Analyst Behavoural with Some technicals

Tell me about yourself (Bank of America Global Operations)

I’m a rising senior at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying Finance & Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.

Growing up with a family with an international background, I always wondered why businesses are so different are between the developing and developed world. 

My fascination with this drew me into learning more about the capital markets and the transfer of capital to enterprises that create value.

And that led to me interning for a private equity firm my sophomore year and more so recently this summer at Wintrust Bank, where I had the opportunity to better understand the environment of consumers which drives business in the first place by drawing on the retail banking and digital marketing side of things.

On the flipside my academic journey has been full of experiential learning projects for real businesses, and I’ve grown to love consulting, as I just enjoy connecting the dots of moving pieces with data. Just this last summer, in addition to my internship I completed a library feasibility study exploring and weighing the externalities a library would bring to a high school.

I’m hoping to dig more into the banking side of consulting, whether it’s bank product innovation, business relationship management, or AI systems implementation, I’m interested in seeing how the gears of banks work and improving them.

Why (Bank of America)?

I’m interested in working at Bank of America because of its attitude towards business and its internal culture.

What would you like the Power to do? Is more than just a question its a mentality at Bank of America

Bank of America has 8 lines of business and within each line there is a diversity in their clients’s needs. While most clients are businesses that face different circumstances, the bank has been able to serve all stakeholders both employees and clients, in an exceptionally way.

Having had the opportunity to speak with over 6 current analysts and associates in within the bank, I know what I’m getting into and the culture at BoFa. To make diamonds you need pressure. And there’s a culture that seeks out excellence from employees but also gives them the resources to do that at Bank of America.

Having a huge passion for business and systems improvement, I feel that Bank of America’s values line up directly with my own.

REALIZE THE POWER OF PEOPLE

ACT RESPONSIBLY

and DELIVER TOGETHER are things I have emulated in the teams I’ve been in and so I feel Bank of America already lines up most with me.

How do you handle competing deadlines?

I first communicate with the people who’ve given me the deadlines, and reach out to determine my priorities.

After determining the order of importance I create a day to day schedule with weekly internal goals. As I get tasks done, I continue to update my managers to let them where I am on the project or task.

…..This is summer there was a particular week where I had to publish a marketing campaign for a non-profit conference I’m involved with, while also facing competing deadlines for a commercial credit presentation and investment pitch for the bank.

Once I was aware of the competing deadlines, I informed my managers of my competiting deadlines and create an internal schedule with mini-task deadlines for myself to make sure I was on pace to completing the priority tasks, which were the conference marketing and investment pitch.

I ended up being able to complete each task ahead time by working after hours.

Major event impacting business banking and consumer banking

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Tell us about a time where you had a to make a difficult decision (say the situation, choices, and outcomes)

So in January 2025 my friend and I cofounded agricultural group where we grew plantain on 2 acres of land.

Agriculture has 5 phases: sowing, fertilizing, weeding, harvesting, and storage

So some time after fertilization our crop scientist suggested to us to fertilize the plantain even more.

However, we had used all our allocated fertilization budget and the remaining budget was for harvesting and storage.

Having bootstrapped as much as I could already, we were left between using money from the harvesting and storage or continuing with the harvest with the current amount of fertilization. My friend wanted to increase fertilization but I disagreed.

After speaking with more seasoned farmers, and looking at the previous years difference between selling at harvest vs later storage sell date, we ended up taking from our storage budget and increasing our fertilization as we reasoned larger yields would be more worth while and we’d take the risk in the spot market with large plantain.

Our decision ended up paying off, as our plantain was signficantly heavier in kilograms and we ended up selling in a favourable market.

Tell me about a time you were analytical or used data to make a decision?

So in January 2025 me and my friend founded an Agricultural Group in Uganda harvesting 2-acres of plantain.

Early on we began tracking market prices for the commodity by having someone go to local market weekly. However, I realized that there was some discrepancy between prices among nearby markets.

So I created a spreadsheet that aggregated the average of markets and compared it to the national average, which made it easier to track market prices and time our market selling when harvest came.

We ended up making 15% more per kilo of plantain just by selling on the correct date than we would have at the intiial date we had chosen.

Tell us about a time you had to take initiative / an accomplishment demonstrating your personal initiative and drive to push beyond what is required

During the COVID-19 Pandemic my sophomore year of high school my parents informed me they were not going to financially support my college education, as my older brother had gotten a full-scholarship they said I could as well.

Now the pressure was on, but step by step, by going to tutoring sessions, reaching out to scholarship recepients and asking them for advise, I was able to get a high enough GPA, SAT, and write good essays. I ended up receiving a full-ride scholarship at University of Illinois

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? (Commercial Bank)

Within the next 5 years, I see myself definitely developing into a large Commercial Portfolio Manager at Busey. That builds value for clients and my team.

These next 2 years are supposed to be foundational, and the ones after that refinement of my excellence in service and expanding relationships. I definitely will be someone who acquiring clients has become second nature.

I also see new technologies and platforms becoming industry standard in these next 5 years and I see myself becoming technically adept with them to create greater efficiency and service to the 4 pillars (associates, clients, community, shareholders).

Tell me about yourself (Commercial bank)

I’m a senior at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying Finance & Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.

Growing up with a family with an international background, I always wondered why businesses are so different are between the developing and developed world. 

My fascination with this drew me into learning more about the capital markets and the transfer of capital to enterprises that create value.

And that led to me interning for a private equity firm my sophomore year and more so recently this summer at Wintrust Bank, where I had the opportunity to better understand the environment of consumers which drives business in the first place by drawing on the retail banking side of things.

I have an inquisitive mind and I love working with people.

And one thing that I’ve come to know so true in the world of business, is that the capital markets drive business. Businesses in many places of the world, don’t have access to debt markets which in turn results in stunted growth.

I want to work in an environment where I help provide debt capital in a way that helps businesses, the community, and all stakeholders. So that’s why I’m pursuing Commercial Banking.

What are some current events in the market that you’ve been following?

Federal reserve considering raising interest rates to combat inflationary pressure

1. You have just submitted a critical monthly report on behalf of the team to your manager. You realized there is a mistake on a part of the report that is rarely reviewed, what would you do, and who would you talk to about it?

I would take responsibility right away because this was a report I contributed to.

Then I’d review the mistake and update the information, correcting mistake and sending an email to my manager informing him of the correction.

Since success is a team effort, accuracy and transparency are essential.

So I’d also let my team know about the correction afterward.

Biggest failure

Biology presentation with jose

How do you handle high pressure situations?

Well I look towards the end result I’m aiming for and then take it one step at a time.

To make diamonds you need pressure.

And I’ve seen that in my Private Equity internship and even before that in school.

My parents told me my sophomore year of high school that they wouldn’t support me at all financially for college, as my brother had just gotten a full-ride they said they believed I can too.

Now the pressure was on, but step by step, by going to tutoring sessions, reaching out to scholarship receipients and asking them for advise, I was able to get a high enough GPA, SAT, and write good essays. I ended up receiving a full-ride scholarship at University of Illinois.

What is your biggest weakness?

In the past I had an issue of not knowing when it was appropriate to ask for help in certain projects, and I’d be too stubborn in trying figure it out. And this sometimes meant spending a hours on hours trying to find a solution, even though it would have been more time-efficient to ask the teacher or a co-worker for guidance after little bit rather than burning hours.

However, since my private equity internship and especially throughout my entrepreneurial venture I’ve learned that human capital is often the most valuable resource available to me. And so while I still try to work things out, I’ve become more intentional of noticing of time and appropriately inquire guidance when needed.

Example of communicating ideas that people are unfamiliar with

Promus Internship

Explained what leverage was by using analogies these business owners were familiar. I usually gave the example of a house.

If you buy a house you usually pay part in cash and part on loan. I gave them this analogiy imagine there was a $10 million dollar house that you paid $5 million in cash and $5 million in debt. If the house rose to a $15 million dollar valuation if you sold the house you’d have made a 100% return, by using debt you earned a greater return than you would have if you paid all cash. As you $5 Million made $5 million, versus if your $10 million in full cash made you $5million.