Newsletter Volume 1: July 2021
Inside this Issue:
A letter from the founders of Access Distributed
A Day In The Life with Jay Patel (Guggenheim Securities, Analyst)
Letter from the founders of Access Distributed
Hi there,
Jessica and Mannie here, co-founders of Access Distributed. We’ll be stopping by your inbox from time to time, and figured it was only fitting to introduce ourselves + AD!
We met during our junior year internship, sitting back to back during our summer in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. We spent the summer and two full-time years afterward, followed by a couple of years investing in private equity, soaking in everything finance. After going to business school at Stanford, we were reflecting on just how lucky we felt to have the financial stability, network, and confidence to do seemingly anything we wanted. Truly the genesis came from our time in finance. Without a doubt, we wouldn’t be where we are today without starting our careers in finance.
To get into a career in finance, we were privileged to have a lot of things outside of our control go right. We had mentors who pointed us in the right direction and we went to schools that investment banks directly targeted. Further, despite being black (Mannie) and a woman (Jessica) and surrounded by people who didn’t look like us, we had support systems in place to help us succeed.
But what about the hardworking, bright, ambitious students who don’t have that luck? Who want to put the time into investing in their dreams, but don’t go to the ‘right’ schools, have the ‘right’ connections, or come from the ‘right’ background?
We created Access Distributed with a dream to meaningfully expand access to careers in finance for underrepresented students coming from underrepresented schools. But it’s more than expanding access to a career in finance: as many as you likely know, starting in finance has the potential to change a young person’s life trajectory completely. We built AD to expand access to that life trajectory.
This newsletter is meant to be a resource on all things finance. Whether you’re a student interested in finance, a student who knows they want to break into finance, a professional who wants to change the faces of finance, or just someone curious about what the future looks like, we’re happy you’re here.
If you have any feedback along the way, we’d love to hear it! Please email us anytime at hello@accessdistributed.org.
Without further ado, issue #1 awaits! Enjoy!
With gratitude,
Mannie & Jessica
DEFINITION OF THE MONTH
BUY-SIDE & SELL-SIDE
In finance, “buy-side” typically refers to asset managers, hedge funds, and other institutional investors that raise capital from investors to invest across various asset classes and create a return for their investors.
On the other hand, “sell-side” refers to investment bankers, commercial bankers, and stock brokers that create, promote, and sell stocks and bonds, among various traded securities.
How they fit together: The “sell-side” half of the finance industry services products for “buy-side” firms to allow for investments.
For a more detailed look, check outthis blog and explainer videofrom our partner,Finance|able.
A Day in the Life
In this section, we take a look at the typical day of a finance professional.
Meet: Jay Patel
Interviewed & written by AD Fellow Abby Hoffman
Analyst, Guggenheim Securities
For the first-ever “Day in the Life” feature, we are thrilled to introduce Jay Patel. Jay is a first-year analyst at Guggenheim Securities, a global investment and advisory boutique bank. Jay attended Temple University in Philadelphia, majoring in Finance and Economics.
During his time in college, he worked for an asset management firm his freshman and sophomore year. He also interned at PNC in the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) his sophomore summer. During his junior year summer, Jay interned at Guggenheim as a generalist. He enjoyed his experience so much that after graduating from school in December of 2019, he returned to Guggenheim full time as an analyst.
For 3 months, Jay worked as a generalist until ultimately landing a spot in the Industrials Group. Below is what a typical day in the life looks like for Jay as an analyst at Guggenheim:
9am – 10am
Wake up and eat breakfast
Read the news and latest market updates
Check emails that came in overnight and the early morning
Respond to emails pertaining to his various projects (some projects Jay are typically working on include a buy-side, sell-side, SPAC IPO, traditional IPO, de-SPAC, bake-off, and pitch)
10am – 2pm
Meetings with clients if working on a live deal - these meetings can typically last for a few hours or much longer if going through diligence on a transaction
Grab lunch and coffee with coworkers
2pm – 6pm
Update materials to respond to comments that he has received from the senior deal team members for various projects
Take networking calls
Order dinner
Hop on additional internal team calls
6pm – 10pm
Catch-up with the senior deal team members before they sign off to get an idea on the workstreams that the team needs to tackle throughout the night and day tomorrow
Eat dinner
Take a little break, hit the gym, etc.
10pm – 2am
Work on the presentation materials and model
Send calendar invites for the next day
Coordinate with lawyers or other functional areas for diligence and execute other tasks that need to be done by that night
Ask deal team members if there are any other tasks he can help with
Typically sign off around this time frame
It is important to remember that no two days in banking are the same- but this is what keeps the job so exciting! Although you may be participating in an internship virtually so your day may look a little different, we hope this gives you an idea of what office life is like. Thank you so much to Jay for sharing more about his role and what a typical day as a first-year analyst entails.
RECS, RECS, RECS
What we are reading, who we are following, what we are listening to, & more!
Newsletters:
The Morning Brew, a daily email delivering the latest from Wall Street to Silicon Valley
Podcasts:
Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
People to Follow:
Dan Primack, editor at Axios
Books:
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
