As Niki Krear (BA Finance ’19) learned, investing personal time leads to major professional impact.
Krear, a Financial Markets Institute scholar, interns with Bedrock, a commercial real estate firm in Detroit – but admits to knowing very little about real estate prior to her internship. “Taking a couple extra hours a day to do some learning on your own will benefit you,” Krear said.
Krear’s internship at Bedrock not only grew the real estate company’s portfolio, but her own professional one as well.
To many interns, not knowing how to tackle the first on-the-job assignment causes panic and anxiety. Krear, however, rose to the occasion and took advantage of the opportunity to teach herself some skills – skills that would allow her team to thrive and see the impact they would have on the city of Detroit.
“I was assigned a few different projects involving financial models with line items I was unfamiliar with. I needed to learn how a pro forma works, which I did by watching online videos while building my own model from scratch,” she said. “I then completed market research on the city of Detroit, as well as reviewing Bedrock’s portfolio to grasp a better understanding of the business,” Krear explained.
Nearing the end of her summer internship, Krear can look back proudly on what she accomplished, both with her team and the city.
“My responsibilities have included leading an intern team comprised of architects, developers, and property managers in creating a development plan for an 18-acre Central Business District abandoned property. We predicted operating performance of the development to support pitch to management, contributed to building and maintaining models to show lenders how a tax abatement will free up cash to pay debt coverage on properties, conducted and analyzed in-depth market research on Detroit commercial and residential real estate, and produced internal and external marketing materials for key decision makers and investors.”
As she can attest, Krear will walk away from her internship experience with more than real estate market knowledge. She knows the importance of going the extra mile, taking initiative, teamwork, and self-confidence.
Krear’s internship experience, as well as 100 other Broad interns’, will appear in the Broad College of Business annual Intern Spotlight Series next month.
