When Tech Meets Finance

Finance major Soham Basu ’21 (left) and his internship sponsor Bill Bennett ’06  

When Bill Bennett ’06 was looking for an intern to join his sales operations team, he didn’t have to think twice about hiring Finance major Soham Basu ’21.

“Even though it was a sales-focused role, it was under the finance umbrella and there is a huge financial element in that work,” says Bennett, who was director of sales operations at the software company TIBCO and served as Basu’s mentor. “Soham’s skill set matched exactly the types of things we do.”

In addition to a general understanding of finance, Bennett says, the internship at TIBCO required risk analysis to ensure that potential deals are aligned with initial agreements during the negotiation process. And since Basu was looking for experience in the data analytics industry — his minor is Computer Information Systems — he was prepared and eager to take on the challenge.

“Learning about the software industry through a finance role was the perfect mix,” says Basu, who completed the internship in August.

TIBCO sells software that companies use to integrate systems and data, manage data and create predictive models. Just walking around TIBCO offices and soaking up the culture helped Basu become more fluent in tech terminology and acronyms of software licenses. Building on his experience with the Bloomberg terminals in Bentley’s Trading Room, he jumped in to learn Salesforce, Pitchbook and other software the TIBCO team uses.  

“Soham was involved in the deal process from beginning to end, negotiating our deals, articulating them with executive management, and making sure everything aligns not just from a risk perspective but from a financial perspective,” Bennett says.

Basu was surprised by the level of responsibility and respect he received from day one. “I had a meeting with the CEO my first week and sat in on weekly calls with the CFO,” he says. “I’ve talked to friends with internships and most of them didn’t have this kind of access to executives.”

Basu and Bennett made an immediate connection.

“One thing I know, graduating from Bentley, is the overall preparedness. I can trace a lot of what I use today back to the general business core,” says Bennett, a Marketing major at Bentley who recently took a job as director of sales operations at Zuora. “Bentley does a fantastic job at painting a full picture of individual competencies, so they make sense together.”

He recognized the same ability in Basu. “Soham had a great grasp of different business concepts working together, rather than siloed knowledge of finance, marketing and computer science, for example. He jumped right in and helped push projects forward because he understands how things relate together.”

For his part, Basu credits the course Principles of Accounting and Finance for preparation that includes how to analyze financial statements, annuities and perpetuities. Another course, Introduction to Data and Information Management, helped him to quickly understand TIBCO's software.

“Doing an internship in the tech industry proved to me that there is more than just one path for Bentley students,” says Basu. “Bentley gives us the platform to succeed wherever we want to go.”