Category: Cole

As I reflect on my time as an investment banking intern at Impact Vietnam, I can say with certainty that both my technical skills and my understanding of the industry have improved immensely. While much of this can be attributed to having a fantastic mentor in Tuan, who was only recently in my shoes, my improvement is largely the result of a combination of being tasked legitimate assignments with significant responsibility and having freedom in leading my own projects that allowed for my creativity to flow with ease. When I dig into the specifics of my performance over the past two months, I would say my strongest area of success revolved around my resiliency and adaptability. Working in the finance industry in a foreign country like Vietnam that harbors fast-paced economic growth and organic business structures, being prepared for shifts in daily tasks or unexpected projects are far from uncommon, and I was tested many times in being dumped with last minute investment teasers expected to be completed within 48 hours, and changes in investment presentations in cases where we lost mandates. Additionally, I had to develop the flexibility to put in extra effort to find relevant information for investment presentations, as often times the information I needed was in Vietnamese and unable to be translated via Google. Achieving success in both of these specific areas was certainly fulfilling but understanding where I struggled the most throughout the summer will provide the initial foundation for future improvement in my professional performance in any setting. I believe the areas where I can benefit the most from future improvement would be my professional confidence and communication. Rather than doubting my ability to complete tasks as I often do, I should express my concern with my superiors which will not only boost my confidence but foster two-way communication for any questions I have on projects as opposed to forcibly trying to figure out complex issues without any help.

This experience immensely developed my technical skills in the Microsoft Office platform, my ability to work with others creativity skills. Working in Vietnam has allowed me to realize that, while the work was great for my own development,  investment banking is not the career path I want to take, as I have learned to appreciate far more mobile work with greater people oriented interactions that one may find in management consulting. In conclusion, working in Saigon has not only been a culturally enriching and enlightening experience, but has allowed me to understand business and individual priorities in Vietnam from a global scale.

Entering the financial sector as an intern in Vietnam has proven to be one of the most rewarding work experiences imaginable. Studying as a finance student at the University of Florida, despite having only completed my first year on campus, provided the foundation to be successful as an expatriate in my position in Vietnamese investment banking. While I can think of certain times that I have felt proud of myself during my internship, it is difficult to pinpoint a single memory or moment as the most fulfilling. I would have to say that the proudest I have been of myself has been times when I reflect on where I was only eight weeks ago, and just how far my technical skills in Microsoft Office, especially PowerPoint, have come.

As an investment analyst, I am expected to be highly skilled in Excel and PowerPoint as they are the foundation for creating financial models and building out pitch decks for investor presentations, respectively. In all honesty, while I knew I had room to grow in Excel (and still do; I want to master keyboard shortcuts), I truly thought I was well trained in PowerPoint. I had worked in the program for the majority of my life and was the source of nearly of my prior presentations, but until I bore the burden of expectation to assemble a presentation for investors upon which the weight of a $100 million deal sat, I had never pushed my creative limits beyond what I had believed was its fully expanded frontier. I abandoned bland simplicity of my work for more geometrically aesthetic style, engineering slides to project information in a fashion to effectively captivate pivotal investors. When reflecting on my work before being tasked with this gargantuan beast-of-a-project halfway through Week 6, I fed myself the same notion: that I was making headway in my skills. And I was; just not to the exponential extent I saw until the completion of this project. In fact, my proudest “moment” and largest accomplishment coincide; my skills were catalyzed to a point of elite professionalism by the expectation to spearhead a legitimate, multi-million-dollar investment deal.

The way I now look at life after two months of living in Ho Chi Minh City has been altered by the workplace I operate within. Researching local companies seeking foreign investment, as well as studying the firm I am working in, I have come to realize the opportunity an individual has the power to create for themselves. My boss and the founder of Impact Vietnam, along with hundreds of others living in Ho Chi Minh City, have created successful companies despite having little resources simply because they embodied the necessary tenacity. As I reflect on the education I am pursuing coupled with the credentials I have accumulated through experience, I now truly believe I could successfully create an investment firm or consumer-based company in the near future; I simply need to find the courage to do so.

Working in investment banking has granted me numerous valuable lessons and information to take away from my experience. I have come to highly value the importance of working ahead and forging your own opportunities when lacking direction in the office, as it has allowed me to develop an independence that is absent from nearly all American entry-level corporate office positions and will allow for swift upward mobility as I begin my career.  holding yourself to unwavering quality standard even when it might not be expected by your superiors. I have also learned that, unlike traditional Wall Street practice, when a Vietnamese investment bank secures an investment mandate from a company, granting them the rights as the intermediary to sell their business to investors, they are not the only bank that has been given this conventionally exclusive privilege. This means that Vietnamese investment banks secure as many deals as possible in the event that they are not the bank investors choose to buy through. This has proven to be quite frustrating at times as analysts are given a much higher volume of projects due to banks targeting high turnover, and I have seen my hard work deleted simply because investors chose to buy through a different firm. Yet it has proven to be quite rewarding when investors finalize a deal with a small firm like ourselves over firms with historically larger amounts raised capital because of a presentation my co-worker and I spearheaded. 

During my time at Impact Vietnam I have been able to analyze the positive and negative aspects of our company and have compiled them into a SWOT analysis for better understanding the company. Our strengths our centralized around a tightly knit team with strong personal and professional relationships, high efficiency in securing mandates, fast turnaround in developing investment teasers, and creating engaging visual PowerPoint investment presentations that give Impact Vietnam a leg-up over large competitors. Our weaknesses are defined by the very small number of company employees which results in work overload on the few team members, relatively low deal capital – under $1 billion – indicates lack of size and long-term industry experience. Opportunities include the room for growth in employee headcount and deal size; in addition, many secured mandates indicate probable, continued short-term investment business, and foreign investors likely to return for future deals and high Vietnamese market GDP growth nearing 7% is enticing enough to attract overseas investment groups in the future. Looming threats to be considered are larger investment banks taking domestic business from Impact Vietnam alongside possibility of losing foreign investment to rival firms.

While living in Ho Chi Minh City, I have had many amazing experiences and interacted with numerous accomplished people. One of these shared moments came at a United States Chamber of Commerce networking event at a bar in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. After talking with a few ex-patriates about their lives and careers abroad from their home countries and the opportunities they have discovered or created for themselves in Vietnam, our group of UF students who attended the networking event was invited to a post-networking party at the penthouse of an expat who a few students had talked to earlier in the night, and who also happened to be a German businessman and Hanoi’s largest nightclub owner. After a spectacularly lavish evening of conversation and billiards, I can truly say this was my greatest out-of-office experience in Vietnam.

Along my journey into the Vietnamese world of business and finance, I can honestly say that I have endured a rollercoaster-like experience filled with ups, downs, and unexpected turns. In some instances, I feel to lack direction in the work I am doing, which I know is derived from the comfort I, and most all Americans, find in the rigid structure of Western corporate culture that has been hard-coded into our brains at the earliest ages. Nonetheless, it was difficult to operate when my supervisor had left Ho Chi Minh City on a business trip to Hanoi for the week, leaving myself and my co-intern Richard alone in the office with little instruction on expectations for projects, priorities, or deadlines. If merely hoping to be assigned a specific project was not enough to ask for, searching for information has been an entire project in itself, because not only do Richard and I need to wait to request the confidential financial information from our client, but we are unable to access any data on industry competitors, as they are almost always private corporations which do not make their financials public information. Even in such profound frustration, the silver lining, which may seldom seem visible often times, lies in the creativity granted in the absence of structure.

In many cases, I have assembled pitch deck presentations for foreign investors in fashions I see suitable because I have been given significant responsibility and flexibility to allow my originality to flourish on work that was wholly mine. I have been lucky enough to have sat in on meetings with international investors, as well as visit clients and CEOs of domestic businesses looking to sell ownership or the entire company. Interacting with individuals who have forged success in an international, high-growth market like Vietnam have been a source of inspiration to my future self and continue to fuel my hopes of investing in the region in the future per its unparalleled opportunity for economic growth. As I continue to struggle at times working in an organic business atmosphere, I know I am diversifying my workplace acumen and developing the adaptability necessary for my future ventures into Southeast Asian economies.

During my remaining few weeks in Saigon I hope to continue eating my favorite newly discovered Vietnamese dish, Banh Mi, which is a mix of meat, cucumbers, cilantro, pickled carrots, and other vegetables on a traditional French baguette, along with using my challenging experiences to better develop myself for future opportunities in finance and long-term foreign investment.

As I become more entrenched in my daily routine at Impact Vietnam, the managing team of Toan and Ninh continue to secure more mandates for new clients looking to raise investment capital. Throughout the week, we finalized details and made changes to the pitch deck for the deal with the baked confectionary manufacturer. In doing so I had the opportunity to engage in a phone call meeting with Claus, a partner of the Impact Vietnam firm who is based in both Singapore and Europe but travels on a monthly basis. Claus, who is an expert in modeling and data representation, virtually went through the pitch deck with my coworker Richard and I, giving advice on what changes to make as well as asking questions from an investors perspective in order to point out the slideshow’s missing information that would likely be of interest to a prospective buyer.

By the end of the week, Toan, Ninh, and even Tuan, another young investment associate on the team, were back in Hanoi to meet with future clients Hai Nam media and DIligo holdings, as well as meet with the confectionery manufacturer Huu Nghi Food to present our work. We were told the meeting went fantastic, and although I would have liked to have been there to meet with the client who I had done the most work for, I was proud knowing that my efforts would lead to a tangible impact in the form of a transaction for the company.

Moving forward, teamwork and communication has been the binding force that has allowed for our small team to maintain productivity and make headway as a small firm in a competitive market. While Toan has been a fantastic guide to securing a foothold as an investment analyst in Vietnamese business, his main office is located in Hanoi, a city on the opposite end of the country, and will have to communicate with us remotely for the majority of our work. While Ninh and Tuan will be in the Ho Chi Minh City office with us, it has been practical to have found my role and the purpose I with Impact Vietnam. As I continue to develop financial models and pitch decks, my design and organization skills have proven to be fantastic for visual aid of presented information, but I hope to improve my Excel skills in order to more quickly navigate the program when working in spreadsheets. With regards to Saigon, I have learned that with both work and in the city, nobody stops for you the way they do in the United States; in the streets, you must cross swiftly and with conviction, and in the office, complete tasks confidently without explicit instruction.

My supervisor at my internship was named Toan, a small-statured but intelligent man who also happened to be the Managing Director at Impact Vietnam. He had also founded the boutique investment bank in early 2014 and built his clientele to nearly five hundred million dollars in successful deals since its establishment. Aside from assigning my coworker and I tasks on deals, Toan steers the direction of the business given his ownership status; his day-to-day work often includes securing mandates from new clients who are looking to sell a percentage of their business, communicating with prospective buyers and foreign investors who are interested in stake in our current clients, or asking about possible investment entries into specific industries that they can possibly secure, and visiting the business sites of current clients to discuss their deals or to gather more information for corporate pitch decks or financial models.

Toan has been inviting and encouraging to myself and my coworker and has ventured well beyond the traditional expectations for a business internship. Despite not giving the most explicit instructions at first, he has given us the freedom and flexibility to be original in the work, and more specifically the company pitch decks, that we do for our client deals, allowing us to express the depths of our creativity and aid Impact Vietnam not only on their deals, but setting a standard for future corporate presentations beyond our time at the firm. Given its small size, there are no departments within the company, but because the core team works in the same office space, communication is at a productive high and we are friendly with each other.

Beyond assembling pitch decks, investment teasers, and financial models and comparables, Toan has emboldened us to accompany him on his client meetings. I have gotten to travel to grocery stores and factories, which have provided a tangibility to the work that I do for Impact Vietnam. For instance, working on a pitch deck for the largest seafood manufacturer in southeast Asia on Monday and then visiting the factory on Wednesday to personally meet with and interview the company CEO for inside information on his expansion plans that I get to relay to prospective investors through presentations have been unimaginable experiences. Having a multitude of opportunities to interact with C-suite Executives, Presidents, and Chairmen of companies are experiences that create a personable dimension to my work that is unparalleled anywhere in the Investment Banking industry for an intern.

Aside from working on the weekdays and traveling the region on weekends, I have had interesting experiences during my lunch breaks in Ho Chi Minh City. Over the past few weeks, I have been to many different Vietnamese restaurants, and not a single one to date has provided me with a napkin during a meal yet; to be honest I have asked for one on multiple occasions and nobody even seems to know what they are. As a somewhat messy eater this has proven to be quite frustrating, as I have to be careful not to stain my dress shirts for work. For the time being, paying 5000 dong (approximately 25 cents) for wet wipes at restaurants will have to suffice. Hopefully me and my dress shirts will survive the next 5 weeks; only time will tell.

As my first week of work began, I was excited to see what an international work experience would prove to offer. Given my standing as a finance major, I was placed in a company known as Impact Vietnam, which was labeled as a boutique investment bank and financial advisory firm that provides services to domestic companies seeking capital from international sources. On the buy side, foreign investors would be connected to Vietnamese companies looking to sell a portion of ownership as an investment opportunity.

As I walked into the office on my first day, I was greeted by the managing director of the firm, who also happened to be my boss, and was given multiple tasks to start the day, including creating an extensive information memorandum compiled with information on a client company, but was given no instructions on how to do so. I found it frustrating to lack detail on how to approach something so pertinent to the company’s success on my first day, but after taking the initiative to come up with my own approach to the project, I found a fulfilling (and much-needed) sense of direction to maintain productivity. Throughout the week as I worked on company pitch decks and presentations, I became more familiar with my and appreciative for my employer’s leniency in allowing me to express my creativity on projects. I was also fortunate enough to be invited to listen in on multiple client calls, and even attend a business meeting with investing partners from Singapore and Japan.

While I was somewhat apprehensive at first due to the one room office and five-man banking team (including myself and my coworker Richard), I came to discover the benefits of such an intimate workspace. Due to its small size, the team was a collaborative environment that encouraged bouncing pitch construction ideas off of one another and sharing about our non-work lives as we developed personal friendships beyond the office. By the end of the first week, I felt fully initiated onto the team, in both how warmly I was welcomed, but also the significance I felt I could contribute to the company and understanding the appreciation and importance of my role. I am excited to see where my role in Impact Vietnam takes me in the coming weeks.

Following a week immersion into Vietnam’s culture, history, and lifestyle, I can say with certainty that Vietnam has been abundant with surprises and surpassed expectations. As soon as my plane touched down on the tarmac and I stumbled through the sliding airport doors with my baggage, evening humidity and eighty-five plus temperature aside, I was swathed with a foreign atmosphere unlike anything I had ever experienced. My traveling partner Garrett and I pushed through a sea of staring eyes as picked our way towards our pre-arranged transportation arrangements, at which point our contact pointed at us and then to the street, where a taxi proceeded to pull up to the curb, and spew what I could only assume was Vietnamese as he pointed to his vehicle. Arriving after-hours at the Masteri Residential Complex, our accommodations for the next two months, Garrett and I were locked out of our apartment lacking internet access and cellular service, thus with no means of contacting our program manager, Jason Ward, leaving us in a Tower-of-Babelesque situation with a security guard and taxi driver who spoke absolutely no English, and Garrett and I, who were ecstatic that the locals could understand our pronunciation of “Xin Chào” and that we wanted to go to “Tòa Ba” (Tower 3). After Google-translating our way past security and into our apartment, I sat in bed processing the last few hectic hours. Never in my life had I interacted with someone who could not speak at least some English, much less been a clear ethnic and lingual minority. In retrospect, stumbling out of the airport I was apprehensive, but I made it to my apartment in one piece, and I’m better off having learned and struggled through the experience.

The first activity of our first day of traveling in Ho Chi Minh City was the most culturally informative, as we visited the Vietnam War Museum. It was shamefully appalling to witness the damage the United States had done to Vietnam during the early 1970s but moving in understanding the steps we have taken both politically and economically to reform our actions and amend our relationship with the country.

As I spend the next seven weeks living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, I hope to discover a greater understanding for Vietnamese culture, and even answer some questions of my own. While working as an intern in the field of finance, I am curious to see where the priorities of Vietnamese firms lie in developing relationships with clients, and the parallels or disconnects that can be drawn to the traditionally stringent, impassive demeanor of Western business culture. From a more cultural standpoint, why are traffic laws in the United States obscenely orderly and strict in comparison to Vietnam, and why are drivers so calm navigating what seems to be organized chaos. While this may seem to be culturally obvious to some, my perspective of my final query is quite simple: why do the Vietnamese continue to use chopsticks in 2019? Despite my understanding of their longstanding status as a staple element of the dinner table, it would seem reasonable that the people would opt for more convenience in eating their meals in a modern age plentiful with engineered, ergonomic marvels akin to the fork and knife.

I know that my next two months will be laden with lingual barriers and social disconnects, but rather than remain apprehensive as I was leaving the airport, I’m excited to problem-solve my way through Vietnam and find the answers to my questions, whether complex or simple.

As the introductory week of classes just a few weeks prior to our group’s departure to Vietnam come to a close, I find my excitement developing from a distant opportunity into an approaching reality. While the past week of classes have provided a wealth of knowledge on the cultural ins and outs of the newly budding Southeast-Asian Tiger, I was particularly intrigued by the mounting Vietnamese obsession with capitalism. It was interesting to learn about the nation’s history in conjunction with its social development; as the United States pulled out of Vietnam following the war in 1975 and the Communist North commanded control of the Liberal South, the social distinctions of both the South and Vietnam entirely shifted in the balance of Capitalist values, an ironic development in favor of economic progress. Watching my perception of Vietnam transform from “former war enemy” to “budding capitalist-oriented economy” came as an unexpected surprise, as I had felt fairly confident in my understanding of the country prior to this week’s classes.

Moreover, I was also surprised by many unique differences between American and Vietnamese culture. Particularly, I was drawn to the distinctive paradox that both nations naturally hold a mutual importance placed on family, but each pedestalizes the family for opposing reasons. In the United States we consider the family to be the most important aspect of our lives simply for our love of those who are closest to us, while the Vietnamese prioritize their families largely for social reasons, particularly for the sake of honor and representation in society, as they believe in upholding a high standard of communal perception of their family. The similarity of this paradox lies in the common ground of a lifestyle centrifuged on the family. A supplementary but quite noticeable difference between the United States and Vietnam is the significance of individuality vs collectivism in respective countries, which are large

My amended understanding of Vietnamese culture, and particularly business culture, will bolster my interpersonal skills when working in an office of foreign speakers, and even enhance my daily interactions while roaming the streets of Saigon.