About Dawn Advisory

Dawn Advisory is a student-run consulting association that delivers real, live consulting work for startups and private clients rather than case-study simulations. Members work in project teams on active engagements, producing the same kind of client-facing analysis and deliverables a professional consultancy would.

My Role

As a Project Analyst, I worked within project teams on active client engagements, moving between research, stakeholder communication, and building the PowerPoint decks that carried the actual recommendations to the client. The role meant getting comfortable with consulting tools like think-cell and Efficient Elements, and with translating in-progress, sometimes messy work into a clear, decision-ready narrative.

What I Took Away

Working on live client engagements, rather than case competitions, changed how seriously I take a deliverable — there's a real client reading it, not a judge. It's also where I started thinking in decks by default: structuring an argument the way a consulting slide would, before I ever open PowerPoint.

Overview

The Circle is Dawn Advisory's flagship private programme: an invitation-only international experience built for high-net-worth individuals, blending curated hospitality with genuine access to restaurants, chefs, and venues typically reserved for members. My work sat behind the scenes of that experience, securing and coordinating the relationships, particularly with restaurants and chefs across Italy, that made each stop feel effortless, while keeping client communications and expectations aligned throughout the programme.

Consulting-Style Deliverables

Much of the work followed a consulting rhythm: real client-facing projects built and communicated primarily through PowerPoint, using think-cell and Efficient Elements to structure data, timelines, and recommendations the way a strategy team would. It meant getting comfortable translating messy, in-progress work into a clear, decision-ready narrative for people with very little time to read it.

Highlights

• Supported delivery of a private international programme for high-net-worth individuals, working across the full lifecycle of the engagement.
• Managed relationships with restaurants and chefs across Italy, negotiating and coordinating bespoke culinary experiences for programme participants.
• Built client-facing materials and internal project decks in PowerPoint, using think-cell and Efficient Elements to work efficiently on real, live deliverables.
• Handled client communications directly, guiding stakeholders through programme processes and ensuring a consistently high standard of service.

What I Took Away

Working in a luxury, relationship-driven environment sharpened my attention to detail and taught me how much of client satisfaction comes down to anticipating needs before they're voiced. That's a lesson that now shapes how I approach any project involving external stakeholders.

Overview

Anima Development is a family-run real estate business (run by my uncles) built around two models: buying homes to renovate and flip, and buying homes to fix up and rent out. The portfolio holds more than 30 properties, each under its own separate LLC rather than one holding structure. I worked two separate one-month stints, in New Jersey and, remotely with two on-site visits, in Tenerife, Spain.

New Jersey — On-Site Renovation Work

I tracked costs and materials for the tiling of an entire villa in Towaco, NJ, and supported a full bathroom renovation, evaluating contractor alternatives (ruling out the excessive ones) and keeping the project on timeline. I coordinated on-site work with contractors across several smaller side-projects, including insulation, antirust paint, and sheetrock paneling, which gave me a genuinely hands-on sense of how a renovation actually runs from within. I also built Excel models, including in YNAB, to help assess vehicle-related tax deductions and the profitability of specific estates.

Tenerife — Remote & On-Site Support

I contributed to the evaluation behind the sale of a villa in Tenerife for $600K, roughly 180% of its original $360K purchase price, weighing neighborhood context, compliance with local administrative regulations, and cashflow. I also assisted with El Perenquén, a $1.5M, six-apartment villa in Puerto de la Cruz: supporting renovation work, helping think through unit differentiation (a penthouse versus more budget-conscious options), and working on a website to showcase 10 Tenerife properties and give the portfolio more visibility.

What I Took Away

This was my first real exposure to how a rent-versus-sell decision actually gets made, and to cost and time budgeting under a real contractor timeline rather than a theoretical one. I got practical experience with property management through Lodgify and Excel, and hands-on time on an actual worksite, seeing how renovation decisions ripple into a property's numbers. I didn't have decision-making authority on these calls, and I'm upfront about that; what I gained was a close, repeated view of how those decisions get made and what they weigh.

Role

As an Intern at Innova HTS, a biomedical solutions company, I split my time between the office and the field. On the office side, I supported the accounting and data side of the business, applying Excel to manage and organise large operational datasets during a period at the end of secondary school.

On-Site & Client-Facing Work

Beyond the office, a meaningful part of the internship happened on the road. I visited the administrative offices of several hospitals across Northern Italy, including San Raffaele, San Luigi Gonzaga in Orbassano, and Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi, sitting in on conversations with chief doctors and with Innova's own sales agents to see how a biomedical solutions provider actually sells into a hospital system: who makes the decision, what they care about, and how technical and commercial arguments need to work together.

Highlights

• Visited on-site administrative offices at hospitals including San Raffaele, San Luigi Gonzaga (Orbassano), and Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi.
• Sat in on meetings with chief doctors and Innova's sales agents, observing how clinical needs and commercial strategy are reconciled in practice.
• Traveled extensively across Northern Italy to maintain on-site presence with hospital clients, alongside the accounting and data work.
• Applied accounting principles and Excel to manage and organise large datasets for the business.
• Recognised for relationship-building skills within the team, which led directly to a job offer following the end of secondary school.

What I Took Away

This was my first professional experience in a technical, biomedical setting, and it showed me how much value careful, well-organised data work adds even outside of finance. It's a mindset I carried directly into the Excel business planning tool I later built. Sitting in hospital administrative offices also gave me an early, direct look at how clinical and commercial priorities meet in a real sale, a perspective I still draw on whenever I think about how a business actually reaches its end client.

Overview

An Excel-based business planning tool I built and own end-to-end, designed to analyse business performance and generate 3-year forecasts using advanced formulas and VBA. It started as a personal project and is now an ongoing build, the kind of thing I keep iterating on between semesters rather than something with a fixed finish line.

Currently in Progress

• Redesigning and expanding the model's functionality to cover more forecasting scenarios.
• Translating the entire model from Italian to English to make it usable by a wider audience.

What I Took Away

Owning a tool from scratch, rather than working inside someone else's spreadsheet, forced me to think like both the builder and the end user: where formulas break, what a non-technical reader actually needs to see, and how to make a 3-year forecast something people trust rather than just a wall of numbers.

Overview

This upcoming research project explores whether residential real estate in Milan can still work as an investment, and how a private investor can evaluate whether to buy, rent out, renegotiate, or walk away from a property opportunity. It starts from a practical question: if someone is considering buying a home in Milan, especially around Bocconi and South Milan, how can they tell whether the property is financially attractive or simply emotionally appealing?

Focus Areas

The research will focus on neighbourhoods including Navigli, Porta Ludovica, Vigentino, Morivione, Abbiategrasso, Ripamonti, Romolo, Famagosta, and the surrounding area, comparing purchase prices, expected rents, financing costs, taxes, maintenance, vacancy risk, resale potential, and downside scenarios.

Planned Deliverables

The final output will include a 5–6 page research report, a simple Excel-based property evaluation model, and a short LinkedIn summary. The model will work as a practical tool to assess residential properties through key metrics: gross yield, net yield, loan-to-value, monthly cash flow, debt service coverage, break-even rent, and break-even resale value.

Planned Process

• Define the investment question and evaluation framework.
• Research the Milan residential market, with a focus on South Milan and university-driven rental demand.
• Build a property comparison tracker using real listings.
• Develop an Excel model to evaluate purchase price, rent, financing, costs, and exit value.
• Apply the model to a Milan case study.
• Summarise the findings in a research report and a LinkedIn post.

The Question

The goal isn't to predict the market with certainty, but to build a disciplined decision-making framework: can Milan residential real estate still work as an investment, and what framework can a private investor use to decide whether to buy, rent, or walk away? The project translates a real-life property search into a structured research and modelling exercise, combining real estate analysis, finance, Excel modelling, and practical investment thinking.

Overview

This memorandum was built as an advocacy exercise on behalf of Beta Ltd, a UK consulting firm, in a dispute against Alfa GmbH, a German technology startup. Under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, Beta had produced proprietary market research for Alfa's mobile app; Alfa then used and publicly displayed that research in an investor presentation. The task was to construct a full case theory from the facts: pinpoint every clause breached, dismantle each defense Alfa could raise, and put a credible number on the harm.

Key Legal Arguments

• The "Project purposes" clause was breached: using the research to court investors, rather than to develop the app, fell outside the contract's permitted field of use.
• Unauthorized disclosure to third parties also occurred: public display of the slides, without prior written consent, satisfied the NDA's broad prohibition on disclosure "in any form whatsoever."
• Alfa also failed to apply reasonable protection measures: a verbal no-photography request fell well short of the safeguards a foreseeable, high-exposure setting required.
• There was also unauthorized reproduction: repackaging Beta's findings into new slides still counted as reproduction, since NDA protection attaches to substance, not to format.
• The memorandum systematically rebuts all five statutory exceptions the NDA allowed (independent discovery, prior public knowledge, pre-existing knowledge, legal compulsion, written authorization), closing off every avenue of defense, including Alfa's claim that silence implied consent.

Damages & Relief Sought

Damages were quantified from first principles using industry-standard consulting benchmarks, including estimated team size, role mix, and salary bands, to reach an actual-loss figure of roughly €184,600, plus an equitable loss-of-profit claim of €175,000–€400,000 based on a conservative estimate of forfeited future engagements. The memorandum closes by requesting a declaration of liability, both heads of damages, and an injunction barring Alfa from any further use of the compromised presentation.

Overview

A full company analysis of NVIDIA built with five teammates for a Management course field project, tracing the firm from its 1993 founding through its rise to become the world's most valuable company. The report combines strategic analysis, a corporate governance review, a financial performance study benchmarked against industry averages, and a forward-looking assessment of NVIDIA's macroeconomic exposure.

Business Model & Strategy

Using PESTEL and Porter's Five Forces, we assessed how NVIDIA competes on differentiation and ecosystem control rather than cost, pairing high-performance GPUs with proprietary software (CUDA) to lock in developers. The industry shows high barriers to entry, considerable supplier power concentrated in TSMC, comparatively limited buyer power despite marquee clients like Microsoft and OpenAI, and intense rivalry with AMD and Intel.

Corporate Governance

We reviewed the composition of NVIDIA's 13-member board (12 independent directors) and its three standing committees (Audit, Compensation, and Nominating & Corporate Governance), along with the equity ownership requirements that tie director and executive pay to long-term performance. The main structural concern we flagged is that the Chair and CEO roles are both held by Jensen Huang, which concentrates power and could slow the board's response in a downturn.

Financial Performance

We benchmarked NVIDIA's profitability, liquidity, and leverage against industry averages using ratio analysis (ROA, ROE, asset turnover, current and quick ratios, debt/equity). Across the board, NVIDIA outperformed its peers by a wide margin, with strong liquidity, historically low leverage, and profitability ratios several multiples above the industry, while we also noted that its very low debt load leaves some financial-leverage upside unexploited.

Macroeconomic Exposure

The final section assessed how U.S. tariffs, dollar strength, and export controls on China (roughly 13% of NVIDIA's revenue) affect the company, and proposed strategic responses: diversifying into markets like India, Japan, and Korea, adjusting invoicing currency to manage exchange-rate exposure, and continued policy engagement to keep semiconductors exempt from tariff escalation.

Note: this version has been adapted for public display; team member names and course/section references have been removed.