Saeed Al Jaberi

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I am Saeed Al Jaberi, a master's student studying finance at MIT. Below are the events and training programs I had the chance to participate in, which will contribute towards my professional development. Click here to check my resume! 

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Latest Entry:

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Financial Research Practicum with Northfield Inc (Winter 2018 – 2018: 100+ hours): This was the experience that taught me the most during my studies at MIT, thus far. I was able to work with a financial risk company in Boston on a fixed income research project: linking the academic and practitioner methods of assessing the health of a corporate bond. This required heavy research efforts in the beginning to get up on speed on the fixed income markets, and the second half of the project demanded a lot of data analysis and statistical modeling in R. I learned a great deal from this experience, but most importantly, I learned that research is the way I learn most effectively. I also learned about fixed income markets, securities, and statistical methods.

Study tour in Hong Kong and Singapore (Spring break 2018: 100+ hours): This part of my experience at MIT was the most fun so far. Nonetheless, I have learned a decent amount from this experience. We traveled around Singapore and Hong Kong visiting companies mostly asset managers and government entitles to study the culture and the finance sector all around Asia. It was a great chance for the students to bond with each other and get to know each other's career plans. Lastly, the best part about this was the Q/A sessions we had at the end of each company visit as it added a lot to our learning experience. Coming out of the study tour, I got much closer to what I wanted to do, career-wise in terms of the sector, strategy, and type of fund/team I want to be a part of.

Info sessions & Summer Internship (Academic year 2017 – 2018): Being at MIT gives us the chance to attend many information sessions on a daily basis where we would meet with top employees from very prestigious companies and ask questions. I have been attending sessions at least once a week as it proved very beneficial for me when deciding on what career I would like to have. The other thing I would like to mention is the process of recruiting for an internship, which involved submitting an online application, following up with an email, going to the first interview and preparing for it, and then if given the chance, doing the final round interview. This process taught me a lot about myself, even long after the interview. The process resulted in me getting a couple of offers, but I went with Lazard asset management – Quant team. The internship thus far has been transformative as I discovered that being in the corporate world can be very different from the academic world.

Sloan Senate (Academic year 2017 – 2018): This has been a great honor, but came with great responsibility. The reason I ran for Senate was because I felt that the MFin students were isolated from the greater community at Sloan, so I vowed to change this. After the elections, I was voted by my fellow students to be an MFin senator in Sloan, which meant I was their voice to the school and the Sloan senate body. We had weekly meetings on Tuesday where we discussed issues across Sloan from the perspective of all themes, and mine was Philanthropy. I really wanted to give MIT students the chance to be able to volunteer and give back to the community, and thanks to the team I worked with, we were able to do this (As discussed in the volunteering section). This also gave me a chance to speak to many Sloan deans and directors on major issues including the programs structures and overall image of the school.

Soccer team captain & Sports manager (Academic year 2017- 2018): Soccer has been a major part of my life and being at MIT meany no exception. I started an MFin soccer team and we played in the intramurals during the Fall and Spring terms. I also played for the Sloan soccer team that participated in many tournaments around the country including Austin, Texas and Hanover, NH, but mainly played in the Boston league.

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Past Years:

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• MIT MFin Program - Fall & Spring 2017: I started the application process in mid-August where I looked at the application and broke it down into parts. The application went online, I believe, in mid-September and that is when I worked on the general information parts (the easiest part component). While on the internship, I worked on the essay and made a rough draft. As for the GRE, I started preparing for this in November while being in classes, as my schedule was very packed during the summer (and actually during that semester). I finished the application by mid-December with the required GRE score. For a couple of months, I was waiting for the decision if I had gotten an interview or not. By the beginning of February, I was notified that I have gotten the interview, which was to be conducted almost two weeks later. The interview went very smoothly and I believe that is all due to the amount of time I have spent preparing for it by writing down possible questions and answers, and also conducting mock interviews with the help of some friends. This whole process taught me a lot, as I was applying for an extremely competitive and demanding program. I believe that I have become more self-aware and I gained valuable interviewing skills.    

• Year 4 Intuition Modules - Summer 2017: Not accessible. 

• UMich Financial Challenge - Fall 2017: A cross-campus team was formed to participate in the annual Umich financial challenge. I was joined by Khalid Al Remethi (GWU), Khalid Al Dhaeri (PSU), and Saeed Al Baloushi (UD). Although the team did not have enough time to prepare for the stock pitch and choosing a company to research took longer than expected, the team managed to do very well and I took away great lessons. We looked into Genworth Inc and we had a hold stance as we believed that the current price of the stock is too high to buy, but at the same time, we were predicting that interest rates are going to do up in the near future. Coming from an engineering background, I was not able to provide a lot of technical support to the team, however, I enjoyed learning from my peers and filling in whenever possible.  

• Hudson Advisors, Manhattan, NY Internship - Summer 2016: I interned at Hudson Advisors in Manhattan in the underwriting team for their real estate department. I have learned a lot from this experience, from learning the terminology in the first week to constructing loans valuation models in the last week of my internship. Among the things I have learned from this internship is becoming familiar with MBS auctions and bidding processes. I also learned how to conduct daily BPO reviews on mortgage-backed securities. Looking back, the biggest takeaway from this internship was building an automated amortization model using VBA, which I had to learn during the first week of the program. 

• Curricular Professional Training (CPT) - Spring 2016:  We had a one-weekend Excel crash course where we practiced on income statements and balance sheets. We also learned a lot about the work environment, dress code, culture, and much more. At the end, we got to ask questions to one of the instructors who worked for J.P Morgan for many years, and that was very helpful. It was very informative as, by the end of it, I felt more prepared for the external internship at Hudson Advisers, and it was a good break from school. 

• MENA Conference in UPenn-Wharton school - Spring 2016: The conference invited MENA leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to share their different views of the region politically and economically. One takeaway for me was that the MENA region’s presence in the global economy is real, and is constantly growing with the region witnessing changes on many levels. I got to meet the UAE ambassador in Russia, Mr. Omar Saif Ghobash and had a great talk with him. 

• 2016 Umich North Campus (Engineering) EXPO - Spring 2016: The Engineering Expo is one of the largest student-run career fairs in the country, and is one of the premier recruiting events for college-level engineering talent. I attended this fair in order to get an internship with one of the financial companies attending the EXPO. Among the companies I talked to where AIG and Goldman Sachs. I was invited to the second round of recruitment for Goldman Sachs, which was supposed to take place in the Spring term. However, at the point, I had secured an internship. 

• Matlab Training sessions - 2015/2016: I attended a couple of Matlab training sessions through my junior year in Umich. We learned a lot beyond what were learned in class like how to graph multiple graphs at the same time and how to make instant adjustments on each graph displayed. This took place every other Friday.

• Mentoring: I had three mentees in 2015: Saif Al Qubasi, Mohammad Arakat, and Salem Al Mansouri. However, I had one mentee in 2016, Abduallah Al Hrmoodi. 2015 has been a huge learning curve for me since our first meeting at ADIA last summer. I have learned a lot about each one of them, and so did they. Communicating with these three has been very easy, and always a pleasure. Being a mentor is like being an older brother, yet a close friend. I am looking forward to having three mentees next year. However, with Abduallah, things were much easier since he was my only mentee. It was great getting to know him more and to walk through things together. 

• Year 3 Intuition Modules - Spring 2016: ADIA provides us with a great self-study modules that we can study whenever we decide to. This year's curriculum included the modules: Trade Finance, Hedge Funds, Equities, Bond Markets, and Options.

• Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) - Internal Equities department - Summer 2015: I interned at the internal equities department of ADIA where I leanred a lot about ADIA as a whole and about the IE in specific. During the first week, we were given a crash course on cash flows, income statements, and balance sheets. Then, I started working in the IE department where I researched multiple companies including Facebook and Ali Baba, and given presentations on them. It was a great experience as I leanred a great deal of the kind of work ADIA does.​

• Wall Street Boot Camp: Wall Street Prep was established by investment bankers to train the students seeking a career in the financial services industry to build a strong profile. I had the chance to attend two traning sessions, each was given over a whole weekend in Washington D.C. We learned how to read and construct balance sheets and income statements.

• Year 2 Intuition Modules: ADIA provides us with a great self-study modules that we can study whenever we decide to. This year's curriculum included the modules: Financial Accounting - An Introduction, Economic Indicators - An Introduction, Bond Prices & Yields, Bonds - An Introduction, and Business of Investment Banking.

• Guest Speakers: Being part of the Honors University in Virginia Tech, I have always received emails informing me about quest speakers coming to our campus. This year, many speakers came to our campus and I attended a couple. However, I enjoyed listening to Conor Grennan who came to talk about his book, The Little Princes. I also had the chance to get his signature on my copy of the book.   

• 2015 Engineering EXPO: The Engineering Expo is one of the largest student-run career fairs in the country, and is one of the premier recruiting events for college-level engineering talent. I attended this fair in order to get a feeling of how the process of applying to a job really works. I also wanted to look for a possible internship placement for the 2016 summer.

• Honors University: By the 2014 summer, I was invited to apply for the Honors university at Virginia Tech. I applied and luckily, got accepted. It is a great place to meet highly capable and self-driven individuals. It is the reason I really wanted to do a study abroad program, which I did over the 2014-2015 Christmas. I am also pursing a minor in mathematics to fulfill the honors requirement. Please feel free to click on the images to see the descriptions!