The field of sustainable and impact finance is rapidly growing and has many different roles, organizations, and strategies. It’s exciting, but can also be overwhelming.
Where should you look for opportunities? What kinds of skills do you need to have? When do these companies typically recruit?
It depends! Every student takes a slightly different path, influenced by their background and the area of impact investing they are most interested in. Check out this fictional MBA student's journey to see all the opportunities at Haas.
Fall - Classes
Oski arrives at Haas and is enrolled in all eight core classes for the fall. They also take an elective called Impact Investing Landscape. The course is over two Sundays, which is exhausting but rewarding because they come away with a better understanding of the breadth of sustainable and impact finance, and where they might see themselves working.
In late October Oski starts getting emails from the Academics team about bidding and spring electives. They're pretty overwhelmed by all the options, but knows they want to enroll in the Haas Impact Fund, where they'll get to lead sourcing, diligence, and evaluation of early-stage impact-oriented start-ups with a potential for investment.
Oski also interested in taking the Sustainable Investment Fund applied innovation course during their second year, and bids their remaining units on the two prerequisites they'll need to take in order to be eligible.
Fall - Career
Oski starts getting to know the Career Management Group through their initial advising appointment as well as through the numerous career primers they attend.
The most interesting session they attend is still the Impact Investing Primer, where they learn all about the spectrum of impact investing careers. They start keeping a list of people to start building their network.
Oski enjoys career week and the chance to hear from alumni and visit companies. They join an impact investing Industry Career Team, where second year peer advisors provide advice and resources to first years.
Fall - Clubs & Competitions
Oski joins Net Impact right away, but is not sure what else they should get involved in.
Should they join the Venture Capital Club? The Investment Management Club? Food @ Haas? Like many first years, Oski decides to join them all. They also joins Redwoods @ Haas and Beer Club!
Oski joins the Haas Pitch Competition hosted by the Investment Management Club, and works to weave ESG into their team’s investment pitch.
They also starts talking to his classmates about the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge, which they know they want to participate in next spring. By November they've formed a team and started talking about potential topics.
Spring - Classes
Oski is a Student Venture Partner in the Haas Impact Fund, and works with their team to source investments in early stage companies that fall into their area of focus.
They are also taking two core classes in each of Spring A and Spring B and the two prerequisites for the Sustainable Investment Fund. They decide to add another elective called Strategy and Leadership for Social Impact and manages to score a spot in Designing Financial Models that Work during add/drop.
Spring - Career
Oski returns from winter break refreshed and ready for another packed semester. They had a few calls with people in their network over the break and submitted a few job applications as well through the career management group’s job board. They are talking to more people in the industry and starting to identify an area of focus and a few firms.
One of the conversations they started in the fall has led to a spring internship offer - it’s challenging to balance that work with classes and other commitments, but Oski is finding it rewarding and knows they are making good connections in the field.
Oski continues to attend meetings for the Industry Career Team, and also attends some small-group behavioral interviewing practice sessions through CMG.
SPring - Clubs & Competitions
In the late fall Oski ran for some club leadership positions, and ended up on the leadership of Net Impact and the Haas Venture Capital Club.
They also moves forward with the project for the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge with their team.
Later in the spring Oski also participates in the Patagonia Case Competition with an interdisciplinary team of students. It’s a great opportunity to exercise a different skill set as the team works to design a solution to a corporate responsibility issue that the company is facing.
Summer Internship
In early spring, Oski hears from a venture philanthropy organization they applied to - they have a first round interview. It’s a challenging interview with a case study, but Oski leans on the skills they developed in a previous role and the lessons they learned in the core curriculum, especially Operations and Microeconomics.
A few weeks later Oski finds out that they've got an offer! The organization has been around for a while, is well-known in the field, and has a structured internship program, all of which is very exciting.
The internship itself is challenging but rewarding. As it ends and Oski returns to campus, they reflect on the experience. Oski enjoyed most of the day to day work and the projects, but is it something they would want to do all the time? Not sure. Oski decides to use this experience to refine their career thesis even further as they enter Second Year...
Oski's journey is just one of many for students interested in impact investing and sustainable finance at Berkeley Haas. We have a wealth of courses, events, opportunities and resources to support you.
To find out more, check out the Sustainable and Impact Finance initiative at https://haas.berkeley.edu/saif/
Written by Lena Horvath, MBA 2022