Hello! This week marks the halfway point of my study abroad program as well as the halfway point into my internship. To go to work I have a 1.5 hour commute where I take train, bus and walk across Hammersmith Bridge. From there, I end up in a small quaint town called Barnes. I work out of my boss’s house and most days I work side-by-side with my boss Wendy and her dog Bella.

I intern at a company called Future of Finance, which is a subscription-based company that hosts seminars and writes articles on to bring its members information about the FinTech industry. My work primarily deals with data analysis where my current tasks are to research new concerns in the financial and technology industry and to find companies and individuals willing to be panelists for our webinars. In order to survive in this industry, attentiveness, curiosity, and networking skills are important to have. The FinTech Industry is constantly changing with new technological advancements being introduced. Due to this, being attentive to new emerging technologies like cryptocurrency or having a curiosity on how to expand available tools like blockchain is necessary to stay afloat. At Future of Finance, networking is a vital skill to gather people to speak at our webinars. Generating professional relationships is also necessary to find individuals who would like to be interviewed for our articles.

My Clifton Strengths are includer, woo, communication, positivity, and significance. I believe that my woo and communication strengths are my greatest asset when networking at Future of Finance. When talking to panelists or interviewing professionals for articles, it requires an initial strong sales initiative to get that individual to collaborate with us. However, in order to have them become a regular attendee, I need to be able to develop a connection and convince them that it is beneficial for them to maintain this relationship as well. My significance strength demonstrates my desire to push through and be someone of significance through my work. This indicates that in all of my projects, I will work hard to make sure that my data is useful and makes an impact. My positivity strength is important at Future of Finance because sometimes the work can get dreary, repetitive, or depressing when panelists drop out or the audience is small at the webinar. However, remaining positive and moving on towards what I can do is crucial.

Rather than the dynamics of the company, something I am beginning to notice about this industry is that it is an incredibly younger male dominated industry. If you look at the boards or the c-suite leaders of most of the corporations in the FinTech sector, especially in DEFI. This is somewhat similar to my company which, if you don’t include the interns that come and go, only has one female which is my boss Wendy. Even the company webinars that Future of Finance hosts are representative of the industry with there rarely ever being a female panelist and even if there is, the conversation ends up being dominated by the men. I hope that by the end of my internship I can understand why there is such a large gender discrepancy in the industry.