Kat Jennings, Associate, Countdown Capital
What does your work look like, and what have you been working on lately?
My day to day ranges constantly, which I feel very lucky to say. Countdown Capital is always exploring an exciting new potential portfolio company, hosting a talk on a hot-topic like AI Risk, or making a new exciting connection with a climate-focused Think Tank. I spend a lot of my time providing in-house support for our companies, which ranges greatly from hiring assistance, to gathering data, to connecting them with other funds and individuals that share our ethical vision for the future. Lately, I have been preparing for our first annual LP Conference for our investors, during which we’ll be updating them all on our exciting progress and featuring some keynote speakers who will talk about the future of their respective fields.
How has your career path unfolded?
My career has gone in all sorts of different directions, which I love! It began as an NYU student. I obtained an internship in Private Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley in my Junior and Senior years, which then turned into a job offer post-graduation. During my time at MS, I became particularly interested in the practical effects of an ethical mindset on the future of financial markets. I then began pursuing my Master's specialising in Ethics and its practical implications in the 'real world', such as in deep tech, at Oxford University. During this time, the now-founder and General Partner of Countdown Capital reached out to me to see if I'd be interested in contributing to a Venture Capital project. This sounded intriguing to me given my academic and professional experience thus far, so I offered my assistance. The rest is history!
How did you get into the field of Public Interest Technology (PIT)?
During my time working in Private Wealth Management, I became particularly interested in the practical effects of an impact-focused mindset on the future of financial markets - particularly when it came to fossil fuels and other utilities. Shortly after while I was pursuing a Master’s specialising in Ethics at Oxford University in the UK, a former NYU friend of mine reached out to me to talk about the creation of a VC firm investing in high-impact industrial tech. Shortly after, Countdown Capital was born!
If students are interested in pursuing a career in PIT, where might they start?
Start while you’re in college! Look for tech internships at startups and firms on your schools career site or LinkedIn, reach out to alumni or connections that are working in a facet of PIT you might be interested in, go to networking and recruitment events to listen and learn, attend conferences like this one, check out places like the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and the MakerSpace on NYUs campuses (they both have non-NYU-student events too!), take a variety of classes in addition to your major to broaden your mind - the more people of different mindsets and academic interests you meet and reach out to, the more likely it is you’ll hear of ideas and projects that you want to be a part of. The problem won’t be starting a career in PIT, it’ll be figuring out what part of the huge world of PIT you want to be involved in!