Impact Investing Summer Intern

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION:

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and his wife, Pam, established Omidyar Network (ON) in 2004 based on the belief that every person has the potential to make a difference. Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. The organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $1 billion to for-profit companies and non-profit organizations that foster empowerment and economic advancement across multiple initiatives, including: financial inclusion, eduation, property rights, emerging technologies, and governance and citizen engagement.  Over time, about half of our investment has taken the form of early stage equity investments in start-ups with the potential for social impact, and about half in grants to non-profits or research.

Unique in the world of impact investment, we make both private investments and nonprofit grants within a single initiative area, identifying like-minded innovators and organizations that we support, help scale, and collaborate with to help realize their full potential. ON’s focus is broad, both topically and geographically, including investments across the United States, India, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

ABOUT THE TEAM:

ON’s impact investing team works to accelerate the growth and effectiveness of the global impact investing industry.  Impact investing has gained global traction in recent years, as evidenced by increasing impact investment assets under management, a range of new players entering the field, and governments enacting policy reforms to create a more favorable enabling environment.   And the field is gaining greater global prominence with champions as diverse as Pope Francis, the G7, World Economic Forum, and Bill Gates. 

 

As the industry grows and matures, it faces important challenges, which the impact investing team helps address, including the need for greater early stage risk capital, more rigorous data on financial returns, a more unified public policy agenda, and greater clarity in parsing impact investing’s big tent.  Our team takes on these and other pressing challenges by creating strategic partnerships, making catalytic investments, and advancing research and thought leadership.  We also directly advise high net worth individuals, family offices and other parties looking to get started in impact investing.

 

We are a team of six based primarily in Redwood City, California  and Washington, DC.  We value creative thinking, audacious goals, and a sense of humor. 

 

INTERNSHIP SUMMARY:

Omidyar Network’s Impact Investing Team is seeking to recruit a full-time summer intern who is currently active or recently graduated from in a graduate program focused on business/finance or international affairs. The individual will be based in our Redwood City, CA office and will engage in a wide range of the team’s work to increase the magnitude and effectiveness of the impact investing industry. This role offers the right candidate unique exposure to the fast-growing impact investing market, insights on key trends and challenges, and a chance to partner with the industry’s top thought leaders.  

 

In addition to providing support across the team’s major portfolios, the Impact Investing team will look to develop one “anchor deliverable” for the intern as a project to carry out over the course of the summer.  The nature of this anchor project will be determined based on the skills and experience of the candidate, and the Impact Investing team’s priority needs during the period of the internship. 

 

Areas of focus may include the following:

 

Frontier Capital: Research and Opportunity Identification

The Impact Investing team is scoping potential opportunities for partnerships, research, and investments in a number of areas, including work following on from our Frontier Capital report calling for greater innovation in early stage investing in emerging market entrepreneurs that serve low income populations.  This individual would provide support through areas such as

• Conducting research and landscape analysis on early stage impact investing in emerging markets entrepreneurs, with a particular focus on innovative financial instruments and intermediaries
• Supporting and/or conducting interviews of practitioners and industry experts
• Conducting analysis of available data on “frontier capital” investing, including analysis of both financial and impact performance
• Supporting preparation and execution of events such as stakeholder workshops

 

Investment Analysis and Support

The Impact Investing team has an ongoing pipeline of investments, including grants and some for-profit or hybrid investments.  During summer 2017, this may include work with prosective investees in areas such as pay for success / social impact bonds; impact investing policy; broadening access to impact capital across the United States; and investment in enterprises serving low income populations in emerging markets.  Activities may include:

• Conducting due diligence for prospective grants and investments through desk-based research, interviews with industry experts, investee management and customers, etc.
• Supporting deal execution, including developing investment theses and preparing investment memoranda and presentations for ON’s internal investment committee; and

 

High Net Worth Advisory Support

The Impact Investing Team carries out advisory work with a number of high net worth individuals and family offices, and is expanding this work over the course of 2017.  The individual will provide support to this area of work through activities such as the following:

• Conducting desk research on prospective high net worth individuals / families in the early stages of engaging in impact investing, building on the ON team’s existing market intelligence
• Supporting preparation for meetings / briefings, as well as follow-on actions from those briefings

 

Communications and Thought Leadership

The Impact Investing team regularly engages in industry events, and puts out our point of view on key issues facing the industry through publications, blogs, and articles.  The intern may support activitie such as:

• Providing research, analysis, writing, and dissemination support for ON-produced content pieces
• Writing or contributing to strategic communications such as blogs or articles

 

Project Management: The individual will also support some project management tasks for the team, such as preparing status reports, capturing meeting notes, and tracking progress against goals. 

 

 

EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE & SKILLS REQUIREMENTS:

 

Omidyar Network is seeking to recruit a summer intern currently active or recently graduated from  a graduate program focused on business/finance or international affairs.  Our preferred candidate would have some work experience prior to graduate school, ideally in a relevant field such as such as impact investing, emerging markets entrepreneurship, venture capital, investment banking, private wealth management, management consulting, or international development.   Such a candidate would bring:

• Deep passion for the use of market-based strategies to create positive social change
• Strong interest and knowledge in impact investing, emerging market entrepreneurship, and market-based solutions for global development
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Some professional experience or academic coursework in finance, with any experience pertaining to impact investing or venture financing a plus
• Strong analytical capabilities, strategic thinking, and project management skills, with a proven ability to quickly master new topics and distill the most important questions
• Proven ability to identify and deliver on top priorities across multiple, fluid workstreams
• Excellent poise, judgment, and discretion required to work a variety of high profile stakeholders
• Experience living and working in low-and-middle income countries a plus

 

Interested qualified candidates should send a current CV and cover email to Chris Jurgens at cjurgens@omidyar.com  with a cc to Anique Frazier at afrazier@omidyar.com by April 7^th 2017.