Hi Esa! Thank you for taking time to speak with Investment Society today. Could you please introduce yourself to ISOC members?
My name is Esa Tilija. My pronouns are she/her/hers. I was an economics and history double major at Wellesley, Yellow Class of 2019. I'm now working for Capital One in their Commercial Rotational Program. It's my second year in the second rotation of that program.
How is your experience as a senior associate in Capital One? What was the recruitment process like for your position?
I started out as an intern in the Commercial Banking Internship Program. I think they do recruit at least one or two Wellesley people for that each summer. I was offered to join the Commercial Rotational Program, which is what I'm in now. I have really enjoyed it. It's been two rotations, each one year long. Some people go through three rotations depending on business needs. I like the fact that I'm able to try out different lines of business and learn different skills and be a sponge as much as possible. I think it's a great rotational program for people who might not know exactly what they want to do in business, but are open to gaining lots of skills and meeting people and just developing as an analyst. I highly recommend it to Wellesley students who have these kinds of objectives in mind.
Could you explain a little bit more about what you do in each rotation and the projects that you have participated in in these roles?
Very high level—I'm in commercial banking, and what I do is lend money to really large companies. My first rotation was doing that in the healthcare space — medical office buildings and senior housing facilities. My second rotation is now on the Commercial Real Estate team, more specifically within institutional specialties REITs, which are real estate investment trusts. I've been underwriting loans to REITs, largely in the retail space, industrial space, and I've delved a little bit into cold storage, which is new for the bank. So far in the year and a half across both of these rotations. I've underwritten nearly two-and-a-half billion in deals for the commercial bank. On the side, I'm also volunteering with the PPP program (Payment Protection Program). I, at the onset of that, was an underwriter, processing and underwriting those loans. Now, it's the forgiveness stage and I'm underwriting forgiveness applications. So it's been a mixture of underwriting in both my main day-to-day job and PPP on the side. In both rotations, I've also had the opportunity to help out with some really cool projects. I think the rotational program lends itself well to creating opportunities for rotational analysts to do meaningful project work and to fully come in with an outside perspective and be an integral member of the team, which is really valuable to the kind of business we’re in.
It’s very impressive that you were promoted to senior associate in just a little over a year after you started working at Capital One. What is the transition like between an associate and a senior associate? What skills and experiences do you think helped your promotion?
I'll just preface by saying that when you're in a rotational program like I am, there is a greater likelihood that you can be promoted quicker than a non-rotational analyst. I was part of maybe 10 people in my class to get promoted a year into the job. The goal, I think, of the program though is to promote everybody at least once. For me, I think deal volume played a large part. I underwrote a bunch of wing-to-wing transactions and was always willing to help wherever I could. I think that energy and that willingness to be helpful anywhere possible and be a value really gets recognized. Additionally, I don't have the finance background that a lot of people do at Capital One, but I do have the ability to think very critically and learn fast and I think that that was also a factor into why I was promoted. Since the promotion, I do feel like I have greater responsibility in terms of owning my transactions. My deal teams are much smaller now and I'm much more of a lead author or a lead underwriter/co-underwriter, as opposed to assisting. I've been able to do projects on my own and come up with problems that I'd like to solve with my manager. Those are some of the ways that my promoted status has really shown in the second rotation.
Could you please elaborate a little more on your summer experiences before graduation? How did you find your first finance-related internship?
Yes, absolutely. So, my very first internship, when I was a first year going into my sophomore year, was with a Wellesley Serves Grant. I believe it's Career Services now that offers those. I interned at a not-for-profit in Seattle's Chinatown international district called Interim Community Development Association. I lead a lot of wilderness trips for predominantly Asian Pacific Islanders low-income youth. I personally love the outdoors and it was just a bunch of fun—but I also developed some really great communication and people skills and leadership skills during that internship that I have now applied in my day-to-day job and all the internships in between. During my second summer at Wellesley, I was at the Wellesley Lumpkin Summer Institute. I was placed and applied specifically for the Boston Community Capital Internship. It's now known as Blue Hub Capital. Blue Hub Capital is a CDFI, Community Development Financial Institution. The CEO is Elyse Cherry, who is a Wellesley alumna. The entire CDFI cares about double/triple/quadruple returns, and I was helping out mainly with their education lending, predominantly to charter schools and black and brown communities. I was able to help out with anything regarding data and a little bit of strategy. I got a taste of underwriting. The main takeaway from that internship was how I can, one day or in the near future, mix social impact and finance. The CEO, like I mentioned—a Wellesley alumna, strongly encouraged me to then go off into a more real hard-skills finance internship, because she said it would help me gain the tools necessary to be successful and ultimately give back to the community. So I took her advice, and I applied for the Capital One internship. I found this on the Hive. It was just an open application. I submitted my resume and just a few statements about myself. They really liked my application and invited me for Superday, I think by the next week. I received the offer for Superday in New York City. I personally didn't have to do a bunch of networking for it, but I do highly recommend people to network and to talk to current CRPs, like myself, before going to Super Day.
How was your transition from college to an environment where you work forty or plus hours a week?
At Wellesley, I double-majored so I was always in class and working in the library. Something that Wellesley instilled in me was that hard work pays off. The hours of my current job can also be quite long, but I think that the reward is there too, just like Wellesley. That transition for me wasn't too bad, but I will say to those at Wellesley who are just studying all the time, work-life
balance is really important. I am a huge proponent of people figuring that out in college as well, so that it's not something you have to figure out post-grad.
When and how did you know you wanted to pursue something within finance?
I think that a lot of my experiences, both at Boston Community Capital and then at the Capital One internship, really reaffirmed that I have the skills to be successful in this industry, and that it's an industry that is ever changing. I think that having more women and people of color in it will ultimately be beneficial for the industry and society at large, so that was a huge draw for me. I also really enjoy interacting with people and a lot of my job is doing that. I actually have a piece of advice for Wellesley students, which is to try to take as many courses as possible that involve teamwork and group projects. I know that usually Wellesley students stray away from those classes, or just pick your best friends to take those classes with and do all econ projects with the same group. I'd highly advise Wellesley students to actually do the opposite and work with people that they've never worked with before because that's literally what I do at my day-to-day job. I'm added to new deal teams all the time. I think that sense of teamwork is something that you can gain at college, if you're intentional about it.
Are there any particular classes that you would recommend?
Even if you're not an econ major, I would take econometrics because I think that's the class that really solidified why I loved econ and also enabled me to feel like an economist for the first time, running my own regressions and doing my own projects with my team. I also am a huge advocate for taking classes outside of STEM as well, because at the end of the day, writing is so critical to my job, whether that's email correspondences or just actually talking to people, or drafting these really large credit memos. I was a history double major. I love the history department; I recommend it highly, as well as any sort of class in Woman and Gender Studies, English, Africana Studies—those are also really helpful to people in the finance industry.
Is there any other advice that you would like to give to students who are looking into pursuing a finance career?
My first piece of advice is to reach out to people who are currently in the role that you're interested in. If you're interested in commercial banking or Capital One, reach out to somebody like me. If you're interested in investment banking, there’s a ton of Wellesley alumni in that. You get the more candid, raw day-to-day experience by reaching out to people directly in those fields. Another thing that I would say is that while it is very important to land a really great internship probably in your junior summer, it doesn't define you. I know a ton of people who were actually stripped from their full-time offers due to COVID but eventually found their way into an even better job so I would take the whole process lightly, but also be intentional with the people you're talking to and the places you're applying to. For me, culture was a big part of it too. Capital One has a really strong culture. Everyone I work with are incredibly good people. If that matters to you, those are questions you should also be asking people as you network and figure out what company is the best fit for you.
Lastly, just for a little bit of a fun question, what is your favorite hobby outside of work/academics?
My favorite hobby is just being outside. I love backpacking and hiking and camping—anything outside.
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