As an associate, I can lead our quantitative and qualitative diligence processes, including combing through the company’s filings, speaking with experts on the business in question, and analyzing relevant macro and industry data.
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I’d originally planned to become a doctor
I grew up around medicine – my mom is a psychiatrist – and I studied biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins. I thought I was going to be a doctor until I was working at a Mexican restaurant, when my manager got me interested in the markets. I remember him getting agitated in the kitchen when one of his stocks fell. I opened a personal trading account and found I was really interested in learning about large, complex businesses, working through the data that was publicly available on them to come to a view on what their performance could be, going forward. I realized around then that I might not end up going in a medical direction.
An engineering background is great preparation for investing
Having that skillset is valuable. Biomedical engineering is such a multidisciplinary science. Obviously, there’s the biology element, where you must understand the underlying systems, but there’s also physics and chemistry: all these different principles and concepts working together. That has given me an appreciation of how to synthesize information on complex systems with lots of moving parts – like the public markets. In my day-to-day role, this framework is critical in helping me understand competitive dynamics between companies and draw insights from readthroughs of the relative performance of key players in a specific market.
Investing is a process, not an event
My role is focused on understanding the quality of the business and whether it fits with our mandate. This really is where my favorite part of the diligence process comes in. As an associate, I can lead our quantitative and qualitative diligence processes, including combing through the company’s filings, speaking with experts on the business in question, and analyzing relevant macro and industry data. I’m also involved in monitoring investments, both through public information and data from our Advent Labs team, and through leveraging Advent’s network. We can discuss ideas with the private equity team, operating partners, and even Advent portfolio companies.
I’m an avid sports fan
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I was fortunate to have championship-caliber football and hockey teams playing locally. They instilled a love of team sports in me from a young age. The explosion of data in sports has also fascinated me, and given rise to a sports trivia interest that has remained durable even though my competitive athlete days have ended.