Absa Group

Intern, Corporate Credit Risk

Absa Group
May 2019 – Jul 2019

I joined Absa Group as an intern in Corporate Credit Risk, where I supported analytical work used to assess financial risk and inform lending decisions.

My role focused on working with large financial datasets, cleaning and querying data using SQL, and helping surface trends that mattered to the business. Accuracy was critical. Small mistakes could cascade into incorrect conclusions, so I learned early to treat data validation as part of the analysis, not a separate step.

I assisted with research and investigations related to credit performance, contributing to reports that were reviewed by senior stakeholders. This work required translating raw numbers into insights that could support real decisions, not just technical findings.

The internship exposed me to the structure and rigor of risk teams within a large financial institution. It also gave me an appreciation for governance, documentation, and accountability when data is used to evaluate financial exposure.

This experience laid the groundwork for my later interest in applied data science in regulated environments, where trust in the analysis matters just as much as the analysis itself.