Powered by Interns: Cents of Security

I’m proud to announce the launch of a brand-new podcast channel – heavily driven by the power of IBKR’s interns during these past summer months.

Each year, as our IBKR’s internship program increases in size, so does the scope of our planning  and assigned tasks. This year’s program comprised a total of around 52 students working at IBKR’s Greenwich, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Budapest, Singapore, Hong Kong and London offices.

Last fall, I was asked to put together a job spec with tasks for my team’s hire; if I wanted one. So, I set about devising the limits of what we could ask a college student to do. I decided that we could always use more help putting together podcast material. And kudos to our intern Rebecca, whose travelling mantra was veni, vide, vici. She’d see an interview script, do battle with the production, and declare victory by posting it to our website. Then rinse and repeat.

One Friday afternoon, my colleague Steven Levine and I sat down with a team of interns and asked a bunch of questions about how they learned, what they knew about finance, and what they wanted to know about finance. We quickly discovered an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, not specifically about investing, but on just about everything related to moving out of the house, making a purchase, how credit scores work, and when they should start saving or investing in a 401k. And of course, we were asked about retirement plans!

In that moment we realized that we probably had enough subject matter to create an entirely new channel. And here it is – Cents of Security. We carved out an entirely new section for this channel since 1) it’s all about financial literacy; and 2) it aims to help the younger generation with answers to common questions related to finance and how it’s managed. It’s not intended to tell you how to get rich, but it is intended to help you avoid some of the pitfalls that can get in your way in everyday life.

One of my favorite episodes features a very smart young man named Chris Guazzo. He just graduated Rye High School in New York and is Binghamton bound. Chris interned with us to learn a little more from our economist Jose Torres and helped define material on financial literacy. When Rebecca discovered that Chris was the Chairman of the School Investing Club and had learned all about trading during the meme stock frenzy, she decided he was podcast material. That episode is an excellent learning lesson for high schoolers and the college crowd.

I had a lot of fun sitting down with my colleague Kayla Melagrano to create episodes about the rent-versus-homebuying decision and with Mary MacNamara to add my recollection of building a credit history in the US. By the way, Kayla sat down with economist Jose Torres to discuss budgeting in an episode entitled Do You Really Need That $8 Coffee?

And we discovered that our typical behind-the-scenes-busy-bees also make great podcasters. Cassidy Clement sat down with Barbara Olander from the Human Resources team to create a fascinating insight into retirement. Their episode is called 401Ks Explained: The Basics of the Retirement Buzzword.

Of course, introducing interns to the labor force is always interesting. We interviewed a small group to learn about their experiences while here in Greenwich to discuss what they were getting out of the summer program.

The series is now live, and it’s meant to be shared. Please take a listen. And if you have suggestions on additional subject matter that we should consider, please drop me a line.