Tracy Zhu

Hi! I'm Tracy Zhu, and I joined ALM Partners in March 2026 as a trainee in our newly opened Stockholm office.

I studied at the Stockholm School of Economics in the MSc Finance programme, where I became especially interested in sustainable finance. When I was looking for my first role, ALM Partners stood out because it sits between two things I wanted: a real finance and banking core, and a technology side I could grow into. The size mattered too. The Stockholm office had only just launched, and we are a small and lean team here, so there is a lot of room to try different things. It gives you something of the start-up experience with an established company behind it.

I came in from a finance and consulting background rather than a technical one. I had never used SQL at work, and I had not worked with balance sheet management before either. Neither turned out to be a problem. I learned SQL on the job and now use it daily, and the BSM training started from the beginning, assuming no prior knowledge.

The recruitment process itself was quick and smooth, wrapped up within about a month, which I appreciated. Onboarding began with two days at our head office in Helsinki with the other trainees, and then we started ALM Academy back in Stockholm. This year the Academy ran for nine weeks. It combined live sessions where colleagues from across the company shared their expertise on banking, data and the services we offer, ALM meet & greet sessions where employees talked about their own path through the company, and three projects we worked on together as trainees, each one a small version of the real work in a different part of the business.

The meet & greet sessions were my favourite part. Because we do not necessarily work together day to day, it was a rare chance to understand how other teams operate and to build connections across the company. What surprised me most was how many of the people I met had joined as trainees themselves and simply stayed.

Today I work in the BSM competence team, helping clients maintain and develop their balance sheet management systems and producing reports such as NII and IRRBB. Put simply, I help banks understand and manage the risk sitting on their balance sheet. The system we work in is FIS BSM, so when we hit something technical we can go directly to FIS for support.

The biggest thing I have learned here is to take the initiative rather than wait until I feel ready. I used to think I could not do something because I had not done it before. In practice, if you are hands-on and ask for help, things usually work out, and you learn far faster doing than preparing. That mindset gets rewarded here. Alongside my client work I have been able to help with things well outside my job description, from hosting career fairs at universities to supporting ALM Day, our annual event for clients and prospects.

Being part of a new office in a new market is exciting and challenging in equal measure, with plenty of space for trial and error and a real sense of achievement when something lands. Mostly, though, I have enjoyed the people. That is the part I would tell anyone considering applying.