Our Global Youth Investment Summit winners from our Global Stock Pitch and Case Study Competition each won a Summer internship at an investment firm.
Below you can read Vedanth’s experience at Advisory Group for Life.
“I am excited to share that I recently completed my summer internship at Advisory Group for Life, a wealth management consulting firm. Over the course of August, I had the opportunity to dive into the world of personal wealth planning and gain firsthand exposure to the strategies professionals use to guide clients through every stage of life.
Before this internship, my experience with personal wealth management was limited to managing my own small portfolio. I had never encountered the real-world complexity of helping clients manage wealth across different stages of life. However, during this internship, I learned how financial advisors analyze a client’s evolving goals, circumstances, and risk tolerance to create plans that balance short-, medium-, and long-term needs. We studied the “three financial buckets” investing philosophy, which ranges from income protection and emergency savings to retirement accounts and college planning.
One of the highlights of my experience was working on a detailed client case study, where I developed a comprehensive retirement plan. This involved analyzing monthly income needs, assets such as a trust and 401(k), and balancing immediate and retirement goals.
This experience strengthened both my technical and critical thinking skills. I am now more comfortable understanding complex client scenarios, such as differentiating between principal and income protection strategies and planning around multiple goals at once, like preparing for both a vacation and retirement. I also learned how to connect financial planning concepts to the broader economic environment through regular current event discussions we had during the internship, which sharpened my ability to think critically about how geopolitical events and policy decisions affect personal financial decisions.
I am especially grateful to Steve and the Advisory Group for their guidance and mentorship. Steve’s feedback deepened my knowledge and encouraged me to reflect on my personal goals, values, and risk tolerance. I would also like to thank the Young Investors Society, whose competition last year gave me my first real taste of finance. Their investment summit sparked my passion for the field, connected me with people who greatly expanded my knowledge, and opened doors to unique opportunities like this one.”
~Vedanth R: Interlake High School, WA