employing over 275,000 professionals worldwide. It is part of the Big Four, alongside Deloitte, PwC and EY, which represent the leading global players in audit and advisory services.

The KPMG network supports organizations of all sizes, from small and medium-sized enterprises to large international groups, as well as public sector institutions. Its activities are primarily structured around three core business lines: audit, advisory, and accounting and tax services. Audit represents a central pillar of the firm, playing a key role in the reliability of financial information and in maintaining investor confidence in financial markets. In addition, KPMG has expanded its expertise into areas such as artificial intelligence, digital transformation, risk management and innovation, in order to address the evolving challenges of the contemporary economic environment.

In 2024, KPMG International generated revenues of USD 38.4 billion, distributed across advisory (42.5%), audit (35%), and tax and legal services (22.5%). In France, the firm reported revenues of EUR 1.55 billion, representing approximately 4% of global revenues.

Finally, KPMG became a mission-driven company in 2022, with the objective of contributing to a more sustainable and responsible form of prosperity by integrating social, environmental and ethical considerations into its activities.

Logo of KPMG.
Logo of KPMG
Source: KPMG

My internship

I completed a six-month internship at KPMG Audit, in the Consumer, Media & Telecommunications (CMT) Business Unit. This department is key and dynamic within the firm, bringing together a significant number of partners and professionals specialized in audit engagements for companies operating in these sectors. Due to the size and diversity of its client portfolio, I have worked with different teams for companies of various sizes and with different business models.

A specific feature of working within an audit firm such as KPMG is the dual work environment, which combines assignments carried out directly at clients’ premises and tasks performed at KPMG’s offices, located at the Eqho Tower in La Défense. This organization facilitates better interaction with client teams while providing a collaborative working environment.

My missions

The tasks assigned to me were those typically entrusted to a junior auditor. They mainly consisted of internal control testing, which represents a core responsibility at the junior level and involves designing and formalizing controls, collecting information from client teams, and documenting the results in audit working papers. I worked across all audit cycles, with a particular focus on operating expenses (OPEX), revenues and fixed assets. I also participated in analytical reviews, aimed at analyzing the company’s business activity over a financial year, as well as impairment tests, which involved identifying and proposing potential accounting adjustments to clients. Finally, I was also asked to suggest improvements and automation solutions for Excel files used in certain time-consuming audit procedures, with the objective of smoothing audit work and improving overall efficiency.

Required skills and knowledge

Working in audit requires both strong technical skills and behavioural qualities suited to a demanding environment. At the beginning of an internship, it is essential to demonstrate commitment, rigor, and patience, as some tasks assigned to junior staff can be repetitive but are crucial to the proper execution of audit engagements, particularly tick-and-tie procedures and internal control testing. These initial assignments represent a key step in the learning process and provide an opportunity to demonstrate professionalism, reliability and work quality, which subsequently determines access to more stimulating and higher value-added tasks.

From a hard skills perspective, strong proficiency in Excel is essential, as this tool is used daily to analyze, structure, and process financial data. Solid foundations in financial accounting and a good understanding of financial statements are also required. Rigor in the preparation of clear, well-structured, and well-documented working papers is critical, as these documents constitute the core support of audit work.

In terms of soft skills, flexibility and adaptability are key. Junior auditors are required to work with different teams, on multiple engagements sometimes in parallel, and to adapt to new tools and software, whether internal to the firm or client specific. Communication is also essential, particularly to keep his in-charge informed of the progress of the work. Finally, a strong willingness to learn, commitment, and a sense of responsibility are essential qualities for progressing quickly in such a demanding environment.

What I learned

Audit is a particularly formative field, allowing to develop a rigorous work methodology and processes applicable in many professional environments. During my internship, I first developed strong technical and analytical skills. I used Excel and the firm’s internal workflows on a daily basis to document and report audit work. I also occasionally used tools such as SAP or BFC during client missions.

Beyond technical skills, this experience taught me how to structure my reasoning and develop a critical mindset when analyzing financial information. Audit work required me to question the numbers, understand their origin, and analyze their consistency across different cycles.

The internship also allowed me to develop essential professional and interpersonal skills, such as rigor, adaptability and team spirit. Working within different teams and on multiple missions taught me how to organize myself efficiently, manage priorities, and perform effectively in demanding periods, particularly during phases of high intensity related to the finalization of audit work before the signing and certification of the accounts.

Audit concepts related to my internship

I present below three concepts related to my internship:

The central role of training

I was impressed by the importance placed on training at KPMG. Every employee, regardless of their level, begins their journey with an intensive one-week training, followed by several days of online modules and numerous e-learnings throughout the year. For instance, during my internship, in addition to the initial training week for interns, I completed around ten e-learning modules over the six months, which enabled me to deepen my technical and regulatory knowledge while familiarising me with the company’s expectations. These trainings cover technical skills, such as accounting standards, obligations for listed companies, as well as ethics and compliance rules. Additional sessions are also provided at each promotion to further deepen knowledge and skills.

Completing these trainings is considered as important as the quality of daily work. In cases of repeated delays or missed deadlines, an employee’s bonus may be adjusted downwards, illustrating how seriously KPMG takes the continuous development of its teams. This constant focus on training is part of the firm’s strategy to maintain excellence in the quality of its work and to remain a trusted partner for its clients.

Completing these trainings is considered as important as the quality of daily work. In cases of repeated delays or missed deadlines, an employee’s bonus may be adjusted downwards, illustrating how seriously KPMG takes the continuous development of its teams. This constant focus on training is part of the firm’s strategy to maintain excellence in the quality of its work and to remain a trusted partner for its clients.

Audit Methodology

Another key aspect of my internship was the audit methodology. Each firm has its own methodology, a set of systematic procedures and steps that every employee must follow to analyze and evaluate a company’s financial statements. This approach ensures that the work is carried out rigorously, consistently, and in compliance with professional standards.

The methodology covers all phases of the audit, from planning to analyzing the results obtained, including risk assessment, sample selection, and the performance of tests. It allows auditors to gather sufficient and relevant evidence to form a reliable opinion on the accuracy and compliance of the financial statements. During my internship, I learned to systematically refer to it in order to organize my work and ensure that each step was properly followed.

Each firm also implements internal workflows to structure and document all work performed on an engagement. These workflows allow the harmonization of work conclusions among different team members, ensuring the consistency and clarity of the entire audit file.

The control approach

In audit, several types of approaches can be adopted, including the balance sheet approach, the systems-based approach, and the control approach. Each approach offers a structured method for identifying risks, testing transactions and ensuring that the accounts accurately reflect the company’s financial position. The choice of approach depends on the auditor’s professional judgement, the size and complexity of the company, the level of internal control in place and, in some cases, a combination of several approaches is used to best suit the engagement. During my internship, all the engagements I worked on were performed using the control approach. This method consists of assessing the effectiveness of the company’s internal procedures and controls to reduce the risk of errors or misstatements in the financial statements. In fact, the auditor determines the sample size to be tested in order to obtain a sufficient level of assurance without having to check all transactions. The sample size depends on the risk of significant misstatements, the materiality threshold, the nature of the tests performed, and the characteristics of the population being audited. This approach allows the collection of reliable audit evidence while optimizing the time and resources required for the audit.

For example, if an internal control is performed monthly (12 occurrences) by a company and the risk of misstatement is considered normal by the auditor (“base risk”), the methodology will indicate the number of occurrences to test in that specific situation (for example 5 instead of testing all 12 occurrences).

Why should I be interested in this post?

Audit is a particularly interesting option for student wishing to pursue a career in finance. It allows you to develop a rigorous work methodology, strong organizational skills, and a deep understanding of financial statements and accounting mechanisms. Working with multiple clients across different sectors also enhances open-mindedness, flexibility, and the ability to quickly adjust to various situations; qualities that are highly valued in corporate finance, consulting, or M&A roles.

Moreover, an increasing number of M&A and Transaction Services firms seek candidates with audit experience to ensure they have solid foundations (technical, analytical and professional skills). For these reasons, considering an internship or apprenticeship in audit is not only intellectually rewarding, but can also open many doors for a future career in finance.

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Useful resources

About KPMG and the consulting sector

KPMG

Financial Times KPMG tax business pushes firm to faster growth than Big Four rivals

FinTech Magazine KPMG: What can Uniphore bring to financial services ?

Les Echos Concurrence : soupçons d’entente chez les géants de l’audit

Le Figaro (2025) Pourquoi les cabinets d’audit recrutent-ils désormais des ingénieurs ?

Academic resources

Appercel R., 2022, Audit et contrôle interne

Boccon-Gibod S., Vilmint E., 2020, La boite à outils de l’auditeur financier

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Maxime PIOUX (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2022-2026).

   ▶ Discover all articles by Maxime PIOUX.

Discovering Financial Controlling within a Media Group

by
Maxime PIOUX

In this article, Maxime PIOUX (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2022-2026) shares his professional experience as a financial controller assistant at Altice Media.

About the company

Altice Media was a major French media group owned by the Altice Group, founded and controlled by billionaire Patrick Drahi. The group operated across television, radio, and digital media, gathering some of the most important brands in the French audiovisual landscape, including BFM TV, BFM Business, RMC, and RMC Sport. Through these channels, Altice Media played a central role in continuous diffusion of economic, politic and sport news and content, addressing a wide audience.

In July 2024, Altice Media was sold at 100% to the French shipping and logistics group CMA CGM, led by its CEO Rodolphe Saadé, for an estimated amount of €1.5 billion. This acquisition marked CMA CGM’s ambition to diversify its activities beyond transport and logistics, notably by strengthening its presence in the media and information sector.

Logo of Altice.
Logo of Altice
Source: Altice

My internship

I completed a three-month operational internship within the Finance and Administration Department of Altice Media, more specifically in the central management control team. This department plays a key role in monitoring the group’s financial performance and provides essential support for decision-making, particularly by tracking results, analyzing variances, and consolidating data from the different entities.

I worked within the central team, collaborating directly with the two management controllers responsible for consolidating the figures of all the group’s subsidiaries before they were reported to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), then to the group’s executive management and the shareholder. This position offered a comprehensive view of the performance of the group’s various entities and allowed me to understand how the consolidated data was used in reporting to both the finance department and the shareholder.

My missions

This internship gave me a practical understanding of the role of a management controller and allowed me to participate in a wide range of tasks. My main responsibilities were focused on monthly closing activities, including updating financial reporting, analyzing variances between actual and budgeted figures, performing intra-group reconciliations, and integrating certain companies not yet included in the reporting systems.

In a context of understaffing due to high turnover within the department, I quickly gained autonomy and was entrusted with more challenging tasks, such as participating in reforecasting exercises for two entities, building tracking dashboards, and preparing summary presentations for the Finance Department and Group Management.

In parallel, I contributed to various ad hoc assignments for the Finance Department, such as weekly analysis of unpaid invoices and updating regulated agreements.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required me to mobilize a wide range of skills. On the hard skills side, proficiency in Excel was essential, as it is the main tool used daily by the management controller. It was also necessary to be flexible and able to quickly learn how to use new financial software such as SAP, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, which centralizes and automates the main processes of a company, including accounting and financial transactions. The use of Hyperion was also required: this financial performance management tool is commonly used for budgeting, forecasting and consolidated reporting, and is often directly connected to Excel. Finally, being comfortable with numbers is strongly recommended to succeed in this type of role.

On the soft skills side, rigor and organization were crucial to deliver accurate data for the Finance Department and the management teams of the different entities. A management controller must also demonstrate strong communication and collaboration skills, as the role involves constant interaction with operational teams as well as with the finance departments of the various entities in order to collect, monitor, and analyze financial information.

What I learned

This immersion in the world of finance allowed me to gain a better understanding of the day-to-day operations of a Finance Department within a multi-entity group. I discovered the role of a management controller through the key processes that structure this function, notably monthly closing, consolidated financial reporting, and reforecasting work, which then serve as a basis for performance analysis and strategic decision-making.

I was also exposed to challenges related to financial consolidation, a complex area that requires both strong technical skills and a high level of rigor. I was able to understand the importance of adjustments, intra-group reconciliations, and data consistency in order to produce reliable financial information that can be effectively used by management.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three concepts related to my internship:

Budget and Reforecast

Budgeting and reforecasting are essential tools in management control for anticipating and driving a company’s financial performance. On the one hand, the budget corresponds to a projection of expected financial results over a given period (generally one year) and serves as a benchmark against which actual performance is measured. The process begins with numerous discussions between the management controller and operational teams in order to understand business needs, identify potential cost savings, and estimate revenue. This information is then consolidated and analyzed by the Finance Department before being submitted to Group Management for review and comments, and ultimately validated by the shareholder.

On the other hand, reforecasting, consists of updating these projections during the year by incorporating actual data and changes in business activity or market conditions. These exercises are generally carried out on a monthly basis and allow management to anticipate the year-end outcome (an estimate of final performance at the end of the year). In practice, this work is often performed using Excel, with the support of financial software directly connected to Excel, such as Hyperion, in order to quickly consolidate data from the various entities and monitor performance against targets.

Investment Decisions (CAPEX)

Investment decisions, or CAPEX (Capital Expenditures), are a core pillar of management control and financial strategy, as they enable a company to finance strategic projects while maintaining control over its resources. These expenditures are essential for growth and long-term competitiveness, as they allow the company to renew equipment, develop new activities, or improve operational efficiency: “Wealth generation requires investments, which must be financed and be sufficiently profitable” From Vernimmen, Corporate Finance, 6th edition.

The process generally begins with the identification of needs and projects by operational teams, who define the objectives, estimated costs, and expected impact on the business. The management controller then assesses the financial relevance of each project by evaluating the return on investment, the financing plan, and potential cost savings. These proposals are subsequently submitted to the Finance Department and then to Group Management for strategic validation, before being approved by the shareholder when amounts are significant (approval thresholds are defined within each company).

CAPEX is monitored throughout the year, as shareholders typically pay close attention to these expenditures. Indeed, in certain circumstances, it may be tempting to reclassify OPEX as CAPEX in order to artificially improve the company’s financial presentation, which makes strict monitoring essential.

Workforce Cost Control

Payroll cost management is another central aspect of management control, as it enables the company to monitor one of its main expenses while ensuring that human resources are used effectively to support strategy and operational performance. This process involves collecting workforce data from the Human Resources department on a monthly basis, then analyzing costs, identifying potential variances compared to the budget, and anticipating changes in payroll expenses based on operational needs, new hires, departures, or salary adjustments.

Effective payroll cost control is crucial to maintaining the company’s competitiveness and profitability. This is why it is closely monitored by management and shareholders to avoid any cost overruns or financial imbalances.

Why should I be interested in this post?

A position in management control is an excellent opportunity for any finance student looking to become familiar with corporate financial management and performance monitoring. It allows the development of strong technical skills, particularly in financial analysis, while also strengthening essential soft skills such as rigor, organization, and communication. This type of role also provides a comprehensive view of a company’s operations, as it involves close collaboration with all departments. Finally, working in management control is formative and can serve as a stepping stone toward careers in corporate finance, internal audit, or consulting.

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Useful resources

About Altice

Altice

Acquisition de la branche media du groupe Altice par CMA CGM : l’Autorité de la concurrence conditionne la réalisation de l’opération à des engagements

Le rachat d’Altice Media, maison mère de BFMTTV et RMC, par l’armateur CMA CGM est finalisé

CMA CGM acquiert Altice Media, propriétaire de BFMTV : les détails de l’accord

Financial and management techniques

Vernimmen P., 2022, Corporate Finance, 6th edition

Alcouffe S., Boitier M., Rivière A., Villesèque-Dubus F., 2013, Contrôle de gestion sur mesure : industrie, grande distribution, banque, culture, secteur publique

Cappelletti L., Baron P., Desmaison G., Ribiollet F., 2014, Contrôle de gestion

About the author

The article was written in February 2026 by Maxime PIOUX (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2022-2026).

   ▶ Discover all articles by Maxime PIOUX.

My internship experience as a Counterparty Risk Analyst at Société Générale

by
Bryan BOISLEVE

In this article, Bryan BOISLEVE (CentraleSupélec – ESSEC Business School, Data Science, 2025-2027) shares his professional experience as a Counterparty Risk Analyst intern within Société Générale’s investment banking division.

About the company

Société Générale is one of the largest European banking groups, offering retail banking, corporate and investment banking, and specialised financial services in over 60 countries. As of 31 December 2024, the Group had around 119,000 employees, served more than 26 million clients in 62 countries, and reported total assets of EUR 1,573.5bn, with total equity of EUR 79.6bn. In 2024, revenues (net banking income) amounted to EUR 26.8bn and group net income (Group share) reached EUR 4.2bn.

Logo of Société Générale
Logo of Société Générale
Source: the company.

Its Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) branches serve corporates and institutional investors with financing, capital markets, and risk-management solutions on a diverse range of asset classes (equities, fixed income, derivatives…).

The bank is a major clearing member at leading central counterparties (CCPs), acting as an intermediary between clients and clearing houses for listed and cleared OTC derivatives. This activity is supported by a structured process of daily margining, exposure monitoring, and default fund contributions, embedded within risk management and control functions. The chart below helps illustrate the distribution and scale of OTC derivatives activity, and how a CCP simplifies OTC operations.

Chart of derivatives market structure with CCP
Chart of derivatives market structure with CCP
Source: Bank Of Australia

During my internship, I worked in the front office counterparty risk team (counterparty risk has also a team in middle office) in Paris, which monitors exposures to central counterparties and major clearing brokers, analyses margin models, and challenges the robustness of CCP risk frameworks used for derivatives clearing.

My internship

Over three months, I focused on cleared derivatives exposures, supporting the team in monitoring house and client portfolios across several CCPs and in assessing whether margin and default fund resources were sufficient under stressed market conditions.

My missions

My main tasks were to analyze house and client risk exposures using Initial Margin (IM), Default Fund (DF), Variation Margin (VM), Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional VaR (CVaR), to automate DF estimations for two CCPs in Python, to draft annual credit reviews for major central counterparty, and to investigate daily IM and DF breaches together with traders and the wider risk department.

I also implemented an Almgren–Chriss optimal execution model on a client book to better estimate liquidation costs in the Default Management Process, improving the bank’s view on how quickly and at what cost a defaulted portfolio could be unwound.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required strong quantitative skills (statistics, VaR/CVaR, optimisation), solid understanding of derivatives and CCP mechanics, and programming abilities in Python to automate risk calculations, as well as proficiency with Excel and internal risk systems.

On the soft-skill side, I had to communicate complex risk topics clearly to traders and senior risk managers, work accurately under time pressure when margin breaches occurred, and be proactive in proposing model improvements or new monitoring dashboards.

A good example of how I applied these skills is when my manager asked me to create a dashboard available for key managers that could show the historical exposition and an estimate of this exposition on a specific CCP. After my internship ended, the team decided to implement the model used for the estimation as well as the dashboard for all the CCP where Société Générale was a clearing member.

What I learned

I learned a lot during my internship: how CCPs use margin models, default funds and stress tests to ensure they can withstand the default of major clearing members, and how a bank as a clearing member independently challenges those frameworks to protect its balance sheet.

This experience also taught me to question model assumptions, to combine quantitative analysis with qualitative judgement on CCP governance and transparency, and it confirmed my interest in pursuing a career in quantitative risk management. I also learned how to work with colleage from different countries and different backgrounds which is a soft skills that can really be helpful in a professional environment.

Economic, financial, and business concepts related to my internship

I believe these are three financial concepts related to my internship which are very important: central counterparty default waterfalls, initial margin models, and the Almgren–Chriss optimal execution framework.

Central counterparty default waterfall

The CCP default waterfall is the sequence of financial resources used to absorb losses when a clearing member defaults: the member’s IM, then its DF contribution, then the CCP’s own capital (“skin‑in‑the‑game”), and finally the mutualised default fund and any additional loss-allocation tools.

Understanding this waterfall was crucial in my role, because my analyses assessed whether Société Générale’s exposures and contributions at each CCP were consistent with its risk appetite and with regulatory “Cover‑2” stress-test standards.

Initial margin models (VaR / SPAN)

CCPs typically compute IM with either VaR-based models or SPAN-style scenario approaches, which aim to cover potential losses over a margin period of risk at high confidence levels (often 99% or more).

In my reviews of multiple CCPs, I compared how their IM methodologies capture product risk, concentration risk and wrong-way risk, and how model choices translate into the level and procyclicality of margin calls for the bank and its clients.

Almgren–Chriss optimal execution

The Almgren–Chriss model provides an optimal schedule to liquidate large positions by balancing market impact costs against price risk, typically leading to front‑loaded execution for risk‑averse traders.

By calibrating this model on client portfolios, I helped the team estimate realistic liquidation costs that would arise in a CCP default management auction, improving the calibration of IM add‑ons and internal stress scenarios.

Why should I be interested in this post?

For a student in finance, counterparty risk at a global investment bank like Société Générale, offers a great opportunity on how derivatives markets, CCPs and regulation interact between each other, and shows how quantitative models directly influence daily risk decisions and capital usage.

This type of internship is particularly valuable if you are interested in careers in market risk, XVA, clearing risk or quantitative research, because it combines modelling, coding and discussions with trading desks on real portfolios and real constraints. Overall it is a great internship to have a first step in the trading floor.

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   ▶ Akshit GUPTA Initial and maintenance margins in futures contracts

Useful resources

Financial regulation

European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) Clearing obligation and risk mitigation techniques under EMIR.

Bank of International Settlements (BIS) (April 2012) Principles for financial market infrastructure.

Bank of England (November 2025) Central Counterparty (CCP) policy and rules.

Boudiaf, I., Scheicher, M., Vacirca, F., (April 2023) CCP initial margin models in Europe, Occasional Paper Series, European Central Bank (ECB).

International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) (August 2013) CCP Loss Allocation at the End of the Waterfall.

Academic research

Almgren, R., Chriss, N., 2000. Optimal execution of portfolio transactions, Working Paper.

Duffie, D., Scheicher, M., Vuillemey, G., 2014. Central Clearing and Collateral Demand, Working Paper.

Pirrong, C., 2013. A Bill of Goods: CCPs and Systemic Risk, Working paper, Bauer College of Business University of Houston.

Berndsen, R., 2021. Fundamental questions on central counterparties: A review of the literature, The Journal of Futures Markets, 41(12) 2009-2022.

About the author

The article was written in December 2025 by Bryan BOISLEVE (CentraleSupélec – ESSEC Business School, Data Science, 2025-2027).

   ▶ Read all articles by Bryan BOISLEVE .

My Experience as a Wealth Management Intern at Nextam Partners

by
Alberto BORGIA

In this article, Alberto BORGIA (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), Exchange student, Fall 2025) shares his professional experience as a Wealth Management Intern at Nextam Partners.

About the company

During the summer between my second and third year of my Bachelor’s degree, I had the opportunity to join the Nextam Partners team for two months. Founded in 2001 by a group of professionals with decades of experience behind them and billions under management, Nextam is currently a family office that also provides financial advisory and wealth management services for Ultra High Net Worth Individuals and private foundations, with over 6 billion in assets under management. The company used to operate in the asset management sector as well, before being acquired by Banca Generali and then was partly taken back over by the founding partners, with regard to the segments that are still active.

Logo of NEXTAM.
Logo of NEXTAM
Source: Nextam Partners.

My internship

I joined Nextam in June 2025 as a Summer Analyst in order to pursue my interest in wealth management and finally obtain a concrete experience that would allow me to learn first-hand both the more technical and the more practical concepts of the sector that are not covered in university lectures. and my role consisted mainly in supporting the various team members in their analysis and research functions for the development and modification of multi-asset portfolios through market screening, Bloomberg-based analysis and portfolio risk simulation using Windham.

My missions

During that months my duties as an intern were varied and I had the opportunity to work with almost all the member of the team.

I contributed to high-level asset allocation decisions as well as shorter-term portfolio repositioning, shaped by market movements, interest rates trends and specific requirement of each client. For example, since the clientele was made uo of foundations that required constant inflows of capital, I produced bond portfolios that would allow for a balanced and steady coupon return.

I also had the opportunity to participate on the buy side in IPOs of small and mid-cap companies, developing in-depth financial analyses for the firm’s clients. By taking part in various meetings with the sell side, I thus had the opportunity to fully understand how these types of transactions are really managed.

In addition to client-focused tasks, I took part in producing documents containing technical information about the asset in the portfolio, ensuring compliance with our customers’ regulatory requirements. This allowed me to work with assets of every type, understanding the risks and benefits of each of them.

Required skills and knowledge

The skills required were both technical and non-technical. It was necessary to have a deep knowledge of the various types of existing assets and of the concepts of strategic and tactical asset allocation, construction of multi asset portfolios, notion of portfolio theory and the ability to analyze and understand informational documents. However, the fundamental part was a strong familiarity with tools such as Excel and platforms like Bloomberg or FactSet, as well as internal ones. Bloomberg is the leading financial information platform in the world, allowing users to obtain any type of data on assets and companies in real time, while also integrating the opinions and forecasts of various financial analysts. FactSet offers a similar service; however, in my experience, it has mainly been used, together with internal datasets, for the analysis of asset data whose information is not available to all investors. It is therefore essential to understand how to make the best use of these platforms and the full range of their functionalities, including those features that are less well known to most analysts, in order to be as precise and reliable as possible. These tools formed the basis for a solid analysis and speed in completing tasks. An excellent knowledge of the regulations one works with is also necessary to ensure that one’s work is truly useful for the client and does not lead to further issues.

As for soft skills, it is instead extremely important to already possess and further improve one’s communication abilities, particularly with regard to simplifying complex concepts for the client, as well as precision and a high level of confidentiality. To be efficient you also need to be highly adaptable, adjusting your work to market conditions and changing client preferences. On a more operational level, strong organizational skills and effective time management are required to handle several tasks and projects at the same time to deliver results in a fast-paced environment.

The combination of these skills together with all the things that one will learn during working hours, makes for an excellent analyst in the Wealth Management sector.

What I learned

The “size” of the team and the firm was probably one of my main strokes of luck during the internship, in fact I had the opportunity to work closely with the partners and founders, learning as much as possible from people with decades of experience in the industry. The opportunity to be by their side taking notes during meeting or client appointments allowed me to find myself in contexts and situations that I would hardly have encountered in a large firm and from which I was able to truly understand and learn what it means to work in the Wealth Management industry and how to navigate it in order to become a recognized and respected professional. Understanding how a company operating in the sector today can be managed and improved, the tricks and the various “unwritten rules”, as well as its structure and organization, by exploring in depth the functions, objectives and issues that may rise in the back, middle and front office.

In addition to this I had the opportunity to delve into and revisit fundamental technical concepts, particularly with regard to the regulations one had to deal with and complex and uncommon financial valuation tools, understanding their real usefulness in various circumstances.

I strengthened my technical foundation in fund analysis by learning how to evaluate performance, risk exposure, and investment style. By studying portfolio allocations and reviewing managers’ communications, I became more confident in identifying the drivers behind results and in understanding the strategies applied across different products. Beyond improving my analytical approach, the experience gave me a clearer view of the mechanisms and interconnections that shape financial markets and guide investment decisions.

Also. I had the chance to further develop my skills with essential tools, such as excel, on a daily basis. I worked with data to structure and standardize information, run comparison across funds and benchmarks and support reporting activities. This helped me become quicker and more precise with formulas and efficient analytical workflows.

Overall, the internship expanded both my knowledge and my practical skill set, providing concrete exposure to the realities of operating in a complex and highly regulated industry.

Financial and business concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: valuation multiples, Ultra-High-Net-Worth individual (UHNWI), and risk profiling & suitability.

Valuation multiples

The thing I worked on the most during the internship were valuation multiples, for the valuation of a company and its peers it is essential to be able to build them and understand them as well as possible, adapting to every context, using the right ones for each type of analysis and market under review. The multiples I came across most often are also the ones most widely used by all analysts in almost every area of finance, P/E and EV/EBITDA. As mentioned before, both are used for valuation and for estimating a company’s implied value, particularly in relation to its peers. However, EV/EBITDA values the company from an operating perspective before interest, depreciation and amortization and taxes, allowing companies with different capital structures to be compared. The P/E is used to understand whether the stock is overpriced or not relative to expected earnings and growth. They do, however, have some drawbacks: P/E is affected by accounting policies and leverage while EV/EBITDA can be misleading if EBITDA does not reflect capex or margin quality.

Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individual (UHNWI)

Investors are generally divided into various categories based on their investment capacity and each of these requires specific services. First, we find the mass affluent segment; this category represents a large portion of the population with significant investment capacity, controlling a substantial share of global wealth. Individuals belonging to this category have investable assets exceeding USD 100 k but below USD 1 million and they exhibit more advanced needs compared to traditional retail investors. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024, this individuals represent a large and expanding segment of the global population, benefiting from rising incomes and asset appreciation. While precise figures vary by region, this group accounts for a significant share of global investable wealth and represents a key growth driver for wealth management services. Subsequently, we can find High Net Worth Individuals, subjects with assets exceeding USD 1 million, who are among the main clients of private banking and investment advisory services. According to Capgemini researcher the global population of this category is increasing each year, reaching 23 million individuals with a total wealth of 86 trillion. Individuals with an investment capacity above 30 million euros fall within the category of Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals. Despite been less than 1 million this fraction control an extremely high amount of the global wealth and that’s why this is the segment that wealth management refers to, providing complex and tailored services. Usually, these individuals do not limit themselves to needing simple portfolio management, but rather require services dedicated to them, such as estate planning, tax optimization and long-term wealth protection.

Risk profiling & suitability

In order for the client’s portfolio asset allocation to be as suitable as possible, it is necessary to assess the client’s risk profile and the suitability of the investments, with the aim of ensuring that the assets and the portfolio are consistent with the client’s objectives, time horizon, and risk aversion. To obtain the necessary information, firms are required to use a set of procedures known as the “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process, which make it possible to understand the client’s identity, personal and financial situation, as well as the origin of the funds and the client’s objectives. More broadly, the KYC process is a regulatory requirement designed to ensure transparency and integrity within the financial system. It is mandatory by law, because by requiring firms to verify clients’ identities and assess their financial backgrounds, KYC procedures can help prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and other types of illicit activities. Once the necessary information has been obtained, through internal tools the team is able to calculate the most efficient way to allocate the available resources. Such an assessment must then be updated continuously based on the individual’s needs and the various changes in their profile.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post may be useful for anyone who wants to pursue a career in the wealth management sector or simply understand its structure. Today and in the near future, private banking represents a huge and constantly growing sector, capable of offering great opportunities to anyone who wants to dive into it. Just in Europe assets under management reach about €32.7 trillion by late 2024, supported by both market performances and new money inflows. This growth is also fueled by structural trends such as the constant rising share of passive investing and the increasing access to the private markets.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

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   ▶ Jules HERNANDEZ My internship experience in a Multi-Family Office

   ▶ Louis DETALLE A quick review of Wealth Management’s job…

   ▶ Tanguy TONEL My experience as an Investment Specialist at Amundi Asset Management

Useful resources

Nextam Partners S.I.M.

Klaus P. (2022) What matters most to ultra-high-net-worth individuals? Exploring the UHNWI luxury customer experience (ULCX) Journal of Product & Brand Management, 31(3):368-376.

Cap Gemini (2025) World Wealth Report

Altrata (2024) World Ultra Wealth Report 2024

Douglas Elliman (2024) 2024 Wealth Report: Global Number of Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals Up 4.2% in 2023

EY (2024) 2024 EY Global Wealth Management Industry Report

Pimco Education Understanding Asset Allocation and its Potential Benefits

About the author

The article was written in December 2025 by Alberto BORGIA (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), Exchange student, Fall 2025).

   ▶ Read all articles by Alberto BORGIA.

2025: The 10 Most Read Professional Experience Posts on the SimTrade Blog

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One of the distinctive features of the SimTrade blog is the systematic and continuous sharing of professional experiences by SimTraders. These contributions go beyond simple testimonials: they provide structured, first-hand insights into internships, entry-level positions, and early career paths in finance, banking, asset management, consulting, and related fields. By documenting their experiences, SimTraders transform individual learning trajectories into transferable knowledge.

Importantly, these posts also serve a practical career-development function. They are frequently used by students to prepare internship applications, refine interview strategies, identify target institutions or roles, and, last but not least, gain access to informal networks and insider contacts that facilitate their job search.

   ▶ Louis DETALLE My experience as an Audit intern at PwC

   ▶ Max ODEN Leveraged Finance: My Experience as an Analyst Intern at Haitong Bank

   ▶ William ARRATA My experiences as Fixed Income portfolio manager then Asset Liability Manager at Banque de France

   ▶ Suyue MA Expeditionary experience in a Chinese investment banking boutique

   ▶ Rohit SALUNKE My professional experience as Head of Data Modelling

   ▶ Alisa-Arifa AGALI ABDOU TOURÉ My Experience at DHL- Bremen in the HR department

   ▶ Anouk GHERCHANOC My Internship Experience as a Corporate Finance Analyst in the 2IF Department of Inter Invest Group

   ▶ Basma ISSADIK My experience as an M&A/TS intern at Deloitte

   ▶ Rohit SALUNKE My professional experience as Business & Data Analyst at Tikehau Capital

   ▶ Hongting LIU My internship experience at Forvia (Faurecia): A unique blend of corporate and start-up culture

Do not hesitate to contribute by sharing your professional experience. Such contributions not only enhance the collective knowledge of the SimTrade community, but also represent a concrete opportunity to increase your digital visibility and expand your professional network.

My internship experience as a Finance Intern at Gerresheimer

by
Tibor HAUER

In this article, Tibor HAUER (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), Exchange semester 2025) shares his professional experience as a Finance Intern at Gerresheimer.

About the company

Gerresheimer is a globally operating partner for the pharmaceutical, biotech and cosmetics industries and plays an important role in the international healthcare value chain. As a specialist in primary packaging and drug delivery solutions, the company develops and manufactures products such as vials, syringes, ampoules, inhalers and innovative digital health applications that support safe and reliable treatment for patients worldwide. These products must meet strict regulatory requirements, and Gerresheimer combines decades of manufacturing expertise with continuous technological development to meet these standards. In the 2024 financial year, the company generated a consolidated revenue of around € 2.04 billion, underscoring its strong position in the global healthcare market.

With more than 40 production sites and development centers across Europe, the Americas and Asia, the company serves a broad and diverse customer base ranging from global pharmaceutical corporations to emerging biotech firms. This international footprint allows Gerresheimer to operate close to its customers, ensure stable supply chains and respond efficiently to market needs. In addition to its manufacturing capabilities, the company places strong emphasis on quality management, process reliability and long-term partnerships, which form the foundation of its reputation as a trusted industry partner.

Logo of Gerresheimer.
Logo of Gerresheimer
Source: the company.

Within the group, I worked in the Treasury, Tax & Insurance function at Gerresheimer’s Regensburg site. The department is responsible for managing liquidity, financial risks and insurance topics across the company. It also supports tax related processes. Its core activities include cash and liquidity management, monitoring foreign exchange risks, handling payment processes and supporting selected tax and insurance matters. In addition, I worked in the Plant Controlling team at the production site in Pfreimd. This team supports the financial management of manufacturing operations. Its work focuses on cost controlling, performance monitoring and reporting at plant level.

My internship

I joined Gerresheimer from March to July 2025 as a Finance Intern. During my internship, I worked in different finance-related teams and gained practical experience in both central finance functions and a production oriented controlling environment. From the beginning, I was integrated into the daily work of the teams and supported ongoing processes as well as ad hoc tasks. I worked independently on defined responsibilities while closely collaborating with experienced colleagues. This allowed me to quickly understand internal processes and apply theoretical knowledge in a practical setting. The internship combined recurring operational tasks with analytical work. I was involved in daily and weekly finance activities, but also supported analyses and reports that were used for internal decision making.

My missions

My responsibilities covered a broad range of tasks across Treasury, Controlling and Tax. In Treasury, I supported liquidity related activities by preparing cash overviews and maintaining rolling liquidity forecasts. I also analyzed foreign exchange exposures using SAP data. SAP is an enterprise resource planning system that is widely used by large organizations to manage and integrate financial and operational data. In addition, I supported the preparation and follow up of hedging activities. Through my involvement in payment processes and selected credit related topics such as guarantees and fees, I gained insight into how financial risks are managed in an international environment.

In addition, I worked closely with the Controlling function, where I contributed to weekly revenue planning and prepared blocked stock reports to improve transparency regarding inventory risks. I supported forecasting and planning activities. Moreover I assisted in analyzing the management profit and loss statement by cost categories. This work helped me understand how financial planning and performance monitoring support managerial decision making.

Beyond recurring tasks, I prepared financial models and scenario analyses for internal investment related questions and supported ad hoc analyses requested by management. I also assisted in the preparation of monthly and quarterly reports and supported management meetings by drafting clear and structured summaries. In the area of Tax, i supported VAT related topics, electricity and energy tax refunds, as well as transfer pricing documentation and tax audits.

Required skills and knowledge

This position required a combination of technical and analytical skills. A strong command of Excel was essential for working with financial data, preparing forecasts, building models and performing analyses. Regular use of SAP and planning systems supported the handling of large datasets and reporting processes. A solid understanding of finance and controlling concepts was necessary to interpret financial figures, analyze performance and support planning and decision-making processes.

On the soft skills side, accuracy and a structured way of working were particularly important, especially when dealing with liquidity data, forecasts and reports. Strong communication skills were required, as I regularly coordinated with colleagues from different finance related functions and prepared summaries for management. In addition, a proactive and reliable working style helped me adapt quickly to new tasks, manage parallel responsibilities and contribute effectively in a dynamic finance environment.

What I learned

Through this internship, I gained a comprehensive understanding of how finance functions support the operations and decision-making processes of an international industrial company. I learned how liquidity is managed in practice and how financial data is used to monitor risks and ensure financial stability across different entities. In addition, I developed a solid understanding of planning, forecasting and controlling processes and their role in operational and strategic steering.

On a personal level, I became more confident in working independently with complex financial data and presenting results in a clear and structured way. I learned how to prioritize tasks, manage parallel responsibilities and communicate effectively with colleagues from different finance related functions. Overall, this internship confirmed my strong interest in finance and motivated me to pursue further roles in this field.

Financial concepts related to my internship

I present below three key financial concepts related to my internship: liquidity management and forecasting, rolling planning and forecasting, and foreign exchange risk management.

Liquidity management and forecasting

Liquidity management is a core responsibility of the Treasury function and is essential to ensure that a company can always meet its financial obligations. It involves monitoring cash positions, forecasting future cash flows and managing short- and medium-term liquidity needs. During my internship, I supported liquidity management by preparing cash overviews and maintaining rolling liquidity forecasts. This helped me understand how liquidity planning supports financial stability and enables companies to react to changing cash flow situations in a timely manner.

Rolling planning and forecasting

Rolling planning and forecasting is an important concept in controlling and financial steering. Unlike a static annual budget, rolling forecasts are updated regularly to reflect the latest business developments. During my internship, I supported the rolling revenue planning process, including forecasts, budgeting and strategic planning in the GRIPS planning system (an internal corporate planning tool used to consolidate, analyze and manage financial plans across different business units). This approach allows management to respond more flexibly to changes in market conditions and provides a more reliable basis for operational and strategic decision making.

Foreign exchange risk management

Companies operating internationally are exposed to foreign exchange risks, as revenues, costs and cash flows often occur in different currencies. Foreign exchange risk management aims to identify these exposures and reduce their impact on financial results. During my internship, I analyzed foreign exchange exposures using SAP data and supported the preparation and follow up of hedging activities. This experience gave me practical insight into how currency risks are monitored and managed in order to stabilize cash flows and protect margins.

Why should I be interested in this post?

If you are a business or finance student interested in roles in finance, treasury or controlling, this experience provides valuable insight into how financial processes support an international industrial company. The internship offers exposure to both central finance functions and a production focused controlling environment, combining analytical work with operational relevance.

You gain practical experience in areas such as liquidity management, forecasting, risk management and reporting, while working closely with different finance related teams. This combination helps develop strong analytical skills, a structured way of working and a solid understanding of how finance contributes to informed decision making in practice.

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Financial techniques

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   ▶ Quentin CHUZET Private Banks : Treasuries Departments and proprietary asset allocation

Useful resources

Business

Gerresheimer AG

Gerresheimer Job postings

Gerresheimer Annual Reports and Investor Presentations

European Association of Corporate Treasurers

Academic articles and books

Bragg, S. M. (2017) Treasury Management: The Practitioner’s Guide 1st ed., Hoboken (NJ), Wiley.

Brealey, R. A., Myers, S. C., & Allen, F. (2025) Principles of Corporate Finance, 15th ed., New York (NY), McGraw-Hill Education.

Ernst, D., & Häcker, J., 2015. Corporate Risk Management: A Case Study on Risk Evaluation Cham (Switzerland), Springer.

Aretz, K., Bartram, S. M., & Dufey, G., 2007. Why hedge? Rationales for corporate hedging and value implications, The Journal of Risk Finance, 8(5), 434–449.

About the author

The article was written in December 2025 by Tibor HAUER (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), Exchange semester 2025).

   ▶ Read all articles by Tibor HAUER.

My professional experience as an intern at Bowery Properties, private real estate investment firm

by
Noa AZRIA

In this article, Noa AZRIA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance (MiF), 2025–2026) shares her professional experience as an intern at Bowery Properties.

About the company

Bowery Properties is a Miami-based multifamily investment and real estate firm active across Florida. The firm invests in and manages residential and commercial properties and has completed several notable acquisitions in South Florida, especially in the multifamily segment. Its focus on value-add assets – properties that can be improved through renovations and better management – created an ideal environment for me to understand how value is created in real estate private equity, both on paper and on the ground. In recent years, for example, Bowery has bought Buena Vista Gardens, an 89-unit portfolio in Miami’s Little Haiti, and Windward Vista Apartments, a 352-unit complex in Lauderhill acquired for 44.1 million dollars.

My internship

I joined the Acquisitions team in Miami and reported directly to the Vice President. From day one, I was involved in real transactions rather than just observing. My missions included analysing new investment opportunities, working on Excel models, preparing market studies and supporting my manager during calls.

During the internship, I realized how demanding and stimulating this role is. It requires analytical skills to underwrite deals and assess risk–return, but also communication and negotiation abilities to present new projects in an environment where all stakeholders are closely interconnected, from brokers and investors to banks.

My missions

One of the key missions of my internship was my involvement in the acquisition of Sunset Apartments, a 130-unit multifamily property valued at approximately $28.5 million. I had the opportunity to follow the transaction from the underwriting phase and contribute directly to the investment analysis, which gave me a comprehensive view of the acquisition process. The investment thesis was based on a value-add strategy, meaning that the asset had improvement potential that could be unlocked through renovations and more active asset management. The objective was to increase rents, attract better-quality tenants, reduce vacancy, and ultimately enhance the exit value of the property. My role focused mainly on financial modelling. I worked on the Excel model by integrating Capex per unit, building a phased renovation plan over one to two years, and modelling rent increases as units were renovated and tenants turned over. This allowed me to understand how Capex assumptions and rental growth directly impact key return metrics such as the internal rate of return (IRR), which measures the annualized return generated by the investment based on its future cash flows and exit value.

To support these assumptions, I also prepared a comprehensive market study. This involved identifying comparable multifamily properties in the same area, collecting data on rents, amenities, and occupancy rates, and benchmarking them against Sunset Apartments. This analysis was included in the investment package sent to banks and investors and therefore required a high level of rigor, accuracy, and clarity, as the work was subject to external scrutiny.

Beyond analytical work, my missions also included on-site asset analysis. I regularly accompanied the Vice President on property tours for both multifamily and retail assets. One particularly significant visit was to Parc Place, a large shopping center valued at approximately $71 million. During these visits, I contributed to the qualitative and operational assessment of assets, focusing on accessibility, visibility, parking, tenant mix, vacancy levels, and operational signals observed on site.

Finally, I was exposed to the structuring of transactions with banks and investors. I attended numerous calls with brokers, banks, and investors. Discussions with banks mainly revolved around debt terms such as loan-to-value ratios, interest rate structures (fixed or variable), amortization profiles, and covenants including debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) and minimum occupancy requirements. With investors, I worked on models presenting different capital structure options, ranging from simple profit-sharing arrangements to more complex waterfalls with preferred returns and thresholds. These missions gave me a concrete understanding of how real estate transactions are structured and how risk and return are allocated in private equity.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required a strong ability to adapt and learn quickly. At the beginning, I mainly worked on clearly defined tasks such as updating financial models, collecting market data, and formatting analytical documents. These missions required rigor, attention to detail, and a solid understanding of basic financial concepts.

As my responsibilities increased, the role demanded greater autonomy, analytical thinking, and organizational skills. I was required to conduct full market studies, build acquisition analyses from scratch, and manage tasks with a higher level of responsibility. Being able to structure analyses, prioritize information, and deliver accurate work under time constraints was essential in this environment.

What I learned

From this experience at Bowery Properties, I developed and strengthened several skills.

On the technical side, I improved my financial analysis of real estate assets (net operating income (NOI), capital expenditures (Capex), rent roll, internal rate of return (IRR), equity multiple), my ability to conduct market studies based on comparable assets and local fundamentals, and my understanding of debt financing (loan to value (LTV), debt service coverage ratio (DSCR), interest structures) and equity structuring (straight splits, waterfalls with hurdles).

On the personal and professional side, I gained autonomy and a sense of responsibility. I also strengthened my rigour and attention to detail, knowing that a simple mistake in an assumption can change the conclusion of a deal. Finally, I progressed in stress management, communication (knowing when and how to speak up with an idea or a concern) and confidence in my own judgement when I had analyzed a file in depth.

Financial and business concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial and business concepts related to my internship: investment horizon, qualitative analysis through on-site due diligence, and the importance of qualitative relationships with stakeholders.

Investment horizon

A fundamental concept in real estate private equity is the investment horizon. Unlike liquid financial assets, real estate investments are illiquid and require a medium- to long-term holding period to fully realize value. During my internship, acquisition decisions were systematically assessed with a clear investment horizon in mind, particularly for value-add strategies where renovations, tenant turnover, and operational improvements take time to materialize. Understanding this concept was essential to align Capex plans, cash-flow projections, and exit assumptions with a realistic holding period.

Qualitative analysis through on-site due diligence

Another key concept I learned was the role of on-site due diligence in real estate investment decisions. Through property tours and site visits, I understood that visiting an asset is not only a formality, but a critical step to assess risks and opportunities that cannot be fully captured in financial models.

On-site analysis allowed us to evaluate concrete elements such as the physical condition of the property, tenant behavior, maintenance issues, accessibility, visibility, and the overall environment. These observations were essential to validate renovation budgets, leasing assumptions, and the feasibility of the value-add strategy. This experience showed me that on-site due diligence plays a central role in confirming the realism of the business plan and reducing execution risk before acquisition.

Importance of qualitative relationships with stakeholders

Finally, my internship emphasized the importance of qualitative relationships with key stakeholders in real estate private equity. Beyond technical analysis, deal execution relies heavily on trust-based relationships with brokers, banks, investors, and operating partners. I observed that effective communication, credibility, and long-term relationships facilitate access to deals, improve negotiation dynamics, and enhance the efficiency of the investment process. This concept showed me that, even in a highly analytical field, human relationships remain a central component of successful investment strategies.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post may be particularly useful if you are considering a career in real estate private equity or real estate investment and you want to know what an acquisition role really looks like beyond the job description. It can also help you understand how multifamily and commercial deals are analyzed and structured in practice, and how an internship can clarify your career project by exposing you to real decisions and real transactions.

By sharing this experience, my goal is to offer a concrete and honest picture of what it means to work in real estate private equity at an early stage in your career: the analytical dimension, the fieldwork, the pressure, but also the learning curve and the satisfaction you feel when your work contributes directly to a deal.

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About the author

The article was written in December 2025 by Noa AZRIA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025-2026).

   ▶ Read all articles by Noa AZRIA.

My internship experience in Investor Relation at Eurazeo

by
Adam MERALLI BALLOU

In this article, Adam MERALLI BALLOU (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2021-2026) shares his professional experience as Investor Relations at Eurazeo.

About the company

Eurazeo is one of the leading European investment groups specialized in private markets. Listed on Euronext Paris, the group has a market capitalization of approximately €3.62 billion. As of 2024–2025, Eurazeo manages around €37 billion in assets under management, investing on behalf of institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurers, family offices and high-net-worth individuals. Eurazeo supports a portfolio of more than 600 companies and relies on a team of over 400 investment professionals across Europe, North America and Asia.

The group operates a highly diversified private markets platform, covering a broad range of non-listed strategies. These include buyout funds, growth equity, venture capital, secondary funds, as well as private debt, infrastructure debt and real estate. Through these strategies, Eurazeo supports a wide range of companies, for example Aroma-Zone, Ozone and Eres in buyout; Vestiaire Collective and Doctolib in growth equity; and Deezer, Swile and JobTeaser in venture capital. This diversification allows Eurazeo to address different investor objectives, risk-return profiles and investment horizons across the private markets universe.

Logo of Eurazeo
Logo of Eurazeo
Source: Eurazeo

My internship

I worked within the Investor Relations / Product Specialist team. This team plays a central role between the sales teams, whose responsibility is to maintain relationships with Limited Partners (LPs) and lead fundraising discussions, and the investment teams, which focus on sourcing, executing and managing investments.

The Product Specialist team acts as a bridge between these two functions. Its role is to translate investment strategies, portfolio construction, performance and market insights into clear, accurate and investor-ready materials. This positioning requires constant coordination with multiple internal teams to ensure consistency between what is communicated to investors and what is implemented by investment teams.

My missions

My missions were primarily centered on fundraising support and investor due diligence processes. I collaborated closely with all internal teams to respond as quickly and efficiently as possible to LPs’ Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and due diligence questionnaires. This involved collecting information from investment teams, coordinating with legal and compliance teams, and consolidating responses to meet institutional investors’ requirements. I was also responsible for managing and updating several fundraising data rooms using Intralinks. This included organizing documentation, ensuring version control, maintaining up-to-date information and supporting transparency throughout the fundraising process, which is essential for investor confidence.

In parallel, I contributed to the production of high-quality marketing materials such as fund presentations, teasers and fundraising documents. Producing these materials required a deep understanding of each fund’s investment thesis, portfolio composition, value creation strategy and track record, as well as the ability to present complex information in a clear and compelling way for institutional investors.

Finally, I conducted a competitive analysis of the European Private Equity, Private Debt and Real Assets markets. This analysis focused on peer fund strategies, fundraising trends, market positioning and competitive dynamics, and was used to support the sales and product teams in positioning Eurazeo’s funds relative to other major European players.

Required skills and knowledge

This internship required a strong combination of technical, analytical and interpersonal skills. From a technical perspective, a solid understanding of financial markets was essential, particularly across equities and fixed income. Beyond theoretical knowledge, closely following financial markets on a day-to-day basis was a key part of the role, in order to understand market movements, macroeconomic developments and their impact on asset prices.

I needed to be comfortable with portfolio management principles such as asset allocation, diversification, benchmarking and active management in order to contribute effectively to investment proposals and portfolio monitoring.

Proficiency in financial tools was also critical. I regularly used Bloomberg and FactSet to access market data, analyze securities, monitor portfolios and support performance and benchmark analysis. These platforms were essential for understanding market dynamics, tracking asset allocation and assessing portfolio positioning across different asset classes. Advanced Excel skills were used to consolidate data, build allocation summaries, perform basic performance calculations and prepare clear and accurate reports for internal use and client-facing deliverables, ensuring consistency and reliability across analyses.

Beyond technical skills, soft skills played a central role in my day-to-day work. Given the level of autonomy involved in preparing investment proposals for new clients, rigor, attention to detail and strong organizational skills were essential. Clear communication was also key, as I interacted frequently with private bankers, portfolio managers, middle office and management teams. This required the ability to translate complex financial analysis into clear and actionable insights adapted to different stakeholders. This internship required a solid understanding of private markets and institutional fundraising mechanisms. Knowledge of private equity, private debt, infrastructure and real assets was essential to accurately understand investment strategies and respond to investor inquiries.

Strong analytical skills were necessary to conduct competitive market analyses and synthesize complex information into concise and relevant messaging. Writing and presentation skills were also critical, given the importance of producing investor-facing materials that meet high professional standards.

In addition, the role required strong organizational skills, attention to detail and the ability to work under time pressure, particularly during active fundraising phases. Soft skills such as communication, responsiveness and adaptability were essential, as the role involved constant interaction with sales, investment, legal and management teams.

What I learned

This experience provided me with a deep understanding of how private market fundraising operates within a large European investment platform. I learned how institutional investors evaluate funds, what they expect during due diligence processes and how investment strategies are assessed beyond pure financial performance.

Working at the interface between sales and investment teams highlighted the importance of internal coordination and message consistency in fundraising success. I gained insight into how investment strategies and track records are translated into investor-ready narratives, and how responsiveness and data quality play a critical role in building long-term LP relationships.

Overall, this internship strengthened my interest in private markets, investor relations and investment products, and complemented my previous experience in portfolio management by providing a broader perspective on the asset management value chain.

Financial and business concepts related to my internship

I present below three financial and business concepts related to my internship: private market fundraising and LP relations, product positioning and information asymmetry in private markets, and competitive dynamics in European private markets.

Private market fundraising and LP relations

Fundraising in private markets relies on long-term relationships between General Partners (GPs) and Limited Partners (LPs). Institutional investors conduct extensive due diligence before committing capital, assessing governance, risk management, team stability, operational infrastructure and alignment of interests.

My involvement in RFPs and due diligence processes illustrated how transparency, consistency and responsiveness are essential to maintaining investor trust. The Investor Relations and Product Specialist function plays a key role in reducing information gaps and ensuring that investors receive accurate and timely information throughout the fundraising process.

Product positioning and information asymmetry in private markets

Private market funds are characterized by a high degree of information asymmetry, as investment strategies, portfolio composition and value creation processes are not publicly observable. Effective product positioning is therefore crucial to help investors understand how a fund fits within their broader portfolio.

Through the preparation of fund presentations and marketing materials, I learned how complex investment strategies are translated into structured narratives supported by data and track records. Clear positioning helps differentiate funds in a competitive environment and facilitates investor decision-making.

Competitive dynamics in European private markets

European private markets have become increasingly competitive, with a growing number of fund managers competing for institutional capital. Differences in fund size, sector focus, geographic exposure and investment style play a major role in investor allocation decisions. The competitive analyses I conducted highlighted how Eurazeo positions its strategies relative to peers across private equity, private debt and real assets. Understanding these dynamics is essential for adapting fundraising strategies and maintaining competitiveness in evolving market conditions.

Why should I be interested in this post?

This experience offers valuable insight into the fundraising and investor relations side of private markets, which is often less visible than the investment process itself. For students interested in private equity, private debt or alternative investments, this role provides a unique perspective on how funds are raised, how investors evaluate strategies and how investment products are positioned in competitive institutional markets.

Related posts on the SimTrade blog

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   ▶ Dante MARRAMIERO My Experience as an Investment Intern at Eurazeo

   ▶ Margaux DEVERGNE Top 5 Private Equity firms in Germany

   ▶ Lilian BALLOIS Discovering Private Equity: Behind the Scenes of Fund Strategies

Useful resources

Eurazeo Official website

Eurazeo (2025) White Paper on why Investing in Europe

Invest Europe

About the author

The article was written in December 2025 by Adam MERALLI BALLOU (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2021-2026).

   ▶ Read all articles by Adam MERALLI BALLOU.