Experience · 2017 — 2019
Co-Founder & Director of Operations
A second founding chapter: stand up the institute, own the operating rhythm, and replace manual mentorship coordination with one system. The programs served hundreds of users, through partnerships with leaders across tens of financial institutions in Canada.
Company building
Lantern was built as a mentorship institute, including fast-track career training in mathematical finance and data science. As co-founder and Director of Operations, Farhad owned day-to-day running of the organization — the processes and tooling that carried programs from intake through matching and ongoing communication.
Platform
The core product work was a platform that streamlined mentor and mentee onboarding, relationship management, and communication. The point was practical: fewer disconnected tools, one path for the people running and using the programs.
AI
Alongside operations, the team built AI-based training tools that tailored learning paths to each user and adapted content against prevailing industry trends — personalization as part of the institute's delivery, not an add-on.
People
The institute was the programs and the people in them — graduates moving through industry-designed training, and the room that held that work.
Close
Lantern was built around people in a room — cohorts, mentors, and a path into work. When the pandemic arrived, that model could no longer hold. The institute came to a close.