Ventures Internship London 2024

Today’s technology enables customers to connect directly, without the need for financial intermediaries. Disruption today is about finding innovative, technological solutions to problems, and to reimagine the future. In our case, we’re experimenting with paths and business models, even ones we’ve never ventured in before. We’re investing now, to create optionality for the future. That’s why disrupting through digital is one of our strategic priorities.

SC Ventures aims to enable and accelerate innovation, by providing a safe space for different parts of our Bank, and external partners, to collaborate, explore and test solutions, to solve today’s real business problems and the challenges of tomorrow.

Internship Programme

We have five pillars in SC Ventures, you’ll be aligned to one of the four pillars during your internship:

Business Ventures

• This team oversees portfolio of business ventures across their lifecycle. Interns will assist the team in the process of sourcing, incubating, and governing these ventures.
• The sourcing journey starts with getting the right venture idea through the banks business units, employees and clients leveraging challenges, problem statements & market trends to build a robust portfolio of Ventures.
• Once the ideas have been shortlisted the ventures enter our incubation operating system where they are supported through various stages of development across Pre-Seed, Seed, Pre-A and commercial launch
• There are currently 20+ ventures in the pipeline across various stages & themes such as crypto assets, wealth and health, payments, blockchain etc.

Technology and Cyber

• Gain experience with the Technology Team on tech ops, cyber controls, emerging technologies and novel vendor solutions. The team is primarily focused on enabling Ventures to accelerate in their Minimum Viable Product build to rapidly launch new platforms and solutions to the public. The tech team is also an early-stage entry point for all Ventures to define architecture, tech stack, required cyber protection, and integration with 3 rd party SaaS solutions.
• Interns will learn the agile methodologies applied in venture building and solution architecture to build robust, scalable Cloud native internet platforms. Interns will also be hands-on in the technical configuration, provisioning, operations and troubleshooting of various technologies including AWS and Azure Cloud, SaaS services, and support processes.
• Interns will be required to assist in engaging with Ventures, liaising with various stakeholders of the new initiatives, exchange with vendors and 3 rd parties, and gain exposure to modern engineering principles of SDLC, DevOps, SRE, Secure-By-Design, Security-In-The-Cloud, and various threat modelling techniques.

Client Engagement and Partnerships

• The Client Engagements and Partnership Team is a focal point of engagement with corporate clients of Standard Chartered as well as participants in the wider Ventures and Innovation ecosystem to develop strategic partnerships opportunities and co-create new joint ventures beyond traditional banking verticals. (e.g., gaming/lending, Quantum computing, ESG/Carbon credits etc.)
• Interns will learn to conduct research on potential partners ongoing innovation opportunities, establish engagement plans, manage stakeholder relationships both within the bank and with external parties to achieve win-win collaborations.
• You’ll be required to assist in coordination work with stakeholders such as clients, institutional meetings, partners, Relationship teams, legal advisers and internal colleagues. You’ll also learn to review and structure Non-Disclosure Agreements, Memorandum of understanding, Term sheets and Joint Development Agreements as the case may be.
• The Client Engagement team co-leads initiatives in the Metaverse and Interns will be given opportunities to develop their knowledge in the Web3/Metaverse space.

Funds and Fund Raising

• The team is primarily focused on deploying capital from their $100mn fund into early-stage companies that the Bank partners with. It is also the first point of call for the investment efforts at SC Ventures across other workstreams, including fundraising and Mergers and acquisition activity.
• Interns will learn how the bank’s strategic agenda comes together, with the objective to achieve market returns for the fund. Interns will also gain a good understanding of how teams from various functions collaborate in times of (i) making a new investment, and (ii) key portfolio management decisions.
• You’ll be required to assist in evaluating teasers / investment memo of new investment opportunities, building financial models, develop portfolio management reports assimilating data from various portfolio companies.

Intrapreneurs

• Human centred Design (HCD): Interns will learn about Human centred Design (HCD), and experience how teams within the Bank, as well as the Bank’s clients, use HCD to solve real business problems. Interns will have the opportunity to attain externally recognised HCD Practitioner Certification.
• Innovation / intrapreneurship: You’ll be able to apply your HCD skills by assisting our Innovation Coaches in the refinement and development of intrapreneur ideas or new ventures.
• FinTech Engagement: Interns will take part in various aspects of the fintech engagement process, such as meeting potential start-ups as well as onboarded ones with the objectives to scout solutions that could solve some of our Bank’s business problems and Client’s ones. You’ll be able to undertake start-up research/overview for our Corporate Clients, to meet other community builders of the ecosystem to build the community and potentially get involved with running a proof-of-concept too.

Chief Operating Office (COO)

The COO team is principally responsible for ensuring that both the SC Ventures Platform and our Digital Ventures are run and launched as efficiently, effectively, and commercially as possible. As such, it covers everything from Venture launch, Portfolio Management, Data Management, First Line Risk Management, and many other aspects of commercialising and monetising the activities undertaken in SC Ventures

• Interns can expect to be exposed to the day-to-day requirements involved in successfully launching new Ventures and getting them through all their key milestones towards commercialisation
• See how SC Ventures as a platform manages and oversees its portfolio of Ventures and approaches funding and monetisation strategies
• Gain first-hand experience in stakeholder management, teamwork and collaboration given the wide network of teams and issues that COO manages and engages with
• Run small, outcome orientated projects to help the SCV COO team deliver its objectives and key results and wider goals.

Eligibility

• We welcome students from all degree disciplines and encourage students from diverse backgrounds to apply.
• Applications are encouraged from team players with strong academic and extracurricular achievements, agile multi-taskers able to handle pressure, and analytical minds with strong numeracy and attention to detail.
• You need to be a penultimate year student, able to intern in June 2024* and start full-time employment in July 2025
• Have the permanent legal right to work in the country you’re applying to

*India internships start April.

Exceptions

• UK and UAE, we consider candidates requiring visa sponsorship for graduate roles. In the UAE, priority is given to UAE nationals

Evaluation

• All Interns participating in the Internship Programme will be evaluated during the 10th week of their internship.
• Evaluations will be used in our final recruitment decisions for the Graduate Programme and other full-time roles, with an aim to provide an offer before the internship is completed.

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