Waiho Zhang

Experience Prior To The Program

I didn’t have much of a finance background prior to joining the Analyst Prep Program since I was originally a liberal arts major (Economics and Philosophy). I got introduced to the field of finance and a career in Investment Banking after attending a school event. Afterwards, I was very interested and decided that I wanted to try and pursue a career down that route. However, coming from a non-target school, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. As a result, I decided to apply/join the Romero Program because I had goals to better both my technical skills (valuation, modeling) as well as better my soft skills (interview, networking, etc…) through the unique 1-on-1 mentoring aspect of the Romero Program.

Training Experience

The most valuable part of the training program was the 1-on-1 mentoring sessions I had with Mr. Romero to go over the projects I had done as well as career advice. The quintessential aspect that separates Romero Mentoring from other training platforms out there is the personalized training aspect that is tailored to each individual. During our mentoring sessions, Mr. Romero was able to provide me highly specialized advice and guidance based on my situation and learning style which helped me understand valuable information faster and on a deeper level. Nowadays, there are a lot of cookie cutter training and video bundles out there however, all of them pale in comparison with the Romero Program due to their inability to understand specific questions/problems that students may have on an individual level.

A memorable experience from the Romero Program was when Mr. Romero was going over a model with me from one of the projects I did during my internship with Romero Capital. I was having a hard time understanding a very minute technical aspect of the model and Mr. Romero was able to explain it to me very well and I was able to use that explanation to boost my overall understanding of finance to the next level.

I was given projects ranging from simple stock pitches to complex case studies that required a lot on my end in terms of being able to assess companies analytically on both a qualitative and quantitative level. The internship experience introduced me to a lot of new people that helped me develop more than I can ever imagine.

Internship Experience

Overall, the internship experience was absolutely amazing. It provided me with a very dynamic and diverse set of projects that covered almost every valuation topic both high-level and in-depth. I was given projects ranging from simple stock pitches to complex case studies that required a lot on my end in terms of being able to assess companies analytically on both a qualitative and quantitative level. The internship program also pairs you up with different people from other schools. This gives you an opportunity to learn the important soft-skills such as working on a team and communicating with others. The internship experience introduced me to a lot of new people that helped me develop more than I can ever imagine.

The training provided prior to the internship was incredibly helpful. The videos that Mr. Romero produces every analyst class did a great job in terms of covering the different valuation methodologies, models, and concepts that were essential to a career in finance whether it be Investment Banking, Asset Management, Equity Research or Sales/Trading.

One of the most memorable projects I worked on was on my first stock pitch project that I worked on during the internship. The pitch was for a tech company and the partner I was working with had a schedule that conflicted with mine. We had to work very hard to overcome that obstacle and I think that it really taught me to be a better team player and communicator.

Mentorship

I talked above about the mentorship. That was actually my favorite part of the entire internship and helped me understand a lot of the complex information I was learning.

Career Development

This program not only gave me something on my resume but it helped me understand what “banking” really was. It gave me in-depth details about what was expected of me as well as what the jobs within banking entailed. As a result, it helped me understand and choose a career that was best for me which at the end of the day was IB.

In terms of career development, I had a couple of interviews and Mr. Romero gave me advice and sent me resources that was critical to my success during those interviews. Mr. Romero also gave me valuable advice in regards to things that I should do short-term, to ensure my success in the long-term. An example was when I was choosing between 2 offers, one had a bigger name but the other would provide better experience. Mr. Romero helped me talk and guide me through the process and the decision I made couldn’t have been better.