I still can’t really describe the feeling of my first day in Lisbon, having never been there before. The sun, the warmth, the people, the Pastéis de Nata… that first ride to the beach with strangers who I now call friends is still engraved in my memory. That ecstatic feeling didn’t last long, though. In fact, it ended the day classes began. I knew pressure and workload from my bachelor’s all too well, but Católica gave the Bundesbank a good run for its money. However demanding it was, it was equally rewarding. The tough periods filled with long, stressful days created lasting friendships and even better memories. My exchange semester at SKEMA’s North Carolina campus only extended that journey, adding a lot of great memories, and while it wasn’t always easy, it’s an experience I’ll always be happy and grateful to look back on.

Every deal starts with a blank deck and a set of information (sometimes containing spreadsheets with far too many tabs). On Saxenhammer’s TMT team, I help turn all of that into a story investors can take action on by building pitch decks, teasers, and information memoranda. Beyond the visible deliverables, there’s a great deal of coordination, preparation, and teamwork required to make a successful transaction possible. It’s detail-oriented work where every number, every slide, and every sentence matters. In return, it offers a unique look behind the scenes of a wide range of interesting businesses and the people running them. Luckily, Saxenhammer is never short of team players willing to go above and beyond to make it all happen.

Never heard of them? Well, you should have. And now you have. This was the other side of the table from where I sit today. Instead of building the case for a deal, I helped assess whether someone else’s case really held up, and whether it was the right fit for our portfolio and investors. That meant analyzing fund strategies and portfolio companies, then helping prepare the investment memoranda and due diligence reports that would eventually make their way to the investment committee. It’s where I learned what real conviction looks like when actual capital is on the line. It also opened my eyes to just how many interesting investment approaches and opportunities are out there.

My creative outlet and personal project, founded after three years of bachelor’s theory because I needed something with practical application. I started this venture on evenings and weekends, sourcing my own manufacturers, bootstrapping the company and brand from the ground up, and figuring out many things through trial and error. Along the way, I got to know a wide range of people from all kinds of backgrounds: club and store managers, brand ambassadors, social media influencers, and even artists. What began as a side project eventually became something a global spirits brand wanted to put its name next to, a project I still remember like it was yesterday. Today, much of the manual work is automated, but I’m still winging it. Click the title of this section and have a look for yourself.

You probably wouldn’t imagine the role a statistic you’ve never heard of can play. I certainly couldn’t when I started here! These seemingly insignificant datasets form the basis of an enormous amount of financial and economic research, ultimately influencing international monetary policy decisions and thus our everyday lives. But statistics are only as good as the underlying data, and someone has to catch and correct the errors when a bank’s reporting doesn’t add up. That was my job in the Securities Holdings Statistics department: chasing down discrepancies with the institutions that filed them, and building Python, Excel, and other tools to make every validation cycle more accurate and efficient than the last.

So you see, that’s where the trouble began. That university. That damn university. Over the course of three years, I got to experience seven very different departments of a central bank. From counting FTEs in administration to counting vacuum-sealed bundles of cash in a vault, from analyzing financial statements to supervising banks and FX markets. No department or team was like the other. And the university… don’t even get me started... what a place, filled with outstanding teachers and students in one of the most unique environments you could study in, an old castle with panoramic views of the Westerwald. It was never my ultimate destination, but it’s a chapter I’ll always look back on with gratitude.