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Hello, everyone.

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My name is Annetta
Li, and I'm currently

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a senior, double majoring
in economics and statistics.

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As you can see from the title,
I worked in internet finance

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this past summer.

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First, let me give you a little
bit of background information

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on the firm that I worked at.

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I worked in Hamon
Investment Group.

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It is a boutique
asset management firm.

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So that means it's about
50 employees in the firm.

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And we are located
on the 35th floor

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of this beautiful skyscraper
in central Hong Kong.

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That's my building.

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And this is the view
I have of Hong Kong.

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And this is IFC, which was one
of the tallest building of Hong

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Kong located in central.

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Some of you might have
this impression of finance

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in terms of being,
I use Excel 24/7,

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and I do quantitative analysis
on a day to day basis.

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And you might think, well,
asset management, you just

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manage the money that
your clients give you

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by investing in stocks or
different financial products.

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How fun could that be?

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I felt the same before
I started my work.

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However, I actually interned
in the newly established

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subsidiary, that focus
on investment strategy

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through social media.

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We were focused on developing
this online e-trading, social

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media platform.

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I know it's a mouthful.

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We have seven
people in our group.

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So we have a director, the
advisor, a CEO, the business

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analyst, and two technicians
and me, the intern.

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What do I exactly mean by an
online e-trade and social media

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platform?

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So our target market was China.

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There was a trend in China for
companies to enter and explore

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the market of internet
finance, e-commerce,

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peer to peer lending, et cetera.

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Many major information firms,
including Baidu and Sina,

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started acquiring banks or
investment banks to open up

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online stock trading platforms.

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Well, we wanted to do the same.

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But we wanted to
do it with a twist.

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Instead of just
doing stock trading,

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we also wanted to allow
people to build portfolios

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on our platform.

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So that includes thinking
about risk analysis, asset

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allocation, and
diversification of portfolio

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and all that sort
of stuff when you're

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building your little
investment portfolio online.

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The social media
component comes in when

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people start interacting
on our platform and start

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to have group conversations
with each other,

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talking about
their asset choices

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and why they make these choices.

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In the end, our
ultimate goal is to have

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people invest in
other's portfolios,

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to end up having this social
media network of people

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investing.

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And what did I do as an intern?

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My job title was intern analyst.

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However, this job title actually
encompassed a wide range

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of tasks.

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So because we're
entering a new market,

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I was responsible for
researching and brainstorming

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about some of the
existing products

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and potential competitors,
and also coming up

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with a strategy
to better position

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ourself as a product to
enter this new market,

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and how we can do it
better than everyone else.

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I did a lot of research
on the big companies

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and the competition that
they were hosting in order

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to promote their platforms.

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And we were thinking about
attaining a similar group

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to host inter university
competitions for university

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students, so we would have
an established user base

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before we even have this
platform open up to the public.

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And I also worked with my CEO
on the budgeting component.

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What that means is we use
Excel to create this forum

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to see how we can measure
our outsourced company's

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performance and how that would
match up with our expectation,

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and what each component
will cost us--

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well, what is the price of
each component that they need?

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Another component would
be attracting sponsors.

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So I got to draft up some
documents that we distributed

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to a lot of the finance
universities in China,

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and to attract their
sponsorship and willingness

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to cooperate with us, whether
that is coming up with a class

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curriculum or to help us
better come up with a strategy

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to test our platform.

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And also-- another
thing is to make

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them want their students to come
participate in our competition

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and use our platform
both for class uses.

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Other than that, I got to
design a user interface.

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That is working
with color schemes

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and seeing what
people would like,

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what would make sense, to
have which button where

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and to have what kind of graphs
on a phone, or what web site.

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I got to work with the
designer a little bit.

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And that was really
fun at the later stage.

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I was liaison between
analysts and technicians,

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because it could be difficult
when you have technicians who

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don't really talk
finance and you

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have business analyst
who don't really

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know much about technology.

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So I was able to utilize
knowledge I learned

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from college, interestingly.

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So you help the technician
understand the equations

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that we are working
with and seeing

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how we can transform
those into coding,

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and also help the business
analyst to understand

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why the technician is
coding at the same time.

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So that is a very big part.

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And lastly, planning our
marketing timeline and outreach

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targets and just seeing the
entire campaign coming together

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was part of my job.

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Well, what did I learn
from this experience?

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Well, first of all,
communication is key.

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Like I was saying, I work
in a group of seven people.

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So that's pretty small.

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And it's definitely--

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I think communication
is definitely

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the key component when you
have to have a cohesive working

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environment and making sure
everyone's on the same page.

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When you are developing a new
product, entering a new market

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have this similar mindset.

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Your peers are your
best resources.

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I learned the most
from the people

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that I talked with every day.

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And that is definitely one thing
that I know much more about

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and I value much more now.

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Take criticism with
positivity, and always

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ask for ways you can improve.

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I was very grateful that my
CEO constantly pulled me aside

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to encourage me--

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yes, you're doing well--

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but also telling me, you
could include a little bit

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in these components and
I'm here to support you.

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And that was very much
what I'm grateful for

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and how I became more
comfortable on the job.

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Things you learn in
classes, they're useful.

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The equation part, the
modeling part, the building

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and the liberal
arts thinking parts

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are very useful when
you're on the job.

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And you definitely learn
more from interning

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with smaller groups.

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You get to do more.

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You get to cover different parts
different at different times

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of your internship
of the projects.

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And you definitely get to
help others and see what

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they're doing with their tasks.

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And asset management
can [INAUDIBLE]

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looking interesting, because
I thought they were just

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very traditional and
very straightforward

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forward with what
they do, MS stocks,

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do quantitative analysis,
and make decisions.

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But this internship
was very much more fun

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than what I thought it would be.

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As you can see, I definitely
enjoyed my summer internship.

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And I really want to thank
McCulloch Center for giving me

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this opportunity.

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Going forward, as a senior, I
am now back to the job hunting.

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This internship taught me to
be open minded about the career

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choices I have in front
of me, whether that

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is going to a smaller
firm, or bigger firm,

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start up a culture
or big corporations.

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I'm keeping my options open,
except for the yoga thing.

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And also, the intersections
between our fields in finance

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are growing and they
are much more fun.

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They have a lot of
opportunities and industries,

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I definitely would want to
research a little bit more

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between intersession of
fields instead of just

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straight forward one field.

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And lastly, an
internship in finance

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does not mean working
with Excel 24/7.

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And you do much more fun stuff.

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Thank you so much.

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