Tell us about the Greenwood Project!

The Greenwood Project is an organisation that is focused on exposing minorities to career opportunities in the field of finance. Financial literacy is something that is extremely important to one’s future success, and minority communities tend to lack resources in that area. This is where Greenwood steps in. They have a great number of students every year, and they teach, train and then use this pool of talented students to fill paid internship positions at financial firms all over the US, and soon even abroad. This makes a huge impact in our lives, as we get to network with executives, learn about the stock market and gain experience to bolster our resumes. Not to mention, most of these interns transition to full time careers once they graduate! I think the Greenwood Project has helped me tremendously to develop and build a network, I am extremely grateful for that! 

What were your tasks during the internship?

In this Internship, I spent the majority of my time learning. I was tasked with learning to use many different tools and applications through small projects – one of which involved writing scripts.

Were there any highlights or challenges during your internship?

I think the greatest highlight was meeting tons of new people around the globe! It was really cool getting to sit in meetings and talk with team members from Germany for example! I also got to shadow another team for a day and ask plenty of questions. The main challenge was to learn this great amount of things in relatively short time. I was mainly focused on coding in college, so the transition to learning about big data and writing scripts in Linux was quite an adjustment.

In your view, how can financial infrastructure providers like us contribute more to the mission of institutions like the Greenwood Project?

I think the main way firms can contribute to The Greenwood Project is by just making themselves more available. That could be in the form of providing more internship positions or even inviting the students in to speak with teams, HR and executives. This can help Greenwood students grow and provide firms with qualified and diverse talent that they can bring on to the team.

Is there anything else you particularly appreciate about your time here?

One thing I do appreciate is that I have been treated like any other employee! Everyone is really nice and involves me in meetings even though I may not be working on anything quite as important as they may be. I am given time to work on my tasks that are achievable for me, but that also challenge and teach me new things. I feel like I have learned a lot here and am proud of the work I have done!

Gabrial Cofield is the second student from the Greenwood Project whom we invited for an internship in our Group and we look forward to many more years of collaboration with the initiative.