Before pursuing an MBA at the University of Michigan, Marian Omidiji (Ross, ‘22) worked in the Private Wealth Management Industry. Marian decided to pursue her passion for entrepreneurship by recruiting for Venture Capital internships during her first year at Ross. She eventually landed a Summer Associate MBA Intern role at Kapor Capital, where she just wrapped up her summer internship. During our conversation, Marian spoke about her experience recruiting for VC internships as an MBA student, and her advice, especially to underrepresented students interested in Venture Capital
MBASchooled: What did you do before business school and why did you choose to go?
I began my career in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I worked as a director of business development and strategic partnerships for two startups immediately after graduating. As an eager young professional, the founders of these startups took me to their pitch meetings with angel investors and venture capitalists. After my initial exposure to venture capital, I realized that the venture capital industry was likely a better fit for my disposition so I made a pivot into the financial services industry.
Without a roadmap on how to enter into the venture capital industry, I spent the formative part of my career in Private Wealth Management, performing quantitative and fundamental research across asset classes that led to family office acquisitions. I knew that I would need more hands-on investing experience via student funds and more knowledge on the operational efficiency of startups and getting an MBA was the next best step for me to fill in those knowledge gaps.
MBASchooled: Why did you choose to pursue an internship in Venture Capital? What led you down this path?
I’ve seen the disparity of accessibility to capital through a wider lens while working in PWM. In my role, I worked with highly affluent clients with assets under management of over $2 billion and realized that all our clients shared three commonalities – their white race, their gender and their career paths; all of our clients were white-male entrepreneurs that were able to succeed at scaling their companies because of their access to capital. I wanted to find a way to reconcile the harsh realities of inaccessibility from my community service initiatives with my career path. In short, I knew venture capital could be the way to help get more talented, underestimated entrepreneurs capital to build tech-companies that could change the world.
MBASchooled: Talk about the recruiting process. What was that like for you during your first year of business school?
In my first year, I was rigidly focused on pursuing an internship in venture capital that I sacrificed much of my social life. In hindsight, the remote environment didn’t help either but it was extremely worth it for me. Because I came to school knowing that I would be recruiting for venture capital and because venture capital is an incredibly competitive industry to break into, I worked tirelessly and intentionally to learn as much as I could as fast as I could during my first year at Ross. I took the Venture Deals course in the summer leading to the Fall.
I joined Vencapital, a venture capital accelerator for black and brown professionals. I was selected to join the Wolverine Venture Fund, the oldest student run fund, at Ross. I completed a fall Internship with Sequoia Capital’s Scout program. I became a VC-in-Residence for Pipeline Angels. I created a thesis around the alpha opportunity for gender-balanced teams. All of those experiences helped me tremendously during the interview process. I was able to speak clearly, confidently, and present a differentiated opinion that many firms were intrigued by.
Recruiting for VC began in January although I had been having a few informal interviews with firms in the Fall. The VC recruiting process is much later than other roles i.e. Banking or Consulting so while your classmates are done with recruiting and have more time to network with each other and build bonds, you’re still recruiting. Candidly speaking, it was tough but nothing ambitious MBA students can’t handle.
MBASchooled: How did you find the internship you selected?
I actually applied to the firm that I interned at the summer prior to business school for a pre-MBA internship but I was definitely unprepared for an internship in VC at the time. This internship opportunity was already on my radar from the previous year so I attended the Info sessions that the firm hosted and sent emails to one of the partners on the thesis that I was working on. During the information session, we were told when the applications would go live and I went through the process from there.
MBASchooled: What was challenging about the recruiting process?
The main challenge of the recruitment process is the timeline. Recruitment for VC starts much later than other roles and it can be difficult to have to wait longer than your peers for an offer. Another challenge is that the available summer positions in VC are sometimes opaque, nebulous or difficult to find so it’s important to subscribe to as many newsletters as possible, specifically for firms where you’d be interested in interning.
MBASchooled: VC is an industry that does not traditionally have a lot of representation in it from employees of diverse backgrounds. How did this impact you? How did you navigate this?
Yes, it’s true that VC is an industry that lacks diversity and to be quite honest this fact really emboldened me to pursue this path. While I knew I wanted to remain in the entrepreneurial and investing ecosystem, I didn’t truly solidify my decision to pursue VC until I continued to read the atrocious statistics about black women in the venture capital industry. The easier route would be to pursue something that tends to favor black women but I reject that idea. If we don’t get women and people of color at the VC table, we will continue to bias systems, hence my resolve and commitment to venture capital. I am committed to combining my interest in startups to help entrepreneurs raise the capital they need in order to create tech-driven companies.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have, for MBA students interested in Venture Capital, especially those who come from underrepresented backgrounds?
If you come from an underrepresented background and you are interested in pursuing Venture Capital, I’d first say You are more than capable of doing so! (Read that Again!) There are very few careers that give you the opportunity to flex your intellectual curiosity regularly as venture capital does. More practically, i’d say that you have to ‘put in the work’ and that means:
- Joining groups like VC Unleashed, a group aimed at getting BIPOC MBAs into VC OR Black Women in VC, a group that I founded where we’ll begin having fireside chats with black women currently in the VC space to share resources and tips on the best way to navigate the VC landscape as a black women.
- Taking the Venture Deals course the summer before you start business school.
- Attending pitch sessions and demo days to learn how investors think and what questions they ask founders.
- Finding a vertical that you’re passionate about, doing research and having an opinion on new trends. I’d also recommend documenting your opinion in thesis format using sites like medium or substack.
Overall it’s certainly possible but it will require discipline, hardwork and intellectual curiosity!