The HBS Summer Fellows Program enables students to apply their classroom training as they explore career opportunities in roles or regions where compensation is generally lower than the traditional MBA level. This summer, we are connecting with some of our 70 Social Enterprise Summer Fellows, who are working around the world to develop skills and knowledge while having significant responsibility and high impact.
What are you working on this summer?
I’m working at Calvert Impact – an intermediary in the impact investing field. Calvert raises capital from individual and institutional investors through its Community Investment Note, and then provides debt financing to sectors that mainstream capital markets aren’t comfortable with (yet) but have potential for transformative impact. This summer I’ve been working on a strategic review of their affordable housing portfolio – synthesizing their work in the space to date, landscaping the market, and identifying additional investment theses to address the critical affordable housing shortage in the U.S. I’ve also been working on a diligence for a loan to a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in Appalachia.
Why did you choose this internship for the summer?
I came to HBS wanting to pursue social impact and then learned during the first year, to my own surprise, that I really enjoyed and had an aptitude for finance – enter, impact investing! I learned about Calvert Impact when looking for impact investing organizations in the DC area – where I hoped to land post-HBS. After chatting with the team, I learned more about their model, and I particularly resonated with their mission of making impact investing accessible to anyone and their approach of investing in intermediaries already on the ground in communities. Among several impact sectors, Calvert invests in two that I wanted to explore: affordable housing and climate. We ended up shaping a role that seemed like a great fit with my goals for the summer.
What are your goals for this summer?
My overarching goal for the summer is answering the question: do I want to pursue a career path in impact investing post-HBS? Within that, I am hoping to:
How has your MBA skillset prepared you to be successful in this role?
Impact investing, as I’ve learned, requires developing expertise at multiple levels: understanding how your firm constructs and manages its portfolio, the business models of the companies you’re investing in, and a systems perspective on how those companies will influence social problems. Coming from a public policy background, I had deep experience in systems thinking – but I would say, the first year at HBS really helped me to build out the first two levels. The finance curriculum gave me lots of reps in analyzing businesses, all in grounded examples, which helped me to build both hard skills and a stronger finance intuition. I would also say, a softer yet still critical part of the MBA skillset is building a habit of self-reflection, which I found helped me to stay resilient as I climbed a new learning curve.
How has the summer influenced your thinking on future involvement in social enterprise?
On one of my first days, a colleague shared that she had “a public sector heart and a private sector personality,” which really resonated with me. Social enterprise, for me, is a sweet spot where I can connect my deeply held values with my day-to-day work and do work that aligns with my professional strengths. I found impact investing particularly meaningful, as the field not only invests to solve social problems, but also seeks to influence capital markets themselves – to allocate resources more equitably and responsibly. I plan to continue exploring a career in the impact investing space.
How can someone learn more about your organization?
Website: https://calvertimpact.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/calvert-impact/
Twitter Handle: @calvertimpcap
