Intern Feature: Mikaela Hensen

This summer I moved to Boston (I am originally from Baltimore, MD) in order to challenge myself and work in the world of finance.  Earlier in the Spring, I had investigated opportunities in the Boston area, and had stumbled upon Kenston Green, a Private Equity Search Fund based in the city. Shortly after expressing interest via email, I completed a phone interview with the recent graduate student from Harvard Business School, Sarah Moore, who was determined to purchase a business to attain management and operational experience.

HOW DID YOU FIND THIS OPPORTUNITY?

I found the internship on internships.com

WHAT HAS TOUR EXPERIENCE BEEN LIKE AND WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

During this internship, I used comparable company analysis to value firms, collaborating with brokers, owners, and investors.  I also performed in-depth operational and financial analytics on potential sellers, while analyzing industries primarily with low asset intensity and long-term contracts with $0.5M-$1.5M EBITDA.

As the end of July hit, Kenston Green's acquisition process reached its end, and I transitioned into a second internship working for a Harvard Business Teaching Fellow's entrepreneurial start-up, titled Commonwealth International.  Throughout my time working directly with the founder, Andrew Hill, I participated in topical market research, delving into the procedure and regulations surrounding international banking and offshore accounts.  I spent many hours researching and developing a knowledge base on international law and policy governing foreign investing and wealth management, which Commonwealth International later implemented into their business model.

What I expected to be a crash-course in the basics of finance quickly developed into a passion and drive for understanding cash-flow and the world's many international markets. For a management and legal studies double major, I found that even in the world of Private Equity and International Wealth Management, I was able to apply my own critical thinking and perspective in order to contribute towards two separate entrepreneurial start-ups.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR OTHER STUDENTS?

If I had any advice to other Isenberg students, it would be to continue searching for that perfect summer experience - whether through connections on social media, webpages, or even like mine, via an add on internships.com. And once you source out the opportunity, really pursue it, even if you don't think you understand the nuances of the industry yet. My first day at Kenston Green, I walked into a conference room surrounded by eight other interns - all of them finance majors, male, and incoming juniors or seniors. By the end of the summer, I realized that in order to become competitive in the business world- it wasn't about my own background in legal studies and management - it was more so how I applied my unique perspective towards the companies' performance goals and initiatives, while learning from peers to fill in the gaps and achieve results for the team.