As the impact of COVID-19 on individuals and businesses grew in intensity last year, HBS Career & Professional Development (CPD) staff members knew that MBA students would have many concerns, one of which was how the pandemic would affect their careers. In response, CPD made it a priority to ensure that students would still have the breadth of internship and full-time opportunities available to them as did previous classes—a near impossible goal to reach without the support of the School’s alumni network.

HBS’s 87,000-plus alumni serve as change makers and an important resource for students. Early in the pandemic, the CPD team made an appeal to alumni and recruiting partners that resulted in nearly 1,000 new full-time and internship opportunities in a few short months. In addition, alumni continued to engage with HBS students and drive career opportunities for them—as evidenced in the connection made between Eric Westphal (MBA 2021) and Diego Dzodan (MBA 1999).

From Brazil to Harvard

A native of Brazil, Westphal moved at the age of 11 with his parents to the Greater Boston area, where he learned English while attending public schools, eventually matriculating at Harvard College to pursue a degree in economics and further his interest in business and entrepreneurship. “I didn’t really know anything about finance, but I wanted to learn,” he shared. In his sophomore year, Westphal secured an internship in banking and equity research, and in his junior year, he did a banking internship, both times at Credit Suisse.

After graduation, Westphal spent two years working at JPMorgan, where he honed his business skills and enjoyed working in a competitive and demanding environment. Subsequently, Westphal returned to the Boston area and joined Providence Equity Partners founded by HBS alumnus Jonathan Nelson (MBA 1983).

Finding a perfect fit for himself in private equity, Westphal didn’t consider an MBA originally and planned to continue in investing. However, as he reflected on his positive college experience, business school became very appealing.

“I have always been extremely curious. I have found some success in finance and investing, but in order to get to where I was, I had to neglect a lot of other interests as an undergraduate,” he said. “I was also looking forward to a second chance at having a fuller experience at school since at Harvard College, I often felt like I had to have my head down.” Westphal has no regrets about that time, especially as he succeeded academically, winning the Harris Prize for best economics thesis, graduating summa cum laude, and landing a position in finance. “With some savings and more confidence, I was able to come to HBS with a different perspective and give myself a chance to explore,” he explained.

Westphal enjoyed his work in private equity and returning was an option, but he decided to explore other possibilities while at HBS. First, he considered public markets and venture capital, but ultimately was drawn to working with a startup. To break into that ecosystem, Westphal worked on some small projects for startups during his first year at HBS. He later became involved in the Brazil Conference organized by Harvard and MIT, and was particularly excited about the Hack Brazil program supporting very early-stage entrepreneurs. The experience solidified Westphal’s interest in working directly with a founder over the summer between his first and second years at HBS, potentially in Brazil.

Leveraging the Alumni Network

Westphal tapped into the alumni network and reached out to VC firms. One of the connections he formed was through a sectionmate, who introduced Westphal to a friend in VC in Brazil. During this conversation, Westphal was able to share what he hoped to do over the summer and how he could add value. Immediately, the VC partner knew the right person to introduce him to: Diego Dzodan (MBA 1999), founder of Facily.

Dzodan cofounded Facily in 2018 after a successful career in technology, serving in senior leadership roles in Latin America at SAP and Facebook. While at Facebook, he traveled to China, saw how social e-commerce operated there, and identified an opportunity to bring a similar model to Latin America. “In Latin America, only 6 percent of the population buys online, and as we’ve seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are a lot of benefits,” Dzodan shared. “The model for Facily is to get people together to place bulk orders directly with producers and manufacturers. We cover a wide category of items including grocery, clothing, and small-ticket electronics.”

Westphal was inspired by the business model Dzodan and his team developed and how it could benefit people in Brazil. “Facily often serves lower-income people who had never used e-commerce before,” Westphal said. “It reminded me a lot of the small business my parents owned back in Brazil and also the neighborhood store I worked at throughout high school, but it went way beyond that by leveraging technology, which was part of the appeal. I felt a connection to the customers they serve.”

In his internship at Facily (conducted remotely in 2020 due to the pandemic), Westphal utilized his experience in investing to help the company gear up to raise a Series A. “When I spoke with Diego, he shared five problems they were thinking about and gave me the option of what I wanted to work on,” Westphal explained. “The project I chose enabled me to spend 90 percent of my time working with Diego on financial analysis and modeling. I also helped assemble the investor presentation and figure out how we were going to tell our story so that people could grasp the power of what Facily was trying to do. Ultimately, we were able to put this in action in a number of meetings.”

What Westphal accomplished in a short time as the company’s first intern was exceptional, said Dzodan. “Eric did exhaustive research and talked to everyone on the team. The financial model he created was precisely accurate for nine months—until business growth skyrocketed in February 2020—and proved the business could work,” Dzodan explained. “This was core to getting the funding that we did—$360M as of the latest round.”

Building an Internship Program

The connection Westphal and Diego formed was clearly a win-win. Westphal got the startup experience he was after and Dzodan received the help his company needed to reach a milestone of a $1 billion valuation.

Westphal has taken what he learned at HBS and Facily back to Providence Equity Partners to continue his career in private equity investing with new energy and a fresh perspective. Meanwhile, Dzodan and his team are structuring a formal internship program based on the success of the summer 2020 experience with Westphal. Dzodan and his team would like have Westphal join them again should a move to Brazil be in his future.

Dzodan encourages other alumni and entrepreneurs to bring on interns. “It can be scary to think about using your time to build an internship program as time is our most valuable resource, but it’s definitely worth it,” explained Dzodan. “We have the evidence—the $1B valuation with the model Eric built in his internship—so the impact is very clear.”

Read more about Eric Westphal’s and Diego Dzodan’s experiences on the HBS Alumni Careers Blog.

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