MA Placement Final Report:
Real Vision Productions
Michel Ribeiro- S3273067
MA Placement
Drs C.A.M Wagstaff
Table of Contents
Introduction………
3
Why Real Vision Productions ………3
Plan of Attack
………...4
Expectations Prior to Commencement………...6
Real Vision Explained ...6
Responsibilities/Duties………7
Life in NYC……….8
Tips for Future Students………. 9
Personal Growth………...9
Missed Expectations………11
IR/IPE - Placement Overlap……….12
Introduction
When I first undertook my graduate studies at the University of Groningen in the field of international political economy, I did so with a very clear career path in mind. My desire was to establish a profound academic understanding of the intersection between politics and economics in order to work at a political risk firm assessing investment related risks. As is usually the case in life, plans change, and it is one’s duty to determine whether those changes are in line with your personal interests and professional goals. This is what I have done, and it is for this reason that I completed my placement at Real Vision Productions in New York City.
In the interest of clarity, this report will be broken down in accordance with the questions listed in the MA IR study manual.
Why Real Vision Productions
When I first began conducting research for my MA thesis, I knew I wanted to write about Venezuela and the dire conditions that the once rich nation found itself in. However, I was unsure about the specific focus of the paper. As such, I spent about a month doing general research in order to find a proper topic. Throughout this process, I stumbled upon, perhaps the best documentary I have ever seen on Venezuela, and it just so happens that it was a Real Vision piece. It blew me away because it focused not just on the economic and political situation of the country, but on the potential investment opportunities that would arise in the aftermath of the crisis; something I had always thought and spoken about at length with friends and family. This is how I first learned of the company. Since that moment, which happened around March of 2019, I began to watch their content and realized that they focused particularly on the
intersection of politics and economics. While they were not necessarily involved in the academic research of the field and mainly operated within the world of media, I immediately placed them on my list of potential companies for the placement, as I was truly inspired by the kind of content that they were producing. Ultimately, my rationale for this was based on the symmetry between their activities and my personal, academic and professional interests.
Plan of Attack
After learning about the company and deciding that they would be a good fit to fulfill the requirements of my MA placement, I began to scour the career section of their website on a regular basis. This process began in approximately April of 2019. Initially, they had no internship or entry level positions available and so I was unable to do very much until an appropriate position opened up. About a month later, they listed a posting for an assistant
producer job requiring little to no experience, and although I knew my chances of getting even a call back were slim, I applied. In my cover letter, I explained that I was a MA student looking to fulfill the requirements for graduation and that even though I lacked experience, I would happily be open to the possibility of an internship with them. As I suspected, there was no call back. Not even one of those dreaded emails indicating a negative result to the application. Pure radio silence. Months went by, and while I continued to watch their content, it appeared that they were not hiring at all for a while.
In that time, I made some pretty large changes in my personal life. Since I had finished all my classes at the university, there was no longer a need for me to remain in Groningen. As such, I decided to return to the U.S. in June but not back home to New Jersey. I decided to move to Los
Angeles in the hope of finding an internship there and beginning my professional life. In July, I finally received a response to an analyst position I had applied for at a company that focused on sanctions related risks. I spent close to four months interviewing with them only to be told at the end that I lacked enough experience to be offered a position. Words cannot express my
disillusion the day I received that email, but as life would have it, that very day, I went on Real Vision’s website and saw that they were looking for an editorial intern. The requirements of the position seemed to align well with my interests and academic background and within an hour I wrote a cover letter and applied. This was on a Wednesday in late October. The next day, I received an email from their human resources department asking if I had time for a call that Friday. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity. I was interviewed by three members of the editorial team for about an hour where I was asked about my personal interests, academic background in addition to basic finance questions to determine my suitability for the position. They asked about the relationship between bond prices/yield, call/put options and the main functions of monetary policy. Less than an hour later, I received an email from them to do one more interview with HR. This took place the same day and at the end, I was told they would be extending an offer but before doing so they wanted to meet me in their NYC office the following Monday. I met with them in Midtown Manhattan at 9am Monday morning and began the
following week as a fulltime intern. While it was not in my plans to return to New York, I did so and today I believe it was for the best.
Expectations Prior to Commencement
Having a really good idea of the kind of content that the company produced, my initial expectations were fairly broad. I was thrilled with the prospect of working with them as they were constantly interviewing people I admired and whose books I had read. In some cases more than once. On a side note, one of the people I most admired that they seemed to have on
frequently was Danielle DiMartino Booth, a former Dallas Federal Reserve Bank advisor who wrote a book on the detrimental role of central banks in financial markets. Just recently, she was offered her own show on the platform and I have had the opportunity to meet her which was really a great pleasure! In any case, I digress, my expectations were predicated on the idea that I would be learning about the editorial process of a media company while conducting research related to the content, politics/markets and providing suggestions for potential contributors. I didn’t have many expectations beyond this as I based them on the list of duties delineated in the job posting. As I will discuss later, my expectations were about 75% correct.
Real Vision Explained
Real Vision is a financial media company that was started by a former Wall Street executive in the Cayman Islands in 2014. Shortly thereafter, the company began to grow, and they set up offices in NYC, the epicenter of everything related to financial markets. They have a simple motto: to provide viewers with access to the world’s leading political/financial minds in an attempt to explain the complicated world of finance, business and global economics. The way that they do this is by providing long form interviews, generally lasting at least one hour with high level Wall Streeters, traders, political figures and authors. It is a unique company as it operates in a space with virtually no competition. While many companies such as CNBC and
Bloomberg are better known, they do not come close to the kind of in-depth analysis that Real Vision provides thanks to the long form interviews that it specializes in. All interviews fall within a narrative arc designed to take viewers through an educational journey within their chosen area of interest. For example, political economy, macro investing, credit markets, equity markets, frontier markets etc.
Responsibilities/Duties
On a day to day basis, I was tasked with creating graphics of equities, commodities, currencies, bonds, derivatives and macroeconomic indicators for the production team using raw data sourced from Bloomberg and Reuters Eikon. Essentially, I was given a list of instruments every day and it was my job to search for them on the previously spoken about software, obtain the data, transfer it into an excel file and then create a graphic using a program called Tableau. This was probably the activity that I enjoyed the most, as I myself trade financial markets and follow many of these instruments as well as macroeconomic indicators very closely. The only difference is that I got to watch them on a software that costs upwards of 25k a year! In addition to this, I watched the daily content, chose marketing clips as well as wrote a description, title and summary for the interviews/documentaries of the day. I was also tasked with handling pretty much all social media content for Real Vision Productions. While it was not my favorite part of the internship, I actually managed to increase followers quite a bit. So much so in fact, that I was given absolute control over Real Vision Research social media, a separate page dedicated to economic/political research where I was free to post whatever I liked. On top of these daily duties, there were also a number of ongoing projects where my main job was to research potential guests to be interviewed.
With regard to my working attitude and placement supervision, I can say with confidence that both superseded my initial expectations. On a personal level, I found the company culture to be in line with my overall working style. One of the things that I have always appreciated in a job is the freedom to work independently, and this company provided me with just that. The autonomy I was given really allowed me to express myself creatively and excel in certain duties with a personal touch that otherwise would not have been possible.
I attribute this directly to my placement supervision. My supervisor maintained a very hands-off approach that did not stifle in any way, shape or form my ability to perform the duties of the placement. That is not to say, that I was without direction from him. Any time I needed help, or guidance he and other members of the team were more than happy to provide me with all the assistance I needed. However, I really feel that his management style is responsible for my success during the internship.
Life in NYC
Having grown up in northern New Jersey, a return to NYC for me was really just a return back home. I grew up about 15 minutes from Manhattan and have spent a tremendous amount of time there both working and enjoying the city. I have always liked NYC as it is a city with almost endless opportunity. I admit that it is not an easy place to succeed due to the incredible level of talent and competition that is there, however, the city has an energy that is inspiring. While housing was not an issue for me, I can certainly provide some insights on life in New York. For starters, it is ridiculously expensive. An average studio in Manhattan can easily cost $2000 plus
monthly expenses. Social life is also very expensive with an average cost of about $7 for a beer, $10 for a sandwich and a dinner for two costing $60+ depending on the restaurant . On a
personal note, I commute from New Jersey into the city which is also extremely expensive. In total, it costs me about $300 a month. Aside from the costs, New York City is a great place full of culture, museums, parks, restaurants and everything in between. The pace of life is very fast; however, it is a city that will continuously push you to be the best at what you do.
Tips for Future Students
I highly recommend students to pursue a placement at Real Vision productions. They will find a start-up culture that can provide them with the autonomy necessary to really grow professionally. There is almost endless potential for growth as the company maintains an open-door policy where all ideas are welcome. Even as an intern, I presented ideas that have been adopted by department heads. This kind of accomplishment not only encourages one to work harder but shows how company leadership benefits from employees at all levels. My only warning to potential applicants would be to plan far ahead of time, particularly if the student is not from the NYC area for the reasons explained in the previous section.
Personal Growth
The nature of my duties during the placement, ranging from using the Bloomberg terminal to source economic data, to writing both in an editorial and marketing capacity have led to some very interesting revelations about myself. To start, the ability to learn how to use a sophisticated piece of software like Bloomberg which is ubiquitous not just on Wall Street but on a global level for everyone involved in finance and political risk has provided me with a skillset that I
will be able to utilize throughout my career. On this particular point, the main takeaway was my ability to grasp the system. I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly I was able to memorize shortcuts for complicated instruments that really facilitated the entire process and demonstrated to my supervisor and others my willingness to learn. To an extent, I can say that this was fairly easy for me as my passion for finance made the whole experience profoundly enjoyable.
The real revelation came from the writing side of the placement. While I have always loved writing, my personal experience has mainly been in writing academic papers. As you well know, these kinds of papers generally don’t allow for too much creativity since they are usually based on serious research associated with the topic being discussed. Additionally, more often than not, they are at minimum several thousand words long and require adherence to proper academic standards. During my placement, I was consistently asked to write short form pieces that did include much more creativity than I was used to. Initially, I will admit that I felt out of place and uncomfortable writing like this. I was forced to learn very quickly how to develop an idea and put in on paper without the usual time and structure that I had become accustomed to. However, this led to perhaps the most important lesson of the entire internship. That is, I learned that I have a natural ability to write short, powerful and insightful pieces that can be used both in an editorial and marketing capacity. Marketing was perhaps what shocked me the most. Within a few weeks of taking over the writing of social media copy, I completely changed the structure that was being used and in doing so was able to boost engagement by several thousand followers. Moreover, my writing for editorial purposes, mainly short form descriptions and titles for interviews/documentaries caught the attention of the marketing team and by the end of the placement, my submission for the title of the most important segment in the company’s history
was chosen. Without a doubt, this has been the single most important and interesting part of my personal learning process throughout the placement.
Missed Expectations
Since I have already espoused on the main challenges I experienced in the previous sections, I will focus here on the extent to which my expectations were or were not fulfilled. As I mentioned earlier, my expectations were largely based on the duties listed in the internship posting. In this sense, those expectations were mostly fulfilled. I researched potential contributors, learned about the editorial process and gained a solid understanding of how a media company operates. The shortfall in my expectations came from the research side of things. Given the research-intensive nature of my MA degree and one of the duties listed in the posting, I was under the impression that I would be conducting serious research on complicated topics related to the intersection of politics and economics with the end goal of writing publications for the company. I learned very quickly that this would not be the case. The company changed its structure shortly before my arrival and no longer produces written form publications with analysis. This was a huge
disappointment for me as research really lies at the heart of my passion and was one of the main reasons, I applied to the placement in the first place. While this did not diminish my excitement for the company or my duties, I do feel that I missed out on the opportunity to become a better researcher. Something that I regard as fundamental both in the professional and personal sense.
IR/IPE - Placement Overlap
In many ways, I do feel that my track in international political economy properly prepared me to understand the content that this company produces. During my time at university, I took the global financial markets and multinational corporations research seminars which laid a foundational understanding of the kinds of things I encountered on a regular basis during my placement. 90% of the content that Real Vision focuses on has to do with financial markets, as such, having an understanding of things like capital flows, the impossible trinity, supply chains and corporate governance have contributed positively to my ability not just to understand the content but to write engagingly about it from a marketing and editorial standpoint.
If I can be perfectly honest, I would go as far as saying that my degree and the particular track that I took, over prepared me for this placement. The knowledge of my professors and rigor of the courses elevated my writing, research and understanding to such an extent, that I often felt bored with the tasks I was assigned. One thing I was pleasantly surprised with was how my daily consumption of the content really complimented my academic understanding of the different topics being discussed. For example, in my global financial markets research seminar we spent a considerable amount of time learning about something called the impossible trinity. A basic model used in international monetary policy where countries must choose two of three options: an open capital account, fixed exchange rate and independent monetary policy. Throughout my placement I was thrilled to hear a number of contributors go into detail on this and explain how they have applied this model to their own analysis of financial markets and political risk. All in all, the overlap was considerable, and I do think that the degree program contributed to my success in the placement.
The Future - Conclusion
As I stated in the first section of this report, I undertook my studies at the University of Groningen with a very clear career path in mind. My goal was always to work in the field of political risk, and this has not changed. I feel that I have learned a great deal during the placement and have made some excellent contacts, however, I cannot help but feel that Real Vision is not where I belong. Now, full disclosure, upon finishing the placement, I was offered a full-time position there which I did accept. Given the realities of my life, I was simply not in a position to turn down financial security for the prospect of potentially spending months applying to new jobs. It is not that I do not like the company or the industry that it operates within, in fact, my new position is more focused on the business side which is something that I have really enjoyed thus far. Nonetheless, my time there has truly illustrated where my real passions lie and unfortunately for me, those passions are not in media. Everything in life is a learning
opportunity; and, if there is one thing above all that I am appreciative of, it is the clarity that this placement has offered me with regard to what I would like to spend my career doing. That is, research related to the political risks involved in allocating capital around the world. I am
confident that I will continue to learn and grow at Real Vision, but I will continue to search until I find what it is that I am looking for.
