Annelise Do ('27), a dual major in Finance and Entrepreneurship and Innovation, spent this past summer serving as a Summer Analyst intern at Turtleback Partners. The internship gave Annelise the opportunity to work at the intersection of entrepreneurship and finance, seeing how concepts taught in the classroom translate to practical firm building. This experience was supported by the Franklin Opportunity Fund, an internship funding opportunity for Benjamin Franklin Scholars.
Annelise Do – Wharton ’27 | Dual major in Finance and Entrepreneurship and Innovation
This summer, I interned for 10 weeks as a summer analyst at Turtleback Partners, an independent investment bank. My role focused on helping develop financial solutions for corporate clients in the energy sector, spanning work from capital raising to strategic advisory. In practice, that meant supporting deals and client work through company and market research, financial analyses, and drafting client presentations, alongside whatever else was needed to keep the process moving. While this required long hours and was intellectually demanding and intense, it was also exhilarating.
Turtleback had just launched earlier that year, allowing me to work at the intersection of entrepreneurship and finance. This combination was important to me, because I wasn’t just learning finance in the abstract. Rather, I was seeing how finance and firm-building interact in real time.
Getting the internship itself took persistence. There aren’t many formal finance internships for freshmen, and because my parents are in medicine, my networks in this space felt thin. I treated the search like a numbers game. I cold-emailed over 50 Penn alumni, reached out to old mentors, and set up coffee chats to explain what I could contribute. While the response rate was low, I learned quickly that all it takes is one person to believe in you.
Once I started my internship, I had to learn quickly and ramp up fast. I had no prior experience in energy or sell-side finance, so learning the jargon and culture was a steep climb. I spent many early mornings and late nights scouring the internet, trying to close gaps quickly enough to be useful. It was hard work, but I deeply enjoyed the process of learning and growing. This pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and learn to pivot when I needed to.
What surprised me most was the breadth within “energy.” Over the summer, I saw an expansive landscape, from clean energy to infrastructure to natural resources, and it made the sector feel both complex and endlessly explorable. By the end, the experience solidified my interest in the energy sector as something ever-evolving, impactful, and worth committing real time to understanding.
The most valuable part of my internship, though, was the mentorship. I am especially grateful to the founder and President, Mike Roberts, along with the Vice President, James Edwards, who consistently made time to answer questions and offer advice. Their encouragement helped me learn to reach out for help when necessary. They also staffed me on substantive projects that aligned well with my interests, empowering me to become invested in and passionate about the work. Finance is relationship-oriented, and I truly felt that this internship helped me build meaningful, lifelong connections.
Pictured: Annelise Do at Turtlebank, learning alongside a lifelong friend.
This internship gave me practical exposure and mentorship from experienced professionals, and it helped me connect classroom concepts (including what I’m learning in courses like FNCE 1008) to how decisions are made on the ground. I really benefited from seeing the real-world applications and interdisciplinary connections in real time, it gave me a better sense of which parts of finance interest me most going forward.
By the end of the summer, I came away feeling like I learned a lot about finance, energy, and myself, and I’m excited to carry those lessons forward through my remaining years at Penn and into the rest of my career.
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