Past Employee Spotlight - Angel Chen

Q: Can you tell me a bit about yourself, your background, and how you became interested in the investment management industry?

A: Sure, so my name is Angel Chen. I went to the University of Pittsburgh, and joined GTE in my junior fall semester. When I entered college, I intended on pursuing a pre-med path. Then, in my sophomore summer, I did a finance internship in Hong Wong and thought about switching to a finance vertical. I was particularly interested in the private equity space, so I leveraged my summer internship experience in Hong Kong to land the GTE internship. The private equity internship really solidified my decision to switch to finance. I had a great experience at GTE. I had great relationships with the OIR’s, and had the opportunity to develop real-world experience. I moved quickly to pursue a junior internship at a bulge bracket bank. Luckily, I was able to land a summer internship at PNC in the treasury department, and that led to a full time offer from the corporate treasury division at Goldman Sachs.

Q: How did you hear about GTE, and why did you want to work at GTE?

A: I heard about GTE through word-of-mouth from my mentor at the business fraternity that I was a part of. My mentor had previously interned at GTE as well, and so I decided to apply online. It was a great experience for someone like me, since I didn’t have a strong background in finance. It was a great opportunity to get experience locally without sacrificing time away from school. That’s one advantage that students based in Pittsburgh should really consider—the fact that GTE offers semester internships in addition to summer internships. 

Q: What are some skills that you acquired at GTE that you applied to future jobs and internships? 

A: The transferable skills I acquired can be split into two buckets. Starting with the tangible skills, which is what most people focus one, I got to work extensively with Excel, which is immensely useful for any finance professional. There was a lot of research that required the use of databases such as Bloomberg and Capital IQ, which was all provided too interns. I also learned the jargon of finance, which was uncomfortable to me at the beginning of the internship but felt much more natural towards the end. The second bucket, the tangible skills, came from the interactions I had with the partners and fellow interns, as well as the networking sessions I pursued with GTE’s network. I learned to ask good questions, to connect with new people and industry professionals, all of which I attribute to my GTE experience. Q: One of the aspects I love about GTE is the Friday executive speaker session, where we get to hear from GTE’s portfolio CEO’s and other business leaders in Pittsburgh. Can you share a specific experience from your time at GTE that highlights something about the company culture, the people you got to meet and learn from, or anything of the sort? 

A: Well first off you forgot to mention that we get free lunch on Fridays, so that’s something that I always looked forward to. For me, some of the best moments in my GTE experience also came from hearing what the speakers had to say about business and life. The quality of the speakers we had an opportunity to meet were so impressive. These people were so informative and I remember reaching out to them afterwards and them being so generous with their time. I reached out because I wanted to hear about the careers of these speakers, and they were all more than willing to connect. In addition to speakers from more conventional backgrounds such as investment banking, consulting, and private equity, we also got to meet speakers who had one or several startups, which was very interesting to hear about. 

Q: What advice would you give to future GTE interns and what are some things we can do to make sure we get the most out of our internship experience? 

A: One piece of advice for the interns is to not only focus on the current task at hand, but also think about how every piece of knowledge or skill you obtain can be leveraged in the future. It’s easy to be narrowly focused and focus too much on the present, but you have to remember that all internships are supposed to prepare you for a bigger role in the future. Successful interns always ask questions, they are always proactive, they are engaging their coworkers and employers. They identify other’s needs and work to solve their problems, instead of sitting around and waiting for people to come and ask for help. 

Q: Do you have anything more to say about GTE?

A: One of the aspects of GTE that I really appreciated was the effort that the partners put in to create a family atmosphere. We had some team building activities where we drove to various places in Pittsburgh to hangout. I appreciated that the staff was very straightforward to the interns. They never oversold or undersold the activities or jobs that the interns had to finish. They were very straightforward with us and treated us well and with respect. 

Q: Would you consider pursuing an entrepreneurial path in the future. 

A: Hmm… that’s a good question. I think for me, entrepreneurship is something that doesn’t quite make sense for me at the moment. I obviously can’t speak for my future, and I’m very open-minded to changing my mind if a situation arises. While I may not want to be in the CEO position right now, I find the entrepreneurship-through-acquisition path very intriguing, and would love to someday work with people who want to pursue these acquisitions. Since I’m currently working at Goldman Sachs, I obviously get to see a lot of M&A activity, and these deals really pique my curiosity. 

Q: What qualities are the most important at Goldman Sachs and if you expand that to encompass working in the investment management industry in general? 

A: There’s a lot of qualities that are good to have. I think the most important quality, as cheesy as it sounds, is to be genuinely you. Everyone’s personality is unique. I know it may seem from the outside that everyone from Goldman is a type-A, Patagonia-vest-wearing workaholic, but the reality is that there’s so much diversity here and people from all different walks of life, and it really makes the environment special in my eyes. Be curious, ask questions, be open-minded, and be driven, and you’ll have a bright future ahead of you at Goldman or wherever you decide to work.