Mentors Report From The Summer Interns

This summer, Mentors has employed two interns with accomplished financial backgrounds. Jake is obtaining a bachelor's degree in finance at Westminster College in Salt Lake City while Dale is more than halfway through his MBA program at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona. Here are their first impressions of their time at Mentors:

My first week interning at Enterprise Mentors International (Mentors) has been quite an enlightening experience. I learned about the microfinance industry while pursuing my MBA at Thunderbird in Arizona but, as usual, application of book knowledge to the real world has proven to be a new learning curve. Fortunately, I have the guidance of Mentors' knowledgeable staff combined with my interest in the industry to assist me in gaining the necessary knowledge to accomplish the projects I have been given this summer.

Mentors staff discussed the needed work done and presented us with prioritized tasks to be completed. I chose to work on as many finance-related projects as I could to further my skills in that area. The largest project was tightening up the financial reporting from partner organizations and creating a meaningful standardized report for the staff here in Draper. This has required that I gain a thorough understanding of the relationship and operations between the home office and all of the partner organizations. My understanding grows more each day. This new knowledge helps me gain a better framework in which to help Mentors in these tasks. I look forward to learning more about microfinance and building a strong relationship with the Mentors staff.

~Dale McIntosh

Since I began my internship here at Mentors I have learned more about microfinance than I thought was possible. It has been enlightening to see how this industry, and Mentors in particular, can be such a positive influence so many people’s lives around the world. I have also gained a great appreciation for the amount of work it takes to keep an organization like Mentors up and running. In the short week that I have been here, I have been given many opportunities to help out.

One of my projects involves updating the information about Mentors on a website called Mix Market. This website ranks different microfinance institutions on a number of variables such as how current the information is. Keeping this information up to date is a key part of getting a "good score" on Mix Market.

I have also been given a chance to be a part of creating and analyzing some of the financial models they use here at Mentors. Being able to participate in this process has really helped me gain some valuable insight into the financial world. During my first week I have also had a chance to get to know the staff a bit and they are all great people. They have been incredibly helpful and patient with me as I have been learning how things work and I look forward to working with them during the rest of my internship.

~Jake Mendenhall