Private Equity Internship - Cold Calling

Internship Opportunity

For 5 hours a week, you can put an internship on your resume, learn about private equity/investing, and build skills talking to CEOs of small businesses.  This is a great fit for someone considering a career path in Finance, Sales, or just exploring.

We are seeking interns to cold-call business owners starting immediately.  

Next Haven Group Overview

Next Haven Group is a search fund with a goal to identify, acquire and operate an existing private company with an enterprise value between $5-$50 million. A search fund is one of the best performing asset classes at 33% IRR since it's founding in 1984.  We are funded by 16 investors and former CEOs.  The Managing Partner is a graduate of The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and has experience in tech, investing, general management, sales, product development, among many other skills that are required to build great businesses.

How you'll benefit:  More confidence speaking with decision makers, comfort networking, illustrate initiative on your resume, and prove that you can persevere in challenging situations.  This internship will help you manage your emotions so when you are interviewing your next job, or pitching your next big project, you feel comfortable with the ambiguity and feel natural having a conversation.  We reframe the opportunity to be about meeting people and helping them, making the experience fun and engaging.  

Interns will have opportunities to learn about the search fund model and its role within the general finance value chain, particularly as it relates to the broader industries of investment banking, private equity and asset management. We will also have ad-hoc projects including a case that explores financial modeling and valuation of a target acquisition.   

Details of the Role

• Call business owners, tell them about our model, and ask if they'd like a follow up with the Managing Partner to discuss retiring.
• Help Managing Partner with ad-hoc analysis related to active deals and search fund operations
• Participate in an ad-hoc project for learning related to Private Equity, either deal sourcing or investment thesis development

Qualifications

Interns who exhibit the following characteristics will be successful in this role:

• Enjoys having engaging conversations
• Proactive, self-motivated individual
• Desire to learn
• Passion for entrepreneurship and finance
• Strong communication skills

All roles

• Unpaid
• ~5 hours/week Monday-Thursday to make cold calls during business hours (9am-4pm CST)
• Remote

Other Pertinent Information

The internship is expected to be completed in addition to student’s regular academic course load.  While we expect a high-quality work ethic and output from interns, Next Haven Group work should never take priority over academic responsibilities. In addition, the Managing Partner will provide the interns with advice pertaining to career trajectory, networking, other internship opportunities, and producing a professional resume.

Managing Principal Background 

Christine Koval (LinkedIn) is the Founder and Principal of Next Haven Group.  She has 12 years’ experience in general management with P&L responsibility, business development, growth strategy, deal negotiations, new product development, sales, marketing, and finance. 

Most recently, Christine was the category leader with P&L ownership at a Fortune 500 company for a digital-first consumer financial services vertical.  She was responsible for the end-to-end customer experience including building, launching, and scaling the business to 20 million customers.  Before her business roles, Christine held roles in strategic Finance and started her career at a Fortune 100 healthcare company. 

She earned her MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business with concentrations in Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Finance.  She shared her experience in strategy and business building as a Teaching Assistant for two MBA courses: “New Venture Strategy” and “Building a New Venture.” Her bachelor's degree is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).