Demo of Bloomberg Terminal with Integrated ESG Metrics and Tips for Securing an Internship at Bloomberg
Last Wednesday, the 26th of January, 2022, GEA was fortunate to host a virtual event with global media conglomerate and prominent financial data distributor Bloomberg L.P. Led by current ESCP master students Sara Dal Vecchio and Lorenzo Martini, serving as the Campus Ambassadors of Bloomberg at the Paris and London campuses, respectively, the afternoon was filled with presentations, demonstrations, and insightful discussions about Bloomberg’s commitment to sustainability, both in their actions as a company and in their supplying of critical ESG data to clients. Further, valuable advice was given to assist students interested in pursuing an internship or career at Bloomberg. For the unlucky readers who missed out on the event, here is a recap of the afternoon and some of the key takeaways that you will want to know.
Since its founding in 1981 by Michael Bloomberg and his three friends/co-founders, the Bloomberg name has spread across the globe, becoming almost a household name, especially within the spheres of financial data analytics and equity trading. But for the many whose exposure to Bloomberg is solely characterized by the accidental change of the channel to Bloomberg Television, we ask, “What is Bloomberg?” To answer this question, Bessie Norris, an Entry Level Talent Acquisition Specialist at the Bloomberg London branch, sat down with GEA on Wednesday and started by explaining the initial vision of the founding members. Targeting Wall Street firms, Michael Bloomberg, along with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, and Charles Zegar, worked together to develop a computerized system to provide real-time market data, financial calculations, and analytics. This system, consisting of both the hardware and software, would be called the Bloomberg Terminal. “The idea behind the Bloomberg Terminal was to offer transparency to the financial markets,” Norris explained, “so anybody who needed access to financial data would be able to access it at any time and in any time zone.” With the Terminal’s success, Bloomberg L.P. would go on to launch Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg.com, and two magazines: Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Markets. As you can see, Bloomberg today is much more than just their Terminal, bringing news, research, and analytics to over 170 countries across the globe.
With its extensive international presence and numerous offices, Bloomberg is held together by its core values, of which there are four: “innovate,” “collaborate,” “know your customer,” and “do the right thing.” These values guide everything from cross-department to cross-national collaboration at the company, and extend to the company’s philanthropic endeavors. Indeed, giving back to the community is a big part of Bloomberg’s identity, with the majority of its profits going to support their humanitarian activities. Employee involvement in this mission is encouraged by the Best of Bloomberg program, allowing employees to volunteer during their paid office hours with Bloomberg matching their volunteer hours with sizable corporate donations to the charity of each employee’s choosing.
Beyond Bloomberg’s pronounced ambition to help others is their unwavering commitment to preventing climate change and restoring the environment. As stated by co-founder and CEO Michael Bloomberg himself, “Now, we are doing more, faster, to curb emissions. Companies have a key role to play in fighting climate change, and Bloomberg is committed to helping lead the way.” This devotion is exemplified by their company pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2025, as well as their comprehensive 2020 Impact Report, outlining Bloomberg’s sustainability strategy and initiatives. Not only is the company looking inward to reduce its own impact, but Bloomberg is also considering how its decisions can enable communities around the world to create the sustainable future they desire. To achieve this, the company is focusing on developing stronger sustainable finance products, as well as making ESG data more accessible and relevant for business. And how to access this data? Louis Lamaury, Equity Advanced Analyst at the Bloomberg London branch, showed us how as part of his Bloomberg Terminal demonstration during the event.
The Bloomberg Terminal is a versatile, powerful tool currently used by 325,000 investors, portfolio managers, and financial analysts around the world. By collecting information on companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts, organizing the data into useful metrics, and displaying the metrics on the Terminal that sits “on the desks of the world’s most influential decision makers,” Bloomberg encourages investment into businesses committed to sustainability. During the latter half of the event, Lamaury demonstrated how Terminal users can explore a company’s ESG performance in great detail. Choose any publicly traded company, and the Terminal displays a consolidated ESG Disclosure Score, as well as a Disclosure Score for each of the three ESG factors. Further, the Terminal allows you to look at the raw data points that contribute to each score, disclosing values on a range of measurements from “Total GHG (GreenHouse Gas) Emissions,” for example, to “Total Water Recycled” to “Hazardous Waste.”
Another helpful feature of the Terminal that aids in making sustainable investments is the “Map” function. As the name suggests, the feature allows the user to visualize all types of data (including sustainability risks) superimposed over a map of the world. During the event, Lamaury demonstrated the applications of this feature; displaying data on fires, droughts, and oil refineries, Lamaury examined the geographical proximity of these data points in Western Africa and explained how their extreme adjacency would be of concern to an analyst. These sort of risks may not be reflected in the financial statements of a company until “a refinery goes up in flames,” says Lamaury. The map feature allows for observations and insights that would have otherwise remained undiscovered, and whose uncovering helps minimize investors’ risk and directs investment into more sustainable businesses. If you are interested in viewing the live demonstration of the map feature of the Bloomberg Terminal, as well as the rest of the event, you can find the recording here.
Finally, the end of GEA’s interaction with Bloomberg was filled with discussion about the many career opportunities offered by Bloomberg. If Bloomberg’s values, products, and people resonated with you while attending the event last Wednesday (or reading this article), there are many programs geared towards students which you should consider. For students with 2 years left until graduation, the Bloomberg Customer Support Insight Week held virtually in April 2022 is the perfect opportunity to get a taste of the company. Not only will you have the chance to network with a diverse and international group of employees, but you will also gain insight into the day-to-day of the Bloomberg Customer Support employees. For students who are in their last year of studies, a full internship may be more well-suited. Bloomberg’s 10-week summer internship is a great opportunity to dive deep into a specific focus of your choice (news, global data, analytics and sales, or customer support) and engage with actual Bloomberg clients. Applications are open for summer 2022 in Bloomberg offices in such locations as London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, and Princeton (NJ, USA) – check out the offerings here. Of course, for those students who have already graduated and are looking for full-time roles, you can find hundreds of job postings on Bloomberg’s website here.
If you are considering applying for an internship, Bessie Norris recommends you apply as soon as possible as places are limited depending on the language you speak. In addition, if you are applying as someone who is a bit younger or who has little prior work experience, Norris recommends leveraging your societies, extracurriculars, and leadership positions to show your organizational capabilities. If you are looking for a full-time role at Bloomberg, on the other hand, Louis Lamaury reminds you that you do not need to have had lots of previous experience in finance; as long as you can show your passion for the industry and basic knowledge of financial markets, as well as substantiate your interest in Bloomberg, an offer is within reach.
To conclude, I would like to thank again, on behalf of Global Environmental Awareness Sustainability ESCP, Bloomberg Campus Ambassadors Sara Dal Vecchio and Lorenzo Martini for leading the event, as well as our engaging speakers Bessie Norris and Louis Lamaury of Bloomberg. The discussions about Bloomberg’s commitment to sustainability immediately followed by the visualization of ESG metrics within the Bloomberg Terminal was inspiring, and the recommendations for students interested in pursuing a work experience at Bloomberg are greatly appreciated.
For any student who missed the event, a recording is available here.
Benjamin Tremblay
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