INTERN SPOTLIGHT

Aditya Gupta, a first year at Northeastern University, is working alongside EIR Javier Gomez during our Winter 2024 term. Previously, Aditya interned for the first traditional search fund in South Africa.

Aditya Gupta

Northeastern University
Economics and Business Administration ’27

Can you describe your background and how it led to your pursuit of an internship at NGP?

I am originally from the San Francisco Bay Area currently studying Economics and Business Administration at Northeastern University. Throughout my teenage years, I have always been interested in entrepreneurship— even starting my own local business to coach basketball to elementary school students. As I progressed into college, I began to learn about industries adjacent to entrepreneurship, such as venture capital or private equity, which funded innovation and value creation. After working at a boutique venture capital firm in the Bay Area, I was introduced to the world of ETA through my boss. I quickly became enamored by the concept of skipping the “0 to 1” part of a startup and immediately going to value creation, where characteristics like management, strategy, and leadership thrive. During my stint of working at the first traditional search fund in South Africa, I found out about NGP and its unique approach to ETA. After educating myself on NGP, I applied for the internship there with the hopes of expanding my ETA ecosystem and developing useful skills pertaining to the PE field.

Can you tell us a bit about the work you’ve done so far, and any interesting learnings?

Currently, I work under EIR Javier Gomez, who began his search recently in January 2024. Therefore, a significant portion of the work I have done so far has been sourcing and contributing to establishing a proprietary outreach pipeline. Additionally, we have been focused on doing deep industry research and discovering nuances about the sectors in which Javier is looking to acquire his business. Personally, I have been developing the intuitive mental framework needed to analyze a business and what to exactly look for. It is interesting to see the weight the various EIRs and interns place on certain characteristics of a business and trying to reason through what we should be looking for, in context of the industries we are searching in and the outcomes we are looking to achieve.

What is your team dynamic like?

Our team dynamic is wonderful! Currently, there are four undergraduate interns and two MBA interns within Javier’s teams. However, we are internally split into teams, each with one MBA and two undergrads. In my team, we are all focused on a specific industry and spend the most time working with each other as a result. However, there is an extremely open line of communication with anyone on the team, including Javier, for any insights, constructive feedback, and questions. We are all very flexible and cognizant of each other’s schedules and seek to work around them. Often, we reiterate our playbook and the reason we are doing what we are doing as to remind us of our “north star” and what we are working towards. This helps invigorate team morale and motivation. Overall, I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the fluidity and transparency of our team dynamic.

What you have you most enjoyed thus far?

Thus far, I have most enjoyed being able to learn from the MBAs, EIRs, and NGP team. Through our frequent meetings, I can pick the brains of the MBAs and Javier and gain valuable insight into their thought process on ETA and how each of them views the dynamics of the space. It is interesting to see the different perspectives and be able to take something different away from each one, most of which are principles which extend beyond ETA, but rather to the business world wholly. Additionally, the Lunch and Learns with different members of the NGP team have been insightful and helped establish a strong foundation of knowledge about different facets of ETA— the models, the economics, etc.

Any skills you’ve gained or unique takeaways? Pre-existing skills you’re building upon?

As mentioned, a skill I am learning and honing through this internship, thanks to one of my team’s wonderful MBAs Grant, is the intuitive mental framework to be able to analyze businesses across industries and come to a conclusion based on established criteria on a macro scale on whether that is a good business by itself and then if it is a good business for acquisition. This is a skill I never have had the chance to explore and although it is challenging, it is truly a skill which developing early and working on can help me in future pursuits in VC, PE, ETA, etc. Additionally, examples and coursework assigned by NGP is helping me build upon my financial modeling skills.

What stands out to you about NGP’s process that you’ve gotten to see first-hand?

Something that has stood out to me about NGP’s process is the organization and strong infrastructure they hold for their acquisition pipeline. In the past, I had only worked in independent search funds where there was little semblance of analysis infrastructure. However, within NGP, there are a vast number of resources which help organize and quantitatively help inform decisions that you may face when analyzing industries, sectors, or independent businesses. Additionally, there is strong infrastructure in place for outreach and tasks which can be feasibly automated and help reduce the dead work an EIR or their team must do.

What do you envision yourself doing in the future, and how is interning with NGP building upon that?

In the future, I envision myself either as an entrepreneur or helping entrepreneurs whether that be a startup, an ETA acquisition, venture capital, or so forth. Interning with NGP is helping me build towards that goal by providing me with strong foundational knowledge about the space along with the reinforcement of technical skills like financial modeling and most importantly, practical application of the things I am learning. The best way to learn is by doing it again and again, while receiving constructive feedback, and improving upon it. That is exactly what NGP is allowing me to do in the context of industry analysis, business analysis, etc. I am grateful for this opportunity to intern with NGP!