2029 Sales & Relationship Academy -… at Greenwood… · Chicago

About The Greenwood Project

At Greenwood Project, we open doors in financial services for undergraduate freshmen. We give our scholars three things: social capital, the network that comes from knowing people inside the industry. Academic and technical capital, the training the work actually requires. And aspirational capital, the belief that the seat belongs to you.

This is not a workshop series. Scholars commit to twelve months of training, deliver real work on real deadlines, and finish knowing whether this industry is for them. Many go on to internships and full time offers at our partner firms. All of them leave with a network they did not have before.

The Sales & Relationship Academy

This academy trains institutional sales and relationship management. We want to be straight with you about that before you apply. Over twelve months you will learn how financial products work, how to explain them to someone deciding whether to move millions of dollars, and how to build a relationship that outlasts a single transaction.

The training travels further than almost anything else we teach. The ability to prepare, listen, pitch, and hold a room is what every commercial role hires for. But the programming is built around selling to and servicing institutional clients, and that is the work you should want.

What this academy trains

• Institutional sales. Selling investment products and ideas to large organizations such as pension funds, asset managers, and corporations, rather than to individual consumers. The twelve months are built around this.
• Relationship management and client coverage. Owning the ongoing relationship with a client, understanding their business, and being the person they call first.

Where that training can take you

• Capital markets sales. Working with clients on stock and bond issuance, hedging, and market access.
• Wealth management and private client. Advising individuals and families on how their money is invested. This is the largest employer of client facing talent in the industry and a common first seat.
• Client service and business development. Supporting existing relationships and opening new ones.

Read that split carefully. The first two are what we teach. The rest are real places scholars land, and this training is the right foundation for them. But if you want a client facing job without learning the products underneath it, this is the wrong academy.

Program Overview

We are recruiting 100 scholars into the Sales & Relationship Academy for the 2029 cohort. Across all three Greenwood academies we will select 325.

You are eligible if you are currently a freshman graduating in 2030. We call this the 2029 cohort because Summer 2029 is the internship you are working toward.

When What happens

• October 2026 to June 2027 Rolling admissions. Decisions every month. November is the priority round.
• July 2027 Academy begins.
• July 2027 to June 2028 Twelve months of training, from the summer after freshman year through your sophomore year.
• Fall 2028 Junior year internship recruiting season. Greenwood supports you through interviews.
• Summer 2029 The goal: a 10 week internship with a partner firm, the summer after your junior year.
• Spring 2030 You graduate.

How rolling admissions works

We review applications and make decisions every month from October 2026 through June 2027. You will hear back within 4 weeks of the round your application lands in. Seats fill as we go, so the earliest rounds have the most of them open. Apply early.

You get one application

You submit one application for this cohort. Not one per academy, and not one per round. Our Talent & Recruitment team may move you to a different academy than the one you selected if your answers point somewhere else, so you do not need to get that choice perfect.

Every application gets one of three outcomes:

• Accepted. You are in.
• Deferred. We want to see more before we decide, usually your next term of grades. Your application carries forward automatically and you do not need to submit anything new. You will hear from us about two weeks before the next round of decisions, and again every month until we decide. You will not sit in silence.
• Declined. Final for this cycle. Because this program only admits freshmen, we cannot reconsider you in a later round.

Deferral is the reason you can apply in an early round without taking a risk. If we are not ready to decide, we hold your application. We will not turn you away for applying before your first semester was finished.

Deadlines in this process are real. Once you apply, we will ask you for things on a schedule: transcripts, forms, sometimes an interview time. If you miss those deadlines, your application is declined rather than delayed. We hold this line because the program itself runs on deadlines, and how you handle ours tells us how you will handle those.

Please read this carefully. Internship placements are not guaranteed. Greenwood trains you, advocates for you, and puts you in front of our partner firms. Those firms make their own hiring decisions. What we guarantee is the preparation, the network, and honest feedback. The offer is something you earn.

What You'll Do

• Build and deliver client presentations and pitches, then get critiqued on them in front of your peers. Repeatedly, until it stops being frightening.
• Run relationship management simulations, including the uncomfortable ones: a client who is unhappy, a client who says no, a client who knows more than you do.
• Learn what you are actually selling. Training on capital markets products, meaning the stocks, bonds, and other instruments companies and investors use, and on what moves their prices.
• Learn to read a client. Active listening, asking the question behind the question, and figuring out what someone needs when they have not said it clearly.
• Work with a mentor who does this for a living, and meet professionals at our partner firms.
• Practice getting told no. Resilience in this job is a technical skill and we treat it like one.

Building AI Fluency

The client facing side of financial services is being rebuilt around AI, though not in the way people fear. Trust is still built between two people. What changed is everything surrounding that conversation. AI assistants built into CRM systems now summarize calls, draft follow ups, update records, and flag which client to contact next. CRM stands for customer relationship management, the system every firm uses to track client relationships. Salespeople who use these tools well spend their time in front of clients. The ones who do not spend it on admin, and it shows in their numbers.

Hands on with real tools. You will not just learn concepts. You will build working skill with the software and AI tools used on the job. Each Greenwood academy trains a different technical toolset, chosen to match the roles that academy actually feeds, so what you build here is specific to client research, pitch development, and relationship management rather than a general overview of finance technology.

What AI cannot do for you: earn a client's trust, read a room, or hold your nerve in a negotiation. Those are the reasons this job still belongs to people, and they are what we will push you on hardest.

What We're Looking For - Ideal Degree Backgrounds

Your major does not decide which academy fits you. Your interest does. Plenty of freshmen have not declared yet, and some schools do not allow it until sophomore year. Neither works against you. Major titles also vary from school to school, so if yours is named differently but covers the same ground, it counts. Tell us what it is called where you are.

Fields of study that line up with this academy

• Finance
• Business Administration, Management, or General Business
• Communications
• Economics
• Political Science or Public Policy
• Psychology or Sociology
• Any major, if you can communicate well and are willing to learn the products

If you have not declared a major yet

You can apply as undeclared. What we need to see is that you are seriously pointed toward client facing work in financial services, meaning roles where the relationship is the job. Undeclared is not a weaker application. An undeclared student who can show us the following is stronger than a declared student who cannot.

• Courses you have taken or registered for next term, such as economics, business, communications, or public speaking
• Clubs and activities that back it up: a sales or pitch competition, debate, student government, a campus job in customer service, or anything where you have had to persuade someone
• Anything you have taught yourself about markets or financial products
• A clear answer to why this academy and not the Investment Banking or Fintech Academy

If your major is not on this list

This academy is the most major agnostic of the three, so almost nobody should be ruled out by field of study. What matters is whether you can hold a conversation, handle rejection, and put in the work to learn markets.

Technical skills you will build

You are not expected to arrive with any of these. You are expected to want them.

• Market awareness, meaning the ability to speak credibly about what is happening in markets and why it matters to a client
• A working understanding of capital markets and financial instruments, including stocks, bonds, and derivatives at a conceptual level
• Presentation development and delivery, including the storytelling that makes a deck land
• CRM systems and disciplined relationship tracking
• Enough financial analysis to hold your own in a client conversation about numbers
• Client and market research, so you walk in already knowing their business
• Working with AI tools for research, drafting, and call follow up

Soft skills and characteristics

Greenwood selects scholars who show grit, resourcefulness, and intellectual curiosity, along with:

• Strong verbal and written communication
• Natural relationship building instincts and comfort with people you do not know
• Confidence in client facing situations and in front of a room
• Active listening, and the ability to hear what a client actually needs
• Persuasive communication and early negotiation instincts
• Resilience. You will be told no more often than yes, and it cannot change how you show up.
• Adaptability and quick thinking when a conversation goes somewhere you did not plan for

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

What Makes a Strong Sales Academy Candidate:

The strongest candidates genuinely like people and are willing to be told no. That combination is rarer than it sounds. Being outgoing is not the qualification. Plenty of excellent salespeople are quiet. What matters is preparation, listening, and follow through.

What this takes

• Twelve months, from the summer after freshman year through your sophomore year, on top of a full course load.
• Roughly 6 to 8 hours per week, with heavier weeks around pitch deadlines.
• Presenting in front of your peers and industry professionals, and being critiqued directly.
• Managing your class schedule around program commitments and staying organized without being chased.

Eligibility Requirements

• Currently enrolled as a freshman (Class of 2030) at an accredited four year institution
• Minimum 3.2 GPA for standard consideration
• Students with a GPA between 3.0 and 3.19 may apply with a required personal essay
• Students below a 3.0 GPA are not eligible for this cycle
• Your high school transcript, submitted with your application
• Your first semester or first quarter college transcript, submitted with your application or as soon as grades post if you apply in an early round
• A demonstrated commitment to excellence, integrity, character, and collaboration

If your GPA falls between 3.0 and 3.19, the essay is not a formality. Tell us what the number does not capture, and be specific about what you changed.

If you apply in an early round before you have a college GPA, we review your high school record first and confirm eligibility once your first term transcript arrives.

What You'll Gain

• Communication skills that transfer anywhere. The ability to pitch, present, and hold a room is useful in every job you will ever have, including the ones outside finance.
• Product knowledge. You will understand what you are selling, which separates a credible young salesperson from a scripted one.
• AI capability most candidates do not have. Working AI tools into client research, outreach, and call follow up is exactly what sales desks are hiring for right now.
• A real network. One on one coaching, a mentor in the industry, and access to professionals at our partner firms.
• Resilience you can point to. You will have been told no, in practice, before it happens with a real client and a real number attached.