Name: Louisa Oreskes

Year: Senior

Major: History

Minor: Creative Writing

CFS Class: Business Field Studies

Employer: Listen Ventures

Working at Listen Ventures this summer has been an incredibly enriching experience. First, a little about where I work: Listen is a brand focused venture capital firm located in Chicago, Illinois. Listen backs and builds the brands of tomorrow by investing in a number of portfolio companies from Factor, a food subscription service, to Miss Grass, a cannabis brand based in California. At Listen, we are always having conversations about the cultural truths of today’s consumers. These discussions insight investor decisions and help manifest Listen’s mission to deliver brands people want. I’ve been fortunate enough to work closely with members across the entire team. I’ve sat in on investor meetings with potential clients and workshops with current portfolio companies. I’ve written editorial content for Listen’s social media accounts, including but not limited to, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. I also spearheaded the creation of Listen’s debut podcast “Overheard.” The podcast brings provocative conversation about culture and brand from the office to Spotify and iTunes. The podcast gives the people interested in Listen, VC, startups, etc. a glimpse of what the Listen team is hearing, and trends that piquing interest. My job has mainly been to find strategies to chronicle all the ways Listen Ventures decides to invest in the brands of tomorrow. As the only undergraduate intern, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with the two other MBA interns. Through them I’ve learned a lot about what the postgrad landscape looks like for a young person interested in going into startups and business. I am so grateful to the entire Listen family for letting me be a part of the team and teaching me so much! Once a Listener, always a Listener.