Meet: Our Fantastic Summer 2011 Interns

Summer is a time for sunny blue skies, warm beach water and… internships :P  We are pleased to introduce two young’uns who’ve joined us at InVenture’s HQ in Santa Monica for the summer to contribute to and learn about Portfolio Management and Marketing/Communications.  They come to us from the land of USC - and we are thrilled to have them with us for the summer.  Give a warm welcome to Hendra Susanto and Manali Purohit!

MEET: HENDRA

Hometown: Surabaya, Indonesia
University:  University of Southern California
Major:  Business Administration - Corporate Finance
Internship: Portfolio Management

A personal note from Hendra…
Hi there ! My name is Hendra Susanto and I am a senior at USC majoring in corporate finance. I first heard of InVenture’s Portfolio Management Internship position from USC’s career source website. I immediately opened my browser and did a little research on Inventure. After learning about InVenture, I was extremely excited and I jumped at the opportunity of being able to spend my summer with a great company.

InVenture is a start up company with a bright future, and more importantly, amazing people ! Although this is only my first week at InVenture, I’ve already learned so much. Tom, the portfolio manager, is an awesome coach with tons of experience. He is always there to teach me about portfolio management and pass his knowledge about the micro-finance industry. The experience that I am gaining is invaluable to my future. In addition, InVenture is located in a prime location in Santa Monica, with great weather, fantastic ocean views and good restaurants. I am enjoying every moment of my internship and feel proud to be part of the InVenture team.

MEET:  MANALI

Hometown: Bombay, India
University:  University of Southern California
Major:  Business Administration - International Relations 
Position: Communications Intern

A personal note from Manali (originally written 6/15)…
I think it’s safe to say that we all uphold the same opinion when it comes down to career-choices:

Find a job you like and you add five days to your week. I began my quest to land the perfect internship a week after I graduated from USC with a B.S in Business Administration and International Relations. Like most recent graduates, I was deeply distressed by the proliferation of news reports on the current economic scenario.

So you can imagine the degree of my euphoria when I procured the perfect internship with InVenture.org as the Communications Intern for Summer 2011. Not only am I going to work with an upcoming start-up organization with some of the brightest minds in the microfinance industry, I am successfully being able to utilise my knowledge of International Relations and Marketing. Ergo, I am not exaggerating in the slightest bit when I say Jen’s decision to bring me on board with this internship position was the best part of my summer.

Today is my first day at work and it is actually filled with all kinds of firsts.  As a matter of fact, this is my very first internship in America. Today was also the first time I worked in a coffee shop. We gathered at the Starbucks on 3rd Street Promenade to introduce the new team (working at Starbucks is integral to the history of many a successful start up company, mind you). It was also the first time a Starbucks barista offered me free samples of their new frappuccino (I can be very easily amused, I know). But most importantly, it was the first time the entire team at InVenture moved into and officially set up their office in Santa Monica. I feel so privileged to be part of the team and needless to say, this is a very exciting time for the company and I take great pleasure in being part of the change Shivani and the entire group foresees for SMEs around the world.

Here’s to an amazing summer with an amazing group of visionaries!