By Ivy Washington, SOM’09

On October 29 through 31, more than ninety child welfare professionals from all over the country gathered in the GM Room to create plans to optimize systems in government agencies with the support of non-profits and for-profits to improve the efficiency of human services. Daniel Stein, SOM’87, co-founder of Stewards of Change, the organization that arranged this conference, attended his 20th SOM reunion in October and was delighted to be holding this third annual conference at SOM.

This year’s conference was called InterOptimability: Human Services 2.0: Preparing Child Welfare for the 21st Century. Mr. Stein’s opening remarks on Monday set the tone of thinking broadly about possibilities and about commonalities by noting the presence of representatives from disparate groups including practitioners, policy-makers, think tanks, and technology businesses.

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I interned with the State of New Jersey Office of Public Finance in Trenton. While there, I drafted New Jersey’s first debt management policy by researching national best practices and adapting them to state conditions. I also revamped the office’s record-keeping of past bond deals. I particularly enjoyed working on Governor Corzine’s Asset Monetization plan for the NJ Turnpike, and participating in the issuance process for a bond that securitized motor vehicle surcharges to pay for special-needs housing. I got this internship through a CDO-sponsored visit to SOM by the NJ State Treasurer, Brad Abelow (SOM ’93).

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I worked with the Performance Management team within Booz Allen’s Organization and Strategy Group over summer. The focus of my summer was to develop a performance management maturity model that defines levels of organizational maturity. After developing the model, I then applied it to ongoing performance management projects with clients in the Defense Intelligence enterprise. The most enjoyable part of the summer was taking advantage of the opportunity to attend strategy meetings on new proposals and bids, and interacting with a team comprising of several associates, principals and a partner.

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I interned this summer at the California Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco. I was working in their Energy Division, and, more specifically, on the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) team, which is responsible for overseeing the state’s major renewable energy policy initiative. My work consisted mainly of building a mathematical model in Excel (from scratch) to estimate the consumer costs of the RPS, accounting for such things as changes in technology and costs, uncertainty around contracts, environmental benefits, etc. The RPS team members are now using the model as a basis to evaluate proposed changes to the policy, so it could end up playing a role in shaping state law moving forward and possibly serve as a justification for greater use of renewable energy.

The internship was a great introduction to public sector work (which I hadn’t really done before) – the atmosphere was very relaxed and congenial, and everyone at the Commission was willing to help me out when I needed it. I learned a lot about a number of different areas of energy policy, even above and beyond my particular project. I was also able to hone my quantitative skills without having to do a profit-above-all, finance-heavy internship.

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I worked on the Africa Capital Markets Fund, a fund of funds seeking investments in PE and hedge funds that met certain development criteria: investing in sub-Saharan Africa ex South Africa; providing private capital not otherwise available to SMEs (long-term investments, new investment vehicles (mezzanine, convertible, etc)); and investing in companies with a positive developmental impact.

I was lead on a three-person team to develop a model to evaluate proposals: which proposals meet the criteria most effectively? Cambridge Associates was on board to evaluate them from a pure investment point of view; we were asked to evaluate them from a policy point of view (which proposals best met the foreign policy / development goals?) Basically I built a fancy Excel model and interviewed the fund managers to learn about their strategies, deal pipelines, etc. – I plugged that info into the model and it generated a “capital markets impact score.” The final deliverable included a 28 page report on the current state of SSA capital markets, why OPIC should be doing this, and how precisely the funds we selected would impact the capital markets. We had rankings and scores for each proposal. Then my office presented all that the Investment Committee meeting.

I performed about 10 “economic impact clearances” for project finance deals. Using an in-house model, we would research and score projects’ developmental and economic impact in the host country, and check to make sure that we weren’t funding an outsourcing scheme. Those were mostly in Latin America and the Middle East.

The internship was awesome. OPIC is a small agency, with only about 200 people on staff (including several SOMers!); the summer program brings in about 40 interns, and they really rely on us to perform substantive work. Once my boss saw that I was really digging into my ACMF project, he essentially gave me the reigns and let me take off with it. Overall, it was a very positive experience.

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I worked in a small group within the Budget Analysis Division that provides support and oversight for federal direct loan and loan guarantee programs. I had three main projects during the summer: (1) analyzing an agency’s loan guarantee program, recommending improvements, and providing technical support to agency staff to ensure effective implementation; (2) conducting research on the administrative cost of federal credit programs; and (3) determining the feasibility and scoring of a new loan product to be launched by one of the agencies. Because the group was extremely busy responding to legislative issues and spent much of their time “putting out fires,” I also supported them on a daily basis by performing ad hoc research. The position provided a great bird’s eye view into the government and many of the agencies. I was impressed by the high caliber and commitment of the career staffers. Several Yale SOM alums work for OMB and were generous in providing support and advice along the way.

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I found my internship with the United Nations Development Program’s Growing Sustainable Business Program in Nouakchott, Mauritania in the SOM Net Impact Club newsletter. My goal was to identify the services to which the poor do not have access to and develop a number of business ideas to provide them with those services. Overall I learned a lot about the challenges of doing business in emerging markets. Mauritania also provided me with a fantastic cultural experience and a reminder of the importance of creating global partnerships.

In the photograph above, a representative of the Mauritanian government presents an award to a young artist who won a drawing competition supporting Desertification Day. Desertification is an ongoing problem in Mauritania.

More on the UNDP

By Caroline Boyd, SOM’07

On October 13, 2006, twenty SOM students participated in the Economic Development Club’s first job trek to New York.

The day began with a visit to Carlos Linares, MEM’03, Senior Water Policy Advisor at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Mr. Linares led an engaging discussion on the role of the private sector in international development.

Students next visited Citibank Community Development, where Erin Galligan, SOM’05, and her colleagues discussed the innovations and successes that have kept Citibank at the forefront of community development banking in the United States.

The job trek concluded at the offices of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, where Henry Lanier, SOM’78, and Manatt partner Peter Olberg, BA’74, JD’77, provided an invaluable overview of the many professional opportunities for MBAs in the fields of housing and economic development, ranging from public finance to policy-making.

The event was made possible through funding from the Sidney Gross Memorial Community Economic Development Fund and the generosity of the United Nations Development Programme, Citibank Community Development, and Mannat, Phelps & Phillips.

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