Graduate development programme

Hello and welcome to the Wellcome Investments Graduate Program presentation my name is Fabian Teos and I'm one of the two managing directors in the investment team/ I've been at Wellcome for a little over 16 years and I like talking about what we do, so thanks for making a little bit of time for us.

In this presentation we will give an overview of Wellcome, it's charitable mission and how we fund our groundbreaking medical research by generating returns on our 38 billion pounds Investment Portfolio. We will then tell you a bit more about graduates that are at Wellcome before handing over to our current Investments graduate Saba Sharma to share her perspectives with you.

Wellcome is a politically and financially independent global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health. We are funded from one private endowment established in 1936 by our founder Henry Welcome and aim to exist in perpetuity. Our mission is to support science to solve urgent health challenges across the world.

Our Investment Portfolio is valued at around 38 billion pounds as of the end of September 2021. This portfolio is our only source of funds. It's, therefore, a very simple structure. We make money to give away money. To improve health we've given away about 16 billion pounds over the last couple of decades and we aim to do the same again over the next 10 years

Going into a little bit more detail on Wellcome's mission, we support three strategic areas of science as well as our support for core Discovery Research. Discovery Research is the majority of our funding today representing around two-thirds of our charitable spend.

This is bold research across any field with the potential to change the way we understand life, health and well-being. Our aim is to enable researchers to be ambitious in their search for new understanding about the world. On top of that we have three strategic priority areas. The first is infectious disease, this involves working with communities affected by infectious diseases to bring those diseases under control and stop epidemics. The second is climate and health, this is a new and growing area for us. Our goal is to work with the community's most affected by climate change to explore the harmful effects of global heating on health. We want to improve people's health by funding science that can inform the world's response to climate change. And the third is mental health, this is another new and very exciting area of our work. We're working with people who have lived experience of mental health issues to improve research understanding and treatment so that no one is held back by mental health problems

Bringing this to life a little bit with some examples of the important work that we have funded. One of our major contributions to society was funding the Human Genome Project back in the early 2000s. When the first human genome was sequenced around a third of that happened on the Sanger campus just outside of Cambridge which we fully fund.

Sanger is still one of the preeminent sequencing facilities in the world and more recently the Sanger Institute has played a pivotal role in the sequencing of the Covid-19 variants. As part of the Covid-19 genomics UK Consortium Sanger enabled the sequencing of over one-third of covid samples and led to the ability to track in real time the emergence of new variants.

Elsewhere in covid, we were very active via the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, CEPI, which we co-founded in 2017. CEPI finances and coordinates the development of new vaccines. It has launched an ambitious plan to cut vaccine development time to 100 days. During covid, CEPI funded the AstraZeneca and University of Oxford vaccine and invested in Moderna's vaccine through COVAX, a mechanism for distributing covid vaccines. CEPI has developed and delivered over 600 million doses to over 140 participating countries as of the end of December 2021.

Elsewhere in infectious diseases we helped to develop the first global vaccine for malaria. With our research activities in Kenya, Wellcome also developed a highly effective Ebola vaccine following the 2016 outbreak. This is now stockpiled and ready for use in any future outbreaks. In mental health we were early funders of the first new schizophrenia drug in 50 years that has recently shown to be effective in Phase 3 clinical trials.

And one particularly ambitious initiative is the Wellcome Leap fund. Wellcome Leap built unconventional research programs that aimed to deliver breakthroughs in five to ten years which change existing practices and deliver transformative health benefits that don't fit the traditional research funding model.

As mentioned initially, our only source of funds is our Investment Portfolio. It is therefore important that our portfolio maintains its real value after inflation and delivers a return that allows us to maintain our spending target output. Our Investment Portfolio stands at around 38 billion pounds as at the end of September 2021.

The idea of delivering a four percent real return. So a return that maintains the value of our portfolio and enables our spend is captured by the red line on this chart.

Over the same time period since inception of our portfolio in the mid-1980s, global equities have delivered what's represented by the green line.

Our own investment portfolio's performance is captured by the turquoise line. We are set up to exist in perpetuity, so this is only a beginning but a return of about ten thousand percent over the first 36 years is a good start.

The most frequent question we get on this chart is how do we generate these strong investment returns. We do this by playing to a number of key competitive advantages, the most important one is probably our long-term time horizon. As I mentioned before Wellcome is set up to exist in perpetuity, this is really powerful. We generated a 19 times return on our Apple shares that we first bought in 2008. A nine times return on our shares in Google and Microsoft that we bought at the same time. Our ideal holding period for a company or stock is forever.

We first bought shares in companies like Nestle or Johnson Johnson in 2008, haven't sold a single share since then and occasionally added to our position on weakness. This ability to be a little bit counter-cyclical, to be a little bit contrarian, is another expression of our long-term time horizon. We can be buying when others are selling and quite often, it's a good idea to be selling a little bit when others are very eager to buy. We think of this as the interplay between greed and fear. We can be greedy when others are fearful and we are naturally a little bit fearful when others are greedy.

Another key advantage that we have is that we're very much unconstrained. We can invest in anything, anywhere globally, any sector, any region, any structure any asset class. We invest in startup companies all over the world.

We were early investors in Alibaba in China, but today have a much bigger, better, bigger position in TikTok. Our best performing stock this year to date is an Indonesian Bank. Closer to home we are one of the biggest owners of marinas in the UK and of high-end residential property in South Kensington.

You will get a much deeper insight into this portfolio if you end up joining our team because we look for people who have a broad interest in a range of topics, sectors, and asset classes. Quite frankly Wellcome is not an ideal place for someone who wants to be a deep sector expert in one particular area. But for anyone who is interested in becoming a well-rounded investor, across many asset classes there's hardly a better place that we could think of.

We are passionate about productivity and we're obsessed with the idea of continuous Improvement. So we look for people who challenge conventional wisdom, who help us think outside of the box, who offer new perspectives, who help us do what I just spoke about before: be greedy when others are fearful and who remind us to be fearful when others are greedy.

We also look for genuine team players because what we practice is a team sport.

We work across one team, we help each other, we share information across the team, we make decisions as a team, we passionately, passionately believe that teams – especially diverse teams – make better decisions and we've worked really hard over the years to assemble a team that has a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Our mantra is "one team, one portfolio, one mission".

Now, we will tell you a bit more about what investment graduates can expect from Wellcome. After your two years in investments what happens next in terms of our outcomes. So far 10 graduates have joined Wellcome's investment graduate scheme, of those four have stayed in investments and two are currently on the scheme, other destinations include Cambridge Associates with Jetty Asset Management and Cincona Investment Management. Across Wellcome's broader graduate program other candidates have gone on to work for the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine amongst many others.

Taking a step back, the graduate program was introduced to create age diversity at Wellcome and so much more Wellcome benefits from development and learning from a new generation. Our programs are rotational and for investments and investments career-specific route you'll have access to great support networks, including a former business mentor and line manager and an informal buddy. In terms of Learning and Development you will develop a personalised learning and development plan in collaboration with your line manager, you'll have exposure to the Wellcome induction process, core skills courses, investment specific training and financial sponsorship and study leave for the IMC investment qualification. In terms of other benefits, on top of your salary, offered by Wellcome, this includes pension contributions, a free gym, subsidised restaurants, a great working environment and volunteering days, and with that, I'll hand it over to our current investments graduate Saba Sharma to share her perspectives.

Hello my name is Saba and I'm in the second year of the Investments graduate program. In terms of my background, I'm originally from Singapore and I studied at King's College London in the UK before joining Wellcome.

So what makes Wellcome's investment graduate program unique? You will be exposed to holistic view of our investment universe, learning about a globally diversified portfolio and different investment asset classes spanning geographies and sectors, you will have weekly interactions with our CIO – our chief investment officer. The entire investment team attends our weekly meetings, which are chaired by our CIO and are a forum to debate, investment ideas and make investment decisions. You will be asked for your opinion from your very first meeting because we value multiple perspectives and our voices. We want to hear your opinion.

In terms of your personal Learning and Development plan, this will be mapped out after joining. Examples of training include support for the IMC qualification, basic financial analysis and modelling, public speaking and presentation skills, and debating and negotiation skills. You will also have a Graduate Development Fund which you can use and tailor to your learning development program. You'll work with a small, highly motivated team who enjoy working to serve Wellcome's purpose to improve health. Being part of such a small team gives you the benefits of developing strong relationships that will prepare you well for your future career.

As a graduate you'll work on a variety of interesting and exciting projects. Graduates have made important contributions across a variety of investments in the past examples including analysing stocks, for instance Apple, meeting company management teams, reviewing existing privacy equity funds, contributing to our sustainability analysis, due diligence and venture capital funds and working alongside the healthcare team – one of our many other sector teams.

Graduates have played an important role in designing and launching our net zero strategy. As part of our internal Net Zero working group you will also have the opportunity to attend various external events such as conferences and workshops at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the investor forum. Our internal meeting schedule is also very stimulating and creative which includes weekly investment decision meetings, blue skies big picture discussions, dedicated industry sector teams and asset class team meetings. In a nutshell there's never a dull moment.

Thank you for listening to our investments graduate presentation, we hope you'll end up applying to Wellcome. Here are some further links to further information. We wish you the very best of luck with your application and for your future career journey.

1. Resilience: The ability to adapt to change, managing yourself and others through change and having a growth mindset when responding to feedback.
2. Agility: The ability to to be agile, adapting to pace of work, prioritisation, flexibility and decision-making.
3. Influence: The ability to create networks, understand stakeholder engagement, peer connections, presenting and influence and persuading.
4. Leadership: Includes self leadership (such as self-confidence, self-worth, ability to be proactive, take accountability and be inclusive) and social leadership (encompassing Wellcome and personal values, understanding global perspectives, sustainability and peer-to-peer learning).

Complete an online application form – you’ll be asked to answer a series of scenario-based questions.

Please note, that our application process is anonymised. So please ensure you fill out all the required fields, as they will be collected for use later in the process. We do not accept CVs as part of the application process. However, for those who make it to the final stage, you will be invited to share your CV with us before your interview. 

• Complete the online application form for the general graduate development programme.
• Complete the online application form for the graduate investments programme. You can also register to attend the open evening on 10th October, which will provide an introduction to our graduate investments programme.

If your initial application is successful, you will be invited to participate in a video submission answering competency-based questions. You will be sent the relevant information including a link which will contain instructions on how to complete and submit the video interview via email.

If you’re successful at the video interview stage, you will be invited to an assessment day which will be held at our office in Euston, London. This will be a full day which will consist of a series of exercises that reflect the types of activities you would experience in the role. It’s also a great opportunity to see where we work and meet some of our current employees to talk about their experiences.

Following the assessment centre, you will be invited to the final interview where we will use this opportunity to learn more about you, you can also use this time to ask any questions, and learn more about Wellcome and who we are.

Following the final interview stage, you will find out if you have been successful or not – we provide feedback to all candidates that make it to this final stage.

I'd say the best thing about working at Wellcome is just how friendly and open everyone here has been at sharing what they do here, and helping you to know how to engage with their work as well.

The most surprising thing for me about working at Wellcome is how much I've developed in the past year, and how my interests have changed compared to how I thought they might lie at the start of the scheme. I started working Wellcome Collection, but I found I really enjoyed all the roles across the Trust.

So for me, the best thing about working Wellcome is that you have a really good balance of working in a really big organisation that is really well known around the world, and so it gives you a lot of kudos when you're going out and interacting with people outside of Wellcome. But at the same time, it doesn't feel like a big organisation where no one cares about you as an individua. It feels like somewhere where you can genuinely feel part of a community and there's a lot of cross talk between different departments here. It doesn't feel alienated or isolating in any way, even though there's a lot of people working under the same roof.

What has surprised me about working at Wellcome, is the difference and kind of working practice and culture between teams, which you really get to understand when you're a graduate and you kind of move from rotation to rotation to those teams. Different divisions can work in very different ways and look for very different things in their kind of day-to-day practices, basically, and that's been really interesting to get an understanding of.

So, one of the best things that I absolutely love about working at Wellcome is the opportunity to kind of get involved with lots of things kind of outside of your day to day job. There's so many kinds of social committees sports committees to get involved with. I've started on the Wellies committee this year which is Wellcome’s own kind of sports and social committee, and there's the opportunity to kind of run events and to kind of organize competitions and just meet lots of different staff from all over the Trust, which is brilliant.

There are a lot of great things about working at Wellcome, but one of the really nice extra things that we have are a lot of great benefits. So, for example, we have a free gym in the building which is really great for keeping healthy and keeping good mental health as well. We also have some really great subsidised delicious food available and there are a lot of discounts available through our benefits portal, for example eateries and cinema, which is also great.

So, my top tip for the application process is to really prepare well. I actually think preparation really pays off and so, for example, if you're preparing for a video interview or an assessment day or even preparing to write your application form, it's a really good idea to do some solid research on Wellcome find out a little bit more about what they do. What sort of activities they're involved with at the moment. What their priorities are. You can do this through a lot of different ways. We have a great website, but it also might find it useful to attend career's events and speak to people who work here or to attend webinars.

My top tips for application process would be to be explicit and really use those key skills that are listed and also to not be afraid in showing your enthusiasm and by making your application unique to you and genuinely showing your interest in Wellcome.

So, one of my top tips for the application process is to really think about why this scheme suits you right now. Because it's the opportunity to try out lots of different things, you're kind of not being trained just for one particular role, it's the opportunity to kind of like experiment with different activities. So, you have to really think about why is that important to you. Why does the structure of the scheme really work for you?

When you are doing your application my top tips for the application process would be to be as self-reflective and self-aware as possible when answering our questions for the Graduate Development Scheme at Wellcome. We’re really keen to hear what you'd like to achieve over the two years with us, as well as your strengths.

One of my top tips for the application process would be to make it perhaps as unique as possible. I think that something I drew on was kind of unique experiences I've had through work experience I've done in the past or kind of a project that I did at school that kind of stood out from other things in my life. I think that kind of gives you a bit of an edge and it kind of shows that you are doing things outside of just schoolwork that's on the curriculum as it were. So, yeah, I would definitely recommend picking unique things about yourself that really make you stand out against other applicants.