Work Experience at IP Group

On Monday 21st of October, I went on very insightful and thorough work experience at IP Group’s financial institution. The company focuses on funding and helps to develop university startups. Some of the companies primary fields of focus are renewable energy and cutting edge healthcare drugs.

It was extremely helpful to have access to great minds as I was able to take in some of their knowledge.  I was taught about pitch decks, how to properly evaluate a company and the attractiveness of a given market by the IP Capital team. I was also taught by Ben Murphy, who is the Investment Director with Cleantech, how to preempt problems, find workable solutions that may arise and how to address them.

Throughout my time there the employees were very kind and helpful. It was a great opportunity to ask questions about things that people my age might be unsure about, such as, what career path to follow, the best ways in which to boost my employability and how to stand out from the competition.

During my work experience, they assigned me two projects: one was a Cleantech project, given by Ben Murphy, where I had to make use of a global climate tool which could emulate future CO2 emissions based on the levels of usage of different economic factors (food, travel, renewables, and infrastructure). I had the option of one out of two startups to fund and grow. To make my decision, I had to emulate the effect of each startups success on the global climate.

The second project was assigned by the IP Capital team where I had to evaluate the attractiveness of an investment in an alternative energy source company. To do this I had to conduct market research on the companies standing within commerce. I then had to come to a decision on whether the investment was attractive or not.

The projects were challenging as there were many gaps in my knowledge that I had to fill in order to complete the work to a good standard and I did not have much time between meetings.  To overcome this, I stayed later than needed to develop my work and research online and asked for help. This developed my resiliency as it taught me that excuses should not be made, rather you should overcome them to carry out the task at hand. Both assignments are relevant to current day issues as they focused on climate change and the lack of renewable energy sources, two major issues in society today. 

As I am looking forward to a career in finance, I found it very insightful and informative to spend time with the Head of Finance, Andrew Collins. We discussed the role of finance in a company and the different positions in finance, along with cash flow and balance sheets. 

I want to thank Generating Genius for connecting me with such a great company like IP Group and would urge companies to offer more opportunities to young individuals like me. I would also very much like to thank the staff at IP Group, in particular, Donna Johnson, David Baretto and Ben Murphy for investing so much time and care into my development.

by Liam Rodney