Hi everybody! My name is Noah Elwyn. I’m a rising junior at the University of Pittsburgh, and I’m pursuing a double degree with majors in Finance and Economics. This summer, I will be living in Berlin, Germany and participating in the International Internship Program. I’ll be flying out there in just about 2 days now, and I can’t wait to get started.
A little bit about me personally – I grew up in northern New Jersey, about an hour outside of New York City. I came to the University of Pittsburgh because it offered great academics and career development programs (like this International Internship Program), and I also love that the campus is integrated into the city, and highly walkable with good public transport. In my free time, I love playing guitar and weightlifting (I can’t wait to check out the gym at my accommodations in Berlin!).
On campus at Pitt, I’m a junior analyst in Panther Equity – one of the student-led investment funds at the university. Last semester I was covering the Industrials/Materials sector, and collaborated with the team to successfully pitch L3Harris as a buy. That experience has been wonderful for me as a way to build my skills in market research and equity coverage, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with a community of individuals passionate about finance. In Pittsburgh, I’ve also joined the Polar Plunge fundraising event for the Special Olympics Pennsylvania the past two years. Supporting that organization has been a personally valuable way for me to give back, as someone who was fortunate enough to play various sports throughout high school, and also as someone who loves physical activity and believes in the community that sports and weightlifting can provide. Not to mention, the Polar Plunge is a great way to wake up early on a Saturday!
A brief recap of my professional experience – the summer after my freshman year at Pitt, I worked a one-month wealth management internship at Morgan Stanley. This was my first professional exposure to finance, and I developed some valuable skills from multitasking to meet the team’s daily administrative needs, taking concise notes on macroeconomic research to provide summaries to my team, as well as portfolio management and asset allocation projects I was given. Last fall, I also took and passed FINRA’s Security Industry Essentials exam. This exam serves as a precursor to the FINRA Series 7 exam, necessary for many jobs in the financial industry. For me, this exam was a learning experience. I studied everything from options trading, to different types of retirement accounts, to the different financial markets and regulations for different types of product offerings (just to mention a few). From that exam, I became more certain that finance is a field I would love to continue learning about and building a career within.
I chose the International Internship Program at the University of Pittsburgh because it perfectly combined both my personal and professional goals into an actionable pathway. This program fits my personal goals, firstly because I love traveling, and more importantly because I believe the best way for me to grow as a person is to immerse myself in new cultures, and unfamiliar situations. I have never been anywhere in Europe, and this opportunity to travel and live in a different culture is one I have been seeking out. Furthermore, this program fits my professional goals simultaneously, because it includes 8 weeks of full time work at a company abroad. I believe that the combination of learning a new culture and also developing my professional skills abroad will greatly aid me in my future professional endeavors. Beyond that, I simply think this program will be a blast!
This summer in Berlin, I will be an intern for Vireo Ventures. Vireo Ventures is a seed and pre-seed venture capital firm that invests in European technology startups. More specifically, Vireo invests in tech startups that are driving the energy and mobility sectors, and supporting the global journey towards net-zero emissions in the process. The energy sector accounts for approximately 70% of worldwide CO2 emissions from the consumption of electricity, fuel, and heat. Vireo Ventures invests in startups that help shift society towards greener energy and more efficient energy consumption. This commitment to sustainability and generating tangible social benefits is core to Vireo’s investment thesis, beyond simply aiming to generate returns. I couldn’t be more thrilled to begin working with the Vireo team and contributing to their work. I’m incredibly excited to explore Berlin this summer, and to learn and work alongside such talented, passionate people.