Brendan Salcido

Title of Work: 

Looking at Asia's Financial Industry through the lens of Kapronasia

Abstract:

My internship was based in Singapore at a company called Kapronasia, one of Asia's leading Financial consulting firms. I entered from January - April 2023, and worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Working at KA, I was able to learn a lot about the business world. I worked hands-on with multiple projects that included doing research, analysis, and writing articles. During my time with KA, I worked with a lot of software applications such as Microsoft Excel. One project I did was creating a large spreadsheet on comparing the cash back earnings from credit cards from different banks in Singapore. I also was able to update KA's contact database, and provide onboarding materials for future employees. 

Interning at KA opened my eyes on what the finance industry not only in Asia looks like, but what it looks like in other countries such as the United States. KA helped me figure out what I want to do after I graduate. They taught me a ton of skills and tools that I will forever be grateful for.

Title of Work (IGP Language):  

从 Kapronasia 的角度看亚洲金融业

Elevator Pitch Video

Elevator Pitch Transcript: 

Hello! My name is Brendan Salcido, and today I would like to talk about “Looking at Asia's financial industry through the lens of Kapronasia”.

A little bit about me, first, my language of study was Mandarin Chinese. I'm a Business Finance major as well as a Comparative Cultural studies major through IGP. I studied in Hong Kong, China. where I studied at HKBU, or Hong Kong Baptist University. and then I also was in Singapore for my internship with Kapronasia. My Chinese cohort was given the option to either stay in Hong Kong or go to Singapore, and I chose Singapore just for a variety of reasons.

The main one was just to kind of have a different scenery and new area that I had not explored yet.

HKBU. So again I studied abroad in Hong Kong at Hong Kong Baptist University. For the fall semester last year in 2022  My classes that I took were primarily focused on my comparative cultural studies degree. I did take a total of 7 classes, but 2 of those were through NAU, online. The rest of them, the 5 were in person at HKBU. Where they were actually all in English, which was great to know before going into the classes. I had a ton of free time with these classes and my workload. It almost seemed like II barely had any homework or studying. So I had a lot of free time. I went out a lot with my friends. I did so much. I even got to travel during my actual study abroad semester to the Philippines. And so there's a bunch of free time that I had. I still obviously studied and did well in classes. But I was really taking the opportunity while abroad, to get the most of it. 

So in the far left photo or the top left photo, That like soup, that is like Sichuan style soup, traditional fish, boiled soup, which was fantastic. The middle picture is a group of friends that I was really close to and we would always go to this dumpling little restaurant. And then the bottom picture is in Hong Kong, while on Victoria harbor or overlooking the harbor, and just the whole entire Island.

Also in Hong Kong, I just wanted to note that they do speak mainly Cantonese, not mandarin. So unfortunately, I was unable to speak mandarin, but there were times where I was able to, you know, pick it up, or you know, converse with friends that I met who are from mainland China, who did speak mandarin.

Next, I'd like to talk about my internship again. I went to Singapore and the company that I worked with was Kapronasia, and they are a leading financial consulting firm in Asia. So a lot of companies like Google, Microsoft Intel, Ibm. They go to Kapronasia and they asked them for advice. Or they basically ask Kapronasia to look at the market to look at the finance industry and help them grow in their profit, grow their revenue and grow as a business, as a company.

I worked from January through April of this year 2023, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Singapore has a very nice public transportation system, so I would use the public bus or the public metro system every day to get to work and back.

And I was located at Singapore's financial district center while working with Kapronasia. They really helped me to figure out what I want to do after I graduate. I did a lot of research, a lot of analyzing a lot of written articles and reports.

I had a lot of projects that I also worked hands-on with my supervisor and my co-workers.

You can see some of my coworkers on the bottom right. And then the top right is just kind of like a multi-purpose floor with different companies.So that's what it looked like. But one of the projects that I did was. Looking at a few of the banks in Singapore's credit cards and comparing those credit cards and seeing which one was better regarding their cashback earnings.

So it was just a fun fun time that I had. I grew a lot and learned a lot in the workspace.

And then next, I would just like to include some travels that I did other than Hong Kong and Singapore. I went to 5 different countries.

I had such a blast after my study semester in Hong Kong. I had about a 2 to 3 week period before starting my internship. So I traveled to Vietnam and Thailand. During those weeks.

Did a ton. It was just such a fun experience, and then, while in Singapore, at my internship, I went to Malaysia. which was fantastic. I wish I had more time there, and again I went to the Philippines, while during my study abroad semester, and then I went to Taiwan on the way back to the US.

I loved it. It was such a great experience, great food, great people, great culture.

Yeah.

Thank you guys, I hope you guys enjoyed it.

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