Bruin is proud to be taking part in the 2021 10,000 Black Interns programme. This initiative aims to transform the horizons and prospects of young Black people in the United Kingdom by offering paid work experience across a wide range of industries. The aim is to provide training and development opportunities and to create a sustainable cycle of mentorship and sponsorship for the Black community.
10,000 black interns began life in 2020 as 100 black interns, and started out focused on the investment management industry. However, when the level of interest from organisations and the wave of applications became apparent, the program quadrupled in size across a variety of industries, including investment management, investment banking, financial services data and technology, strategy consulting, and others.
“What 10,000 black interns is focused on is increasing the pipeline of talent coming into the industry on a really significant scale,” says Odejimi-Uzokwe, programme director of 10,000 Black Itnerns. “The 100 interns programme started because one of our co-founders wanted to have a dinner for black investment managers in the City of London and realised that there just weren’t many of them,” she adds.
The internships run as part of the programme last a minimum of six weeks. Odejimi-Uzokwe says some participating organisations have incorporated them into standard summer internships, while others are running separate streams. In finance, all the internships are in the front office: Odejimi-Uzokwe says the purpose isn’t to feed black candidates into non-client facing roles.
Other than being in the UK, the only criteria for candidates is that they must be black, aged 18+, at university on a post-A level gap year, or have graduated since 2018: “We’re about the kind of black candidate that wouldn’t otherwise have had a look-in in the industry,” says Odejimi-Uzokwe – “We are not just looking for elite graduates.”
This year, 59% of the interns on the programme came from non-elite non-Russell group universities. Candidates are mentored both before and during the programme to help them succeed.