Jonny Naylor, VP Content
Each summer, Wharton MBA students complete internships with remarkable companies across the energy and climate landscape, with roles ranging from corporate strategy and product management to investment banking and venture capital. To showcase the breadth of experiences and insights gained, WECC’s Content team spoke with several 2Y board members about their summer roles. In the Q&A below, they share where they worked, how Wharton helped them prepare, what they learned, and their advice for first-years looking to chart a similar path.
Lilly Chadwick
WECC Co-President
Where did you intern this summer?
“I was a Corporate Development Intern on the Growth and Strategy team at X-energy, a small modular nuclear reactor and nuclear fuels company. I worked out of their office in Rockville, Maryland.”
Which Wharton/Penn classes or resources helped you secure and prepare for this internship?
“The Wharton class I found the most valuable for this internship was Energy Markets and Policy. It deepened my understanding of the energy sector and sharpened my awareness of emerging trends. I also found 2Y Recruiting panels that WECC hosted insightful, particularly those with 2Ys who spoke about their enterprise recruiting processes. The most valuable resource, though, was the WECC network. I had coffee with several second-years and talked through opportunities with many first-years in the club. It was tremendously helpful to navigate the internship recruiting process with people who share the same career interests.”
What drew you to this internship and how did it align with your career goals in energy and climate?
“I was drawn to this internship because I was interested in working for a rapidly growing energy company in a corporate strategy or development role. I also gravitated to X-energy because small modular reactor companies have garnered significant attention from investors and hyperscalers due to their ability to provide consistent, clean power, and I wanted to learn more about the sector.”
What was the most exciting or impactful project you worked on?
“It’s so hard to choose! I worked on several internal strategy, business development, and human capital projects over the summer. One of my most interesting projects was creating a dashboard for the business development team to assess optimal customers in the U.S. given extreme weather risks and existing power plant and transmission infrastructure.”
What did you learn about the industry, the company, or yourself during this experience?
“Through my summer, I learned about the value of having a customer as a development partner in a capital-intensive industry like nuclear. Nuclear companies need to raise billions of dollars in order to fund a reactor. It makes a tremendous difference when a customer provides capital before the commercial operations date to offset the risk of raising sufficient funding for a first of a kind project. X-energy has found that in two of its customers, Dow and Amazon. It was really rewarding to witness the impact of those partnerships over the summer.”
What advice would you give first-years who are interested in pursuing a similar path?
“I would recommend that first-years lean into the Wharton alumni network. There are hundreds of alumni working in the energy and climate tech sector, and I found them extremely approachable and willing to answer questions about the industry and their company.”
Sidd Bose
VP, Alumni Engagement
Where did you intern this summer?
“I was an Investor with Greycroft’s Sustainability fund, based in New York.”
Which Wharton/Penn classes or resources helped you secure and prepare for this internship?
“I found the opportunity via CareerPath, Wharton’s job board. From there, Wharton’s career advising resources (particularly Todd Carson) were great, helping me win the offer and get ready for my summer.”
What drew you to this internship and how did it align with your career goals in energy and climate?
“I had a few non-negotiables in mind. I wanted a tier-1 fund with access to the best deals, the ability to sponsor my visa, a focus on climate hardware, a later-stage investing mandate compared to my prior pre-seed/seed experience, and a presence in New York.
Greycroft checked all of those boxes and more. I was able to invest out of a $150M fund managed by just three of us, which gave me significant responsibility and exposure. I focused on true steel-in-the-ground technologies, gaining hands-on experience with the kind of companies driving the energy transition.”
What was the most exciting or impactful project you worked on?
“Since I was one of only three people on the fund, I owned several of our theses. The most exciting was leading our work in sustainable and next-gen cooling, where I was able to run diligence and take a company to IC within my two months at the fund.”
What did you learn about the industry, the company, or yourself during this experience?
“I learned a lot about what I do and do not want in my job going forward. I think I want a team that is slightly larger, and thus hopefully a little less susceptible to political issues. I learned that I don’t only love investing in climate; hardware really excites me too. I began exploring industrial and manufacturing solutions in robotics for one of our LPs and I loved it. I think VC will definitely be my long run career, but it opened up questions around if I want to do so in the immediate short term.”
What advice would you give first-years who are interested in pursuing a similar path?
“Network constantly, build conviction around a thesis and research it heavily, and lastly be prepared to be disappointed for a long time if you’re being stubborn like I was. I got my offer on April 3rd, long after all my friends in VC had theirs, and that sucked.”
Sarah Gurbach
Conference Co-Chair and VP, External Engagement
Where did you intern this summer?
“I was an Associate in Lazard’s Power, Energy, and Infrastructure group, based in New York.”
Which Wharton/Penn classes or resources helped you secure and prepare for this internship?
“I’d say Corporate Finance, Accounting, Valuation, and Energy Markets and Policy were the most helpful in preparing me for the internship.”
What drew you to this internship and how did it align with your career goals in energy and climate?
“I wanted to develop expertise in financing climate and energy. Based on my experience working for a climate startup, financing was always the bottleneck, so I wanted to better understand that world.”
What was the most exciting or impactful project you worked on?
“The most exciting I can’t disclose! But I worked on a range of M&A transactions across agriculture, utilities, infrastructure services, and conventional generation.”
What did you learn about the industry, the company, or yourself during this experience?
“The industry can be cyclical. Last year renewables drove a ton of business, and this year conventional generation was more popular. I also found utilities really interesting – they’re less sexy, but an essential part of the value chain and really need advice from bankers on how to navigate the current market.”
What advice would you give first-years who are interested in pursuing a similar path?
“Pretty simple: Work hard, with intention!”
Tosa Nehikhuere
VP, Treks
Where did you intern this summer?
“I worked with GE Vernova’s Gas Power Carbon Solutions team in Atlanta, Georgia.”
Which Wharton/Penn classes or resources helped you secure and prepare for this internship?
“CareerPath (MBACM sourced jobs) helped me find the internship, and Arthur van Benthem’s Energy Markets & Policy class gave me a broad perspective on climate policy in the energy industry and how regulation is shaping the commercial decision-making.”
What drew you to this internship and how did it align with your career goals in energy and climate?
“I was drawn to this internship because I wanted to learn about decarbonization in the energy industry and see what innovations are being implemented.”
What was the most exciting or impactful project you worked on?
“For me, it was building a dashboard to show the health of strategic alliances for the Carbon solutions group.”
What did you learn about the industry, the company, or yourself during this experience?
“I learned a lot about the importance of collaboration in the energy transition. Climate change is a complex, unwieldy problem that will require innovation on multiple fronts, and partnerships between companies will allow this innovation to flow more easily.”
What advice would you give first-years who are interested in pursuing a similar path?
“Be curious about the energy industry and read up on technical innovations, current events, regulation and policy, etc. so you have a well-rounded perspective. Network with people in the industry and do informational interviews to better understand the type of work you want to do and the type of company you want to work at.”
