Internship Spotlight: Adeyinka Adejolu ’27, HASI
After learning to model renewable energy finance during his first year at Yale SOM, Adeyinka Adejolu ’27 put his new skills to work at an infrastructure investment firm.
Internship: Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure (HASI), Annapolis, Maryland.
Hometown: Ekiti State, Nigeria
Pronouns: he/him/his
The SOM class you’re using on the job: Renewable Energy Project Finance (REPF)
Go-to work lunch: Seasalt
After-work routine: Working out at the Lifetime gym and sitting outside my house with a waterfront view
Favorite thing about internship city: The harbor and the seafood
This summer, I completed a 12-week internship at HASI, an Annapolis-based company that invests in renewable infrastructure and clean energy. The firm is anchored by a simple principle: Every deal must advance a sustainable climate future and generate strong, risk-adjusted returns. Its investments span three major verticals: behind-the-meter (BTM) assets, a category comprised of distributed generation solar assets; grid-connected utility-scale wind and solar assets; and fuel, transport, and nature opportunities that support the firm’s wider mission. I interned on the BTM vertical and had such a great experience.
On the BTM team, I evaluated preferred or common equity investment opportunities in residential, community, commercial, and industrial solar; battery energy storage systems; and EV charging. I built and refined financial models to evaluate project economics, layering in variables like price curves and tax-equity structures. I also spent a lot of time translating structuring questions and risk analysis (including topics such as merchant exposure or utilization risks) into clear language for investment committee memos. It was an outstanding experience, one that gave me a much more concrete picture of what climate-focused infrastructure investing looks like on a day-to-day basis.
I chose to work with HASI in part because of how the interview process felt. The conversation struck a good balance between technical and personal questions, which gave me a real sense of both substance of the work and the people I’d be working alongside. That impression was backed up by the numbers: When I researched the firm, I found a strong track record of infrastructure investing, paired with strong returns, which made the decision an easy one.
What made the experience especially rewarding, though, was the team itself. My colleagues and managers were consistently generous with their time, always willing to walk me through a modeling question, explain the reason behind a deal structure, or just talk me through their journeys over lunch. From the first day, I felt like a genuine part of the team rather than just “the intern.” That culture made it easier to speak up, ask questions, and dig into the work. My colleagues were also hilarious, and their sense of humor relieved the pressure that comes with meeting challenging goals.
My first-year experience at SOM prepared me directly for this role. Coursework tailored to energy and finance gave me a real foundation for the technical side of the job. In particular, the course Renewable Energy Project Finance walked through the exact kind of deal structures—from tax equity to project-level cash flow modeling—that I ended up applying immediately on the desk. Having that framework at my disposal meant I could spend less time catching up on fundamentals and more time engaging with the actual substance of the deals. The icing on the cake was connecting with Dylan and Laura, two SOM alums on the BTM and corporate finance teams at HASI. I stood on their shoulders throughout my internship.
I am very grateful to the many people at HASI who made this summer exciting, educational, and memorable, as well as to the Yale community. It’s not every summer you get the chance to do meaningful work on one of our most pressing challenges: accelerating the decarbonization of the U.S. and the world.
