2. www.kairecapital.org/careers
WHO ARE WE?
Kaire Capital is a non-profit, student-founded
social enterprise dedicated to providing
sustainable, commercial solutions to alleviate
poverty and economic inequality.
Kaire operates as a microfinance fund
management firm, providing financial and
banking services to poor consumer segments that
ordinary banks won’t even touch.
Over the past few years, we have been changing
the lives of poor people throughout the world,
and now, we want you to be a part of it.
Three years ago, a group of international students in
Shanghai, witnessing widespread poverty, decided it
was time for the world’s youth to have a say in the
economic system that shapes our world. Bringing
together knowledge from their developmental
economics curriculum, these students set out to begin
an exploration into the world of microfinance.
Harnessing the resources in their community, they
changed the lives of countless people.
Today, our team has changed, our operating base has
relocated, and our business practices have grown more
sophisticated. But we have maintained the same
mission: to give poor people a way to control their
own financial destiny.
WHAT WE DO: AN OVERVIEW
We accumulate financial capital in our community,
pooling together resources from investors, donors, and
institutions, and manage these assets in the form of a
microfinance investment portfolio.
Our Financial Products
Think of what corporate banks and asset management
firms do: lend and invest. That’s essentially similar to
what we do, except our investments and loans are not
disbursed into companies or the capital markets, but
into people. People who rely on our capabilities to
uphold their dreams and ambitions.
Whether it be by purchasing microequity in a poor
person’s business idea, or disbursing a microcredit loan
for a promising student’s education, we offer a variety
of financial products that take private sector concepts
and use them to give the poor a shot out of poverty.
In a world where poverty-alleviation projects are
overwhelmingly unsustainable, and the world’s poor
have become increasingly reliant on patronizing
handouts, we seek to change that dynamic.
We create respectful, reciprocal, and sustainable
business relationships with our clients. That way,
although we provide philanthropic services far below
market rates, we know that our clients have the will
and entrepreneurial spirit to succeed on their own
once we have given them their ‘training wheels’
In order to achieve what we aim for, we give our
analysts opportunities to participate in tasks that few
other internship experiences would allow. From
financial modeling to portfolio management, legal due
diligence to investor relations, we make sure our
analysts leave with skills that set them apart from the
rest of the pack.
www.kairecapital.org/careers
3. OUR PEOPLE: TRUE DIVERSITY
www.kairecapital.org/careers
“I have been involved in finance throughout
much of my adult life, but I never found a way to
truly bridge finance and social responsibility until
I started at Kaire. Now I make it my mission to
help our students down the same path I went.”
Louisa Xia, Managing Director (EMEA)
Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
“At Kaire I have had the pleasure of collaborating
with some of the brightest students I have ever
encountered. I thought working from New York
would be a challenge, but Kaire has been anything
if not accommodating.”
Jack Chen, Economic Analyst
Columbia University Class of 2017
In order to leverage the vigor and passion of
society’s youth, we harness a wide scope of talent.
In line with our goal to provide an educational and
professionally valuable to university students, most
of our staff are undergraduates at leading
universities around the world. Industry
professionals currently working in nonprofits and
investment banking are staffed in part-time
advisory and management positions to provide
industry insight while mentoring our students.
Based out of the University of Hong Kong, we
recruit most of our talent from a highly
competitive pool of undergraduate students.
Joining them are students research teams based out
of New York and London, drawn from institutions
such as the London School of Economics, Imperial
College London, and Columbia University.
“As an HKU student, I think it’s safe to say that
there are few, if any opportunities like Kaire in
which you gain a real leg up on your industry of
choice while truly making a difference.”
Robert Clark, Business Analyst
University of Hong Kong, Class of 2017
5. OUR CANDIDATE PROFILE
Our human capital drives our success, and we thus consider our recruitment process extremely vital to the
performance of the organization. There is nothing in an organization that can compensate for good
talent, and thus we select our candidates extremely carefully. To assess whether a candidate is suitable for a
placement in one of our internship programs, we use a holistic judgment of academic, professional and
personal factors. While grades are an important indicator of work ethic, we find that personality, interview
performance and work experience offer equal indications of success with us. Though there is no ideal
profile which we seek, the statistics below might give you a picture of the people that work with us.
43 AVERAGE
IBDP SCORE
AVERAGE
CGPA 3.5
NONLOCAL
64%
LOCAL
36%
UK
25%
USA
13%
HONG KONG
63%
NATIONAL ORIGIN UNDERGRADUATE INSTITUTION
SOCSCI/HUM
13%
LAW
33%
OTHER
7%
BUS/ECON
47%
FIELD OF STUDY
8%2013 RECRUITMENT
ACCEPTANCE RATE
www.kairecapital.org/careers
6. BUSINESS ANALYST PROGRAM: CLIENT-FACING
INTRODUCTION
Our Business Analyst Program is a premier opportunity
for undergraduate students to work with a like-minded
peer group comprising some of the most excellent
students in the fields of finance, economics and
business. We also give you the opportunity to work
alongside full-time professionals at leading investment
banks and non-profit organizations. With a variety of
different departments on offer, there will always be
something to pique your interest. There are two client-
facing roles available, each one essentially either
spending capital or raising capital, and each working
with a different group of clients
ASSET MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT
Our Asset Management group serves at the frontline of
our business model, choosing where and how our
capital will be invested. Our AM team develops and
implements financial products for a variety of
impoverished clients, i.e. student loans, agribusiness
loans, retail venture capital, etc.
Job Description:
• Client-side financial due diligence
• Assessing the financial needs of the client
• Assessing the financial impact of the investment
• Risk assessment and analysis
• Managing default and foreign exchange risk
• Portfolio management
• Client data collection and interviewing; site visits
Our Past Client Deliverables:
• Helped a poor group of mothers in the DR Congo
start their first consumer retail business, putting
income in the hands of multiple families below the
poverty line while giving their children livelihood
• Sent Maria, a poor Paraguayan student, to medical
school. Maria is currently saving lives, offering an
infinite return on our investment.
• Helped a group of farmers in Cambodia recover
from a bad harvest, enabling them to grow more rice
and pineapple to continue operating for a year
• Over 100 more success stories worldwide.
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT
Our Business Development group enables our entire
organization to thrive, raising capital from a
combination of institutional investors and benefactors.
Our BD team primarily develops and markets CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) products, and
packages them for sale to private corporations. A role
with BD gives you contact and an unparalleled
networking opportunity with private and public sector
professionals from a variety of industries, in particular
the finance, banking and non-profit industries.
Job Description:
• Product Development:
• Creating innovative ways to deliver social and
economic impact reporting to private investors
• Product Marketing:
• Creating sophisticated ways to package our ideas
and products, developing marketing and sales
strategies
• Sales: approaching long-standing or new corporate
clients to sell our CSR products
• Client Relationship Management (CRM)
• Maintaining intimate and professional
relationships with our clients
• Managing client investment accounts
WHAT WE LOOK FOR
While we accept applications from any student as a
matter of organization policy, we do maintain several
selection guidelines that we are likely to consider:
• Candidates should be on track for at least a 2:1 (UK)
or a 3.0 GPA (US and HK)
• Candidates may apply in any year of their degree
• For BD, candidates studying their degree in Hong
Kong will be prioritized
• For AM, candidates should be studying a degree with
quantitative exposure (e.g. business, physics)
Our client-facing roles also require, in general, a type of
personality and energy that cannot come across in paper
applications. This will be assessed during interview.
7. BUSINESS ANALYST PROGRAM: RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION
Roles on our Research Analyst Program are primarily
targeted at undergraduate students studying in the
United States and the United Kingdom. Selected
students can either join one of our research teams
based out of New York and London, or act as an
independent researcher if their home institution is not
in these locations. However, there are several positions
available in Hong Kong for extremely qualified and
passionate students.
OUR RESEARCH ANALYST PROGRAM
Our analysts will conduct operational environment
research in an area most related to their degree of study,
or in the area which most interests them. Kaire operates
and invests in a variety of economic, political and social
environments. Our investment team needs to acquire a
multifaceted understanding of these environments in
order to have good judgment and decision-making. This
is where our research team comes in, providing detailed
understanding and reports on select environments.
Research areas are as follows:
Economic Research
• Macro-level analysis on the region and sub-region:
• Assessing whether economic growth in the region
is conducive to investments in target industries
• Assessing the policies and regulations of national
financial institutions and their impact on
microfinance investing
• Micro-level analysis on industries and sectors
• Assessing future growth potential for a given
agricultural product, or future demand for a
university degree
• Assessing both export-related and domestic risk
factors for certain industries
• Developmental Economics Analysis
• Pinpointing regions or communities in dire need
of financial assistance or economic growth.
• Making expansion recommendations for our
investment team
Sociopolitical Research
• Analysis on the political developments of a certain
country, subdivision or municipality:
• Assessing the stances of political leadership on
the treatment of certain industries or economic
aid to certain communities
• Analysis on the gender gap and demographic
empowerment techniques
• Locating regions ripe for the introduction of the
economic empowerment of a certain gender or
ethnic group
• Pinpointing regions in dire need of
empowerment for a certain disadvantaged
demographic
WHAT WE LOOK FOR
While we accept applications from any student as a
matter of organization policy, we do maintain several
selection guidelines that we are likely to consider:
• Candidates should be studying a degree in a social
science related discipline
• Candidates should be on track for at least a 2:1 (UK)
or a 3.3 GPA (US and HK)
• Candidates should provide writing samples from
previous reports on economic or political issues
ANALYST APPLICATION DETAILS:
Students in Hong Kong
• Apply via CV and Cover Letter to
careers@kairecapital.org
• Selected students will be placed in a generalist
rotation position, although candidates are welcome to
note an area of interest in their application
Students Overseas
• Apply via CV and Cover Letter to
careers@kairecapital.org
• Selected students should note whether they wish to
apply for a client-facing rotation, or a research role
8. WORKING WITH THE BEST
Understanding that our legal analysts will likely be
unexperienced in the practice of law, here at Kaire we
make sure they are not alone in the face of daunting
legal tasks. As a pro-bono client of Allen & Overy LLP,
Kaire legal analysts will have the opportunity to work
alongside some of the brightest in the field of banking
and finance law
In order to give our students a challenging learning
curve, the relationship between our students and our
lawyers is based on the understanding that initial legal
work will be done by our students. We find that students
learn most effectively when launched headfirst into
complex legal issues, with assistance only coming after
their faculties of legal reasoning are engaged fully.
Through this process our students learn by doing.
LEGAL ANALYST PROGRAM
INTRODUCTION
We offer a select number of bright law students the
opportunity to do commercial and corporate legal
work in a capacity most law firms would not even
offer in their vacation schemes.
Our in-house legal team forms the backbone of
every essential aspect of our business. For instance,
when our management wishes to incorporate in a
jurisdiction and comply with charity requirements,
our team will draft legal research memos in line with
corporate governance and structuring regulations.
When our Asset Management team wishes to make
a microfinance investment, our team will draft
unsecured loan agreements, giving them exposure to
the dynamics of financing law. When our Business
Development team sells a CSR package to a
corporation, our team will draft entire commercial
contracts for these products.
WHAT WE LOOK FOR & HOW TO APPLY
Our legal analyst program is highly selective. While
we accept applications from any student as a matter
of organization policy, we do maintain several
selection guidelines that we are likely to consider:
• Candidates should be studying a mixed or single
honors law degree from a HK or UK university
• Candidates should be on track for at least a 2:1
(UK students) or a 3.3 GPA (HK students)
• Candidates should have completed modules on
Contract Law and Legal Writing (or equivalents),
but may otherwise apply any time in their degree.
• Previous work experience is a large consideration
Candidates should apply via CV and Cover Letter to
careers@kairecapital.org, with their most recent
grades made clear.
www.kairecapital.org/careers
9. WHERE OUR STUDENTS GO: YOUR FUTURE
FINANCE & INVESTMENT BANKS LEGAL CONSULTING & ADVISORY
www.kairecapital.org/careers
NON-PROFIT OTHER
Here at Kaire Capital we take up an intimate role
into the professional development of our talent.
The students we recruit are exceptional in their own
right: but we make them better.
Through career advice and workshops from
industry professionals working within our
organization, we provide a first-hand look into the
worlds of investment banking, corporate law,
consulting, as well as non-profit management.
All local analysts interning with us are guaranteed a
secondment in the Business Development
department, giving them significant client-side
contact with private sector professionals from
leading financial institutions and professional
services firms. Our analysts also maintain
cooperative relationships with groundbreaking
nonprofits.
Placement
Our interns have historically placed extremely well
into their industry of choice, with a full list of
offers and destinations for internships and graduate
employment from the companies shown above.
Our Role
During recruitment season, Kaire upperclassmen
and industry graduates guide our analysts through
an extremely nuanced resume drafting, case study,
and interview prep process, giving students an
indisputable advantage in their professional
development.