Tom is Flow's first intern and gets to do a lot right away: from helping set up forecasting to making investor reporting. He used to row at the top level, is determined to make an impact in his work and wants to give his children a strong financial foundation later on.
Intern
"I have been working at Flow as an intern for five months now and am involved in business development, project management and finance management. I help Flow set up a forecasting process of costs and revenues, do part of the investor reporting, and I made an overview of neobanks that could be interesting to partner with. The requirements for this are that it must be a bank in Europe, with a certain minimum number of users, they must do something with money automation and it is also important that they have already raised money."
Helping hand
"If I am correct, over 600,000 people in the Netherlands are in problematic debt, and a third of all adults do not manage their money well. Before my internship at Flow, I didn't really understand how that was possible. Now I understand it better: these people need a helping hand. I think Flow can be that support. There are plenty of budget apps, but they give insight after the fact. With Flow you can really change your money behaviour. You do have to get your spending and income straight first, and set everything up in the app, but after that it's automatic. And that gives peace of mind."
2 bachelors
"I'm in the final year of my 2 bachelors: international business and finance management and international business and entrepreneurship. I am taking those courses at Eurocollege, a private school with its own educational structure. The education is much more practice-oriented than other bachelor's programs; you have to do 3 internships. Flow is my final internship, and I will also write my thesis here. The exact research question is not yet fixed, but the topic is embedded finance: financial software that can be integrated into other software, like in a bank."
Row
"A few years ago I trained 5 to 6 times a week as a competitive rower. The combination of strength, balance and wanting to win has always drawn me to the sport of rowing. But at one point I thought: if I focus on studying, I have a much better future perspective than if I put so much of my time into rowing. Then I stopped completely from one day to the next. But after about 2 years, I thought it would be fun to start again. Not at top level, but for the social aspect and because it's just healthy to exercise. I also coach 1 rower now, and I like that because it involves leadership skills. I can use that again in my working life."
Student debt
"Money is important to me because I grew up in what I consider a low-middle-class single-parent family. I am very grateful for what my mother was able to provide for me, but if I ever have children of my own, I hope to be able to give them a stronger financial foundation. When I graduate, my student debt will be over 50 thousand euros. That's quite a lot of money, but I don't regret taking out my loan. Taking out that loan has allowed me to develop, and I will soon have degrees that I can do a lot with. And, super good news: at Flow they have offered me a job for when I finish studying later!"
Making an impact
"A lot of people go to work and do exactly what they should be doing, but I really want to make an impact. Innovation and business interest me a lot and I think it would be nice to create something or contribute to something that has been around longer than I have. A while ago I interviewed an entrepreneur who scaled her company from 1 to 100 employees in a very short time. She was no longer working there herself by now, but her company continued to grow because she had set it up so well. From such an example I get a lot of inspiration."
Small company
"Someone once told me that if you work at a corporate, 50% of your work is not used. I don't know if it's true, but I do notice that this is very different at a small, young company like Flow. As an intern I get to experience everything from very close up; I can easily get into a conversation with one of the founders, and if I have something interesting to say, they really take the time to listen. I get to learn a lot about the strategy, I work closely with seniors and learn a lot that way."
