---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: <ELIZABETH.ALM@wellsfargo.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 12:32 PM
Subject: RE: Interview Questions
To: 12264905@pinelakeprep.org

Dear Elizabeth,

Here are the answers to your questions. Please let me know if there is anything in my answers you want
clarification on, or don’t understand. Sometimes I can use bond lingo and not even realize that it may be
confusing to someone who doesn’t do this every day! Also let me know if you have any more questions. I
really enjoyed writing these answers, and I hope they can be of help to you (or even moderately
interesting). Thanks, and have a wonderful day :)

Where did you go to school and what did you study?

I went to New York University in Manhattan. I actually didn’t study anything related to what I
currently do for work. I originally thought I was going to be a studio artist so my original course of
study was an associate of the arts where I studied art history, and politics. I pretty quickly learned that
art was not going to be my calling (being a full time artist is super stressful, and you have to be really
talented). My next idea was that I wanted to be an archaeologist. I added a major in forensic
archaeology and went off to study abroad in the deserts of Egypt, where I worked on an archeological
dig near Luxor. I had a great time in Egypt, but decided that I also didn’t want to be an archaeologist
as the idea of teaching and being a professor didn’t really appeal to me. So finally I added a second
major in Economics since I had an inkling at this point (my junior year in college) that I would probably
be most interested in something related to business or math. Economics was really broad and would
allow me to do a bunch of different things for work. With all my indecision, I ended up graduating
college with an associates of the arts along with two majors one in Economics and one in Forensic
Archaeology.

How did you become interested in bonds and investing?

This is a great question! Around the time when I decided I didn’t want to be a professor, I was
looking for something that was really engaging, challenging and would use some of the same skills
you use in archaeology- i.e. the process of research and discovery. One of my college roommates
was working at a small venture capital firm. This particular firm had a pool of money, and would invest
it in ownership of various green energy projects like solar farms, or wind energy. She ended up
getting me an interview for an internship at that firm, and through that process I ended up getting the
job and finding a really great mentor in the president of that company. I ended up having a job as the
person who would do the first screening of potential investments, and would sit down with the people
who wanted money for their projects and ask them questions. Through this process is where I really
found my passion for investing. I thought the work was really interesting as I got to talk to people,
think through problems, critique what they said, and work on my interview skills (from the side of the
interviewer!). I liked that a lot was on the line, and I felt like my job mattered. After all, the firm would
potentially invest a lot of money in the projects and I had to make sure my work was very accurate.
From there, it allowed me to apply for investment jobs once college was ending. I still didn’t quite
know which part of the investment world I wanted to be in… so I applied for a job at Wells Fargo that
was a rotational program that lasted two years. It allowed me to sample a few different jobs in
investments before I decided that working with municipal bonds, and being on a trading desk was
something I was really passionate about. What I really learned from this whole process of discovery is
that talking to people and networking is super key not only to find opportunities, but also find out
about jobs you may not even know exist. Also, finding a good mentor was wonderful, as I got to learn
a lot during my time at the venture capital firm.

What kind of people do you work alongside?

 I work alongside a lot of different kinds of people with different backgrounds. Although, what I like
most about my coworkers is that we all tend to be curious people who like to solve problems. We
also tend to have a good work ethic, and pride in what we do. There is a lot of debate between us,
since we all look at the world in different ways and have strong opinions… although despite our
disagreements we tend to all have a good amount of respect for each other! Generally, I really like my
team and our office environment. Although, I also love debating and arguing with people so that could
be really helpful.

What is your daily routine in the office?

Well I get in to the office around 6:30am after biking in to work from my home in the City. The first
thing I do is get coffee, since I’m really a terrible morning person and don’t even know my own name
before my first sip of caffeine. After coffee, I scroll through news and look at my messages. I like to
catch up on what the markets are doing, and various world events that could impact the markets.
After generally getting caught up and informed, I will set in to my work for the day. I’m either
looking at bonds that are coming to market for the first time (we call them primary market deals), or
bonds that have already been brought to market (called the secondary market). For primary market
deals I usually have a few days to review the investments, and make a decision. However, for
secondary market transactions sometimes I only have 10 minutes to review and make a decision the
best I can or else the bond may trade to someone else and we’ll lose our chance at the investment.
After around noon, the market slows down a little, and then I can review investments that we’ve
already made (surveillance). Once we actually buy a bond it’s important we keep track of it, and make
sure that it’s still doing well. Usually I’m done with work around 3:30pm… getting out early is the
advantage of getting up early.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of your job?

One advantage of my job is that I’m able to support my family financially, and my husband can
choose his job more on passion than pay. He likes to work on environmental conservation, so I’m
lucky that I really like working with numbers and investments so he can have that freedom. Another
advantage of my job is that it’s good for a work-life balance. When I’m actually at work it is super
stressful, but I rarely have to work late or on weekends which lets me explore my other passions such
as rock climbing and mountaineering. One disadvantage of my job is that it’s pretty stressful, even
though I enjoy what I do. When I get home in the afternoons sometimes I have to just stare at a wall
for an hour to decompress, or go for a really long run to de-stress. I think it’s generally worth it, to
have interesting work that can support my lifestyle.

What do you like most about your job?

I love how challenging my job is, and how much I feel like my job matters. Most of the time the
bonds I look at have very little or not very good information available. Often I feel like a little detective,
searching for information, and trying to piece together a story. It is the same general process I used in
archaeology in terms of researching something with scattered or poor information… then piecing it all
together in to a cohesive whole.
I really love the municipal market too, because the investments are in really tangible things like
hospitals, universities, and charter schools. I can actually go and see and touch the things we invest
in. For example, last week I went to visit a charter school we first invested in a few years ago in San
Diego. When I first walked in the building that would be an elementary school back in 2015 it was
basically just a shell of a building with ripped out ceilings, and missing walls. When I saw it last week
(3 years later), it was a beautiful elementary school serving underprivileged kids. I had a tremendous
amount of satisfaction that the money we invested gave these kids such a beautiful school! To see
the transformation was really cool.

What stresses you out most about your job?

The high level of responsibility can be really stressful. The decisions I make about potential
investments are taken seriously by my team, and sometimes a lot of money is invested on the basis
 of the work I do. Since I mostly work with very high-risk investments, sometimes I lose some sleep at
night because I’m scared I made a wrong decision or missed something that would cause the
investment to go bad, or cause Wells Fargo to lose money. After all, it is people’s money we’re taking
care of, and I want to do right by the investors.

How do you decide which bonds to invest in?

This is a tough question, as I could probably write an entire book on this! There are a lot of things that
go in to a decision, and those factors can change depending on which sector I’m looking at. I follow
charter schools, universities, non-profits (like art museums), and land development deals (bonds that
finance infrastructure for very small developments such as single neighborhoods, or shopping malls
or industrial parks). There are always three parts to my decision 1- Is the bond going to pay back? 2-
what’s the credit quality and quality of the investment, and how do I think that’s going to change over
time 3- Is the bond priced correctly, or are we getting paid for the amount of risk we’re taking?

I’ll talk about charter schools because it’s my favorite sector to review. When I’m looking at a school,
one of the biggest drivers of success is the culture of the school and the passion of the teachers. This
is a pretty hard thing to judge as an investor, so I usually don’t like deciding on investments without
actually visiting the school and speaking to the principal, teachers, and school management. So I go
to the school, and visit classrooms and try to ask people a lot of questions about how they manage
the school, how they keep the culture of the school positive, how they manage the finances of the
school, and why students would choose to go there. After I get home I think about the answers to all
my many questions and piece them all together in to a complete picture. I also look at the financial
statements, and do a more quantitative analysis of cash position, and operations.

In your experience, what causes the bond market to fluctuate the most?
I think recently one of the biggest drivers of market volatility is coming from the political and economic
climate. For example when tax reform was in the process of being passed, there was a lot of
uncertainty with municipal bonds- there were some versions of the tax bill would have seriously
impacted our market! The cause was a lot of volatility, and the largest month of new bond issuance in
December than we have seen since 1985. Political decisions have a lot of impact on us, another
example is when the State of Illinois decided to not pass a budget for two years, and it caused a
tremendous amount of price volatility for bonds in Illinois.

Elizabeth Alm, CFA

Senior Research Analyst | Municipal Fixed Income
Wells Fargo Asset Management

525 Market Street, 10th Floor | San Francisco, CA 94105

MAC A0103-108
Tel 415.396.4147

elizabeth.alm@wellsfargo.com

This transmission may contain information that is confidential and/or proprietary. If you are not the
individual or entity to which it is addressed, note that any review, disclosure, copying, retransmission, or
other use is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender
immediately and delete the material from your system.

This communication is for general information purposes only and should not be considered a solicitation,
recommendation, offer, or investment advice to sell, buy, hold or exchange any security or to take any
action, nor should it be considered investment advice fiduciary activity. No warranties are made by any
entity in relation to any information provided, including warranties regarding completeness or accuracy,
and all information provided here is subject to change without notice.
This communication is subject to additional disclosures and disclaimers, please click on the following link
or cut and paste the link into the address bar of your browser: https://www.wellsfargo.com/
com/disclosure/wfam3d/

From: Elizabeth Sisson [mailto:12264905@pinelakeprep. org]

Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 5:48 AM
To: Alm, Elizabeth <ELIZABETH.ALM@WELLSFARGO.COM>
Subject: Re: Interview Questions

Mrs. Alm,

Good morning. Just making sure you are still interested in answering my interview questions. I need them
by February 12th to have time to incorporate them into my paper. Thanks again for helping me with this
project.

Elizabeth Sisson

On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 3:27 PM, <ELIZABETH.ALM@wellsfargo.com> wrote:

Hello Elizabeth!

Thank you for choosing me to interview. I’m looking forward to answering your questions and sharing a
bit about my experiences. I am going to take the weekend to complete the questions so that I can write
some good answers for you, and should be able to send you a reply by Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Have a good weekend,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Alm, CFA

Senior Research Analyst | Municipal Fixed Income
Wells Fargo Asset Management

525 Market Street, 10th Floor | San Francisco, CA 94105

MAC A0103-108
Tel 415.396.4147

elizabeth.alm@wellsfargo.com

This transmission may contain information that is confidential and/or proprietary. If you are not the
individual or entity to which it is addressed, note that any review, disclosure, copying, retransmission, or
other use is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender
immediately and delete the material from your system.

This communication is for general information purposes only and should not be considered a solicitation,
recommendation, offer, or investment advice to sell, buy, hold or exchange any security or to take any
action, nor should it be considered investment advice fiduciary activity. No warranties are made by any
entity in relation to any information provided, including warranties regarding completeness or accuracy,
and all information provided here is subject to change without notice.

This communication is subject to additional disclosures and disclaimers, please click on the following link
or cut and paste the link into the address bar of your browser: https://www.wellsfargo.com/
com/disclosure/wfam3d/
From: Elizabeth Sisson [mailto:12264905@pinelakeprep. org]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2018 3:32 PM
To: Alm, Elizabeth <ELIZABETH.ALM@WELLSFARGO.COM> ; Rachel Davis
<rachel.davis@pinelakeprep.org >
Subject: Interview Questions

Mrs. Alm,

My name is Elizabeth Sisson. I am a junior at Pine Lake Preparatory school in Mooresville, NC. As part of
our junior paper, we are required to interview a professional in a chosen field of study. I have chosen the
investment field as my topic and my father recommended you as someone who would be interesting to
interview. To help me learn more about investment careers, I have provided the following questions for
you to answer.

1. Where did you go to school and what did you study?

2. How did you become interested in bonds and investing?
3. What kind of people do you work alongside?
4. What is your daily routine in the office?
5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of your job?
6. What do you like most about your job?
7. What stresses you out most about your job?
8. How do you decide which bonds to invest in?
9. In your experience, what causes the bond market to fluctuate the most?

Thank you for taking the time to help me with my project. I am exited to learn more about careers in
investing.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Sisson

12264905@pinelakeprep.org

***** Please note: The Sender of this email is a Student of Pine Lake Preparatory and is not an employee
or agent of Pine Lake Preparatory *****
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