Alivia Jiang, WH ’26, Corning, NY
This summer, I had the opportunity to work in venture capital at Harlem Capital, a fund specifically focused on investing in diverse and underrepresented founders. When thinking about how I wanted to spend my summer, I knew I wanted to pursue something that not only had a mission I cared deeply about, but also gave me investing experience, as I’ve always been passionate about the impact that investing could make. Harlem Capital offered the perfect space to explore both these things.
Working in small businesses throughout high school, I’ve constantly been surrounded by entrepreneurial people. This summer, when being staffed on deals in all sorts of spaces including enterprise software, consumer, and fintech, I had the chance to meet an incredible number of new entrepreneurs by directly hearing what people are building. Ultimately, it gave me a ton of new spaces to get excited about. For example, one of Harlem’s portfolio companies is in the senior living space, and I would never have learned about the challenges this specific industry faces until getting the chance to speak directly with the founder and hear their expertise.
Working alongside my co-interns who were a mix of MBA students and industry professionals, I was initially intimidated. However, this summer taught me the importance of finding your point of differentiation and bringing as much value through it as possible. While I was initially scared that I was the youngest on the team and the most inexperienced, I quickly learned that my perspective as an undergraduate student was also very helpful to the team, and I could provide insight through there.
Most importantly, I was deeply inspired when seeing the impact investing in diverse founders could make. I saw directly how diverse founders were uniquely positioned to tackle the problems that their respective industries faced, and how historically they’ve been denied these opportunities. It drives me to one day become an angel investor myself, continuing to explore the relationship between investing and social impact that can leave impacts on future generations to come.
Through funding from Career Services, I was able to pursue this opportunity, and I am incredibly grateful to have had the support from Penn to work at such an inspiring firm that is actively working to change the face of entrepreneurship today.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2024 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
