Summer Internship Series: Crystal, Priya and Vinatie

The summer is coming to an end and so are our internships! Therefore, this will be the last installment of the Summer Internships Series. Thank you to everyone who contributed, I hope you all enjoyed learning about what the Rutgers MBA Class of 2016 was up to this summer! For our last update, we've got Crystal Orr, Priya Shivkumar and Vinatie Pasricha talking about their experiences this summer. 

Crystal, a Marketing student, is working for HP in New Jersey...

"Hello everyone!! I am currently a MBA Global Marketing & Communications Intern at Hewlett Packard, working in the Financial Services (HPFS) business unit right here in New Jersey. I actually started in March and my internship is for a year, so I’ll still be here part time once the semester begins.

It’s an exciting time right now at HP as the company is going through a separation and will be split into two organizations in November. I am definitely here at a good time because I am getting the firsthand experience of going through a large transition at a top 20 company and involved in the process of implementing and communicating a new brand strategy (names, logos and messaging) to employees, customers and partners.

Currently, I work on various projects focusing on global internal communications and sales and colleague engagement. Some of my daily tasks include designing and creating content for our intranet pages, Yammer account (internal social media), and internal reference materials to support the sales team including separation information. I am also learning everyday about IT consumption and the financial aspect of technology for businesses and enterprises.  

I’ve had diverse and interesting experiences here thus far, ranging from volunteering for the Take your Kids to Work Day activities to donating blood for the first time to attending a Brooklyn Nets game.  One of my first major projects was actually coordinating the second annual HPFS mini golf tournament for philanthropy day with proceeds going to Room to Read. This was a fun experience as I love to plan events and got the opportunity to meet a lot of colleagues in the office.

Since, I will not have an official summer break prior to starting school again, I’m headed to New Orleans next week for a few days of fun! See you all soon!"

Priya, concentrating in Finance, writes from Madison, NJ...

"This summer I am interning with Quest Diagnostics in their Corporate Finance function. Within Finance, I am with the Revenue Recognition and Analytics team, which has a mix of both - Accounting and Finance. My team and other corporate functions are largely based out of Giralda farms in Madison, NJ, which is a beautiful location! My project over the summer was to develop analytical tools to evaluate the cash collected against the accounts receivables recorded for each of Quest's business units. 

Through the summer, various lunch and learns were organized for the interns where we got a chance to meet Executive Directors and VP's from different parts of finance. The CFO attend our final presentations earlier this week and it was really good to get so much face time with him over the summer. Glad to be done with my presentation even though my internship runs for 2 more weeks!  Over the summer, I also went on a lab tour (Quest's main lab is @Teterboro) and had a lunch and learn session with an ex-FBI guy who is now the head of Corporate security at Quest. Interesting experiences! 

There is a girl in my team who is an excellent baker and makes amazing stuff for birthday's and other events ..so all of us wait for someone's birthday to come up so that we get some home baked goodies! Everyone is really nice here and its been a wonderful summer. Look forward to wrapping up my project soon but will miss working once school starts! 

PS: And yes, there is a huge Rutgers contingent here at Quest." 

Vinatie, who is specializing in Marketing and Marketing Research Insights & Analytics, checks in from Iselin, NJ...

"This summer, I am interning at Ansell, the personal protective equipment company that makes gloves, condoms and clothing. The company is organized into four global business units – Industrial, Medical, Single Use and Sexual Wellness. I am working for the Single Use Global Business Unit as the Global Branding and Strategic Marcom Intern with the Global Marketing team. What makes this business unit exciting, is the fact that it was created just a year back as a result of an organizational restructure and the integration of Ansell with the recently acquired BarrierSafe Solutions International, Inc.

The object of my projects for the summer is to assist the team in product integration, portfolio optimization and create tools to elevate the expertise of the sales team. For my first project, I am assisting in the development of competitive positioning statements for all disposable gloves based on a newly created segmentation matrix. This will help them drive clearer differentiation and better integrate Ansell single-use products with BarrierSafe products. My second project is to develop a demo kit, which will allow our sales representatives to demonstrate how Ansell gloves perform better compared to competitor gloves. For this, I have been working closely with the R&D team and creative agency to design tests to demonstrate attributes such as ergonomics, enhanced grip, chemical resistance and puncture resistance.

It’s hard to believe that the internship is already coming to an end with just 2 weeks left! I have really enjoyed working with my team. The culture is extremely collaborative and transparent, which makes everyone in the organization very approachable.

For those who have been following the blog, you have already heard from Susan about the lunch & learns organized by HR. These weekly sessions have been a great way for us to meet senior executives and learn about the company and the business. Some of the exciting ones were with the CEO, CFO, President of the Single Use GBU and Head of Sales for NA. Last week, Ansell organized a day cruise around Staten Island for all employees. It was a refreshing change, a great way to experience the true company culture and network with everyone!"

Thanks to all for reading each week! And good luck to the Class of 2017, who will be starting Orientation this upcoming Monday. Can't believe we went through all that a year ago, time has flown by. I look forward to seeing everyone in less than a month! Enjoy the rest of your internships and rock those final presentations! 

Summer Internship Series: Susan, Laavanya and Jaclyn

And we're back! Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! I know a lot of people have reached or passed the halfway point, I can't believe it! This week we've got Susan Smith, Laavanya Shriram and Jaclyn Kirna talking about their internships...

Susan, concentrating in Finance and Supply Chain Management, writes from Iselin, NJ...

"Greetings from the distant land of Iselin, NJ, where I am interning in global financial planning and analysis at Ansell. Ansell makes personal protective equipment, such as gloves, suits, and condoms. They are a truly global company with operations in each of four regions: North America (NA), Latin America & Caribbean (LAC), Asia Pacific (APAC), and Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA).

So far, I have worked on some small tasks – collecting information on the manufacturing sector in different countries and on general economic conditions globally in order to predict and analyze the effect of global conditions on sales and creating bridge graphs for a presentation. I am also working to model sales forecasts and analyze growth with the complicating factor of acquisitions and the seasonal nature of the business. Remember Dr. Lei’s seasonal forecasting models? Well, I have been putting them to use! Most recently I have been collecting information on recent sales growth of competitors and distributors in order to see if the movement in manufacturing affects them in similar ways. 

It has been nice to meet interns from other schools, although there is a big Rutgers contingent. Go RU. Another plus is the lunch and learns that HR has set up for us. We met the Chief Human Resource Officer who gave us an overview of the company. We also met a brand manager and learned about a new product, both how it was developed and how a market is being created for it. The Director of IT gave us a view of how the IT department interacts with and supports the rest of the business. We will also be lunching and learning with a NA head of sales as well as the CEO."

Laavanya is concentrating in Supply Chain Management and Strategy and is working in Northvale, NJ...

"This summer, I am working for RAB Lighting, based out of Northvale, NJ. In little over a month, I have had 2 dinner parties, 7-9 cakes, and above all hands-on experience in various aspects of supply chain - procurement, inventory management, demand planning, new product development and logistics.

RAB is a third generation family owned U.S. company and the fastest growing company in New Jersey too. The company manufacturers and distributes commercial LED lighting. A year ago, the company began forming it's Supply Chain department and has been a growing team since. As a Supply Chain Intern, I am mainly focussing on demand forecasting & inventory management. I feel really lucky to have found this position as I am able to rotate in each team within the SC department, helping enhance/apply all that I have learnt via RBS. Also, the coolest thing, as the entire company located in one building, I literally walk through each process or department and see how they function. 

Be it working in excel to report KPI trends or applying OB concepts enabling change management during Lean events, I find learning is everywhere and summer is too short to fully absorb it. I hope to gather as much as I can here and hopefully define my career path. This is also my first experience working for a small company (well when compared to MNC's I earlier worked for) with strong culture. Today I can vouch that there is a thing named work culture fit. Though my colleagues are diverse and unique, because we all have similar ideologies it makes working together fun and easy. I feel much more confident in voicing my opinions or ideas. The entire company has a family kind of vibe, anyone can walk into any space (yep even CEO's office) without feeling awkward and have an open conversation about anything. 

On a personal front, thanks to a 30 mile commute, I finally bought a car and have been making the most of it. Our classmate, Meghana Talasila, also on the same team as me, is in the same boat. So we hangout a lot and cherish our Rutgers roots. We have been exploring some hidden hiking gems in the Tristate area. Anyone interested?"

Jaclyn is a Finance and Strategy student spending her summer working in NYC…

"This summer, I am interning in Commercial Finance at Pfizer Inc.’s World Headquarters located in midtown Manhattan.  During the 10-week internship, I am working on two teams: Global Commercial Operations and Accounts Receivable – Working Capital Initiatives. On Pfizer’s GCO team, I have been collaborating with leadership team members and Op. Plan leads to help prepare Pfizer’s 2016 Operating Plan and build a compensation model for GCO spend.  I am also assisting GCO leadership team members with reevaluating their monthly reporting, forecasting, and budgeting processes based on regional needs.  On the Accounts Receivable team, I assist with DSO (days sales outstanding) trending, reporting, and analysis and I help the team prepare and validate AR reporting packages.  During my time on both teams, I am working to improve the efficiency of Pfizer’s reporting processes.

I just finished week 6 of my internship and it’s hard to believe how fast it is flying by!  Pfizer’s internship program has given me a lot of exposure to senior executives through the various lunch & learns planned for the MBA summer associates.  This past Tuesday, we had a summer speaker session with Chairman of the Board & CEO, Ian Read.  He shared his career path as well as his perspective on transformational leadership and it was exciting that the interns had the opportunity to ask him questions at the end of the session. At Pfizer, the MBA interns also work on a live case study throughout the summer.  My team is comprised of 2 finance interns and a procurement intern.  In early August, we will be presenting our recommendation to our managers and senior executives in the company. Earlier this summer, Pfizer colleagues volunteered at Camp Sebago (a camp located outside of NYC for inner city children).  I spent the day cleaning up the campsite with colleagues from different Pfizer locations and it was fun to watch a dance routine that the children performed for us that afternoon.  We lucked out with good weather and the lake up there was beautiful!

It’s hard to believe that just a year ago, I was teaching 22 super energetic third graders.  It’s been a challenging yet exciting career change into the corporate world, but I’m really enjoying the experience.  The best part is that I’m working with people who love what they do and I’m learning something new every day!

After the internship, I have plans to travel to Houston, Texas for a wedding and then to Austin, Texas to visit some friends (and any of the Dell folks who will still be down there!).  As a Jersey native who loves the beach, the summer wouldn’t be complete without spending some time at the Jersey Shore!"

Thanks for checking in and keep reading each week! 

Summer Internship Series: Mike, James and Anuj

This week we have the privilege of hearing from Mike Koskulics, James Ma and Anuj Jain. Read on to hear about their internship experiences so far.

Mike studies Pharmaceutical Management and Marketing and is working in Whippany, NJ...

"This summer I’m interning at Bayer Healthcare in Whippany, NJ where I’m working on the Essure 2016 brand plan. Essure is a non-surgical, permanent birth control device that Bayer purchased for over $1 billion a couple of years ago from a company called Conceptus. 

So far, my experience at Bayer has been great. Working on the brand plan, I’ve gotten the chance to dive into every facet of pharmaceutical marketing—from advertising to sales training to pricing. While I’ve learned a lot, my favorite part of the experience has been seeing how marketing in the pharmaceutical industry actually works. Often times, the media portrays pharmaceutical companies as cold, money-hungry corporations that care more about the bottom line than the patients. My experience couldn’t be more different than this. On a daily basis, I witness far more discussions about the patient experience and physician support than profits. While getting hands-on experience in my chosen field has been amazing, the best part of my internship has been getting to be a part of an organization filled with people that truly care about helping people and doing the right thing. 

At this point in my internship, I have one month left before my presentation to the Executive Committee, a group composed of the heads of each business unit along with the CEO. I know these few weeks will continue to get more intense, as I race to learn everything I can and package it all together into what I hope will be a great presentation. Fortunately, I won’t be working non-stop the entire time. This coming weekend, my fellow Bayer interns and I are going to have a fun, work-free weekend in Atlantic City!"

James is a Finance and Pharmaceutical Management student spending his summer in Somerville, NJ...

"This summer I am lucky enough to be working in Somerville, NJ at Ethicon, part of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies and one of the world’s largest medical device manufacturers. Ethicon specializes in surgical care, and the Somerville site focuses specifically on R&D and manufacturing of wound closure and hemostasis products.

 

As an MBA intern in finance, one of several Leadership Development Programs at J&J, I support Ethicon’s Global Strategic Marketing department. My main project has been developing a process to evaluate and decompose the performance of our financial forecasting for new product launches, in order to gain insights for and improve future models. Because of the nature of medical device new-product development, capital investment and allocation decisions must be made years before the product reaches the market, so the accuracy of these early-stage financial models is critically important.

 

The program has been excellent at providing training and connecting me to others across the J&J organization, which is vast, but decentralized enough to stay nimble in a given sector. My greatest challenges have been learning the various acronyms and tracking down the right person to ask sometimes-stupid questions. As an NJ native, I am also eternally grateful for my 10-minute commute from within the suburbs, and the relative density of J&J offices in the area has made it easier to connect to MBA interns in other programs."

Anuj is concentrating in Supply Chain Management and Strategy & Leadership...

"Hello everyone, I’m Anuj Jain, specializing in Supply Chain Management, and interning at Ferrero. Yes, I make sure that Tic Tacs, Ferrero Chocolates and Nutella spreads are available when you go shopping.

I am working in the supply chain department as a Supply Chain Advisor/Analyst. It has been a great journey so far. The supply chain of Ferrero is very complex as the products have a very short shelf life. The products are imported from other countries, as we do not produce in US. The biggest challenge is that the business is customer driven, which is a nightmare for a Supply Chain. The forecasts are never accurate. So, even with a short involvement of 3 weeks, I have seen numerous challenges faced by my department. Since beginning my internship, I have been working on analytics based on historical data available to us, and preparing tools that can help the Supply Chain team to become more effective and accurate in their forecasting. Yesterday, I participated in a daylong consensus meeting with the Marketing, Forecasting and Sales teams. In this meeting all the departments decide on one final target number for the upcoming months and it was a great learning experience for me. The greatest one, by any means, so far. The agreements and disagreements between the departments, the challenges and questions posed at each other, and the agreement on a final number gave me an opportunity to understand the different perspectives of Sales, Marketing and Supply Chain. I was super tired, but I was really happy to have had such an opportunity. I was helping my manager with the intelligence based out of historical data using the tools that I had prepared. The most important lesson that I learned in this meeting is that communication is the most essential factor for an efficient Supply Chain.

I do not have any plans as such for the summer due to work commitments, as the next 3 months are super super super busy at Ferrero. 75% of our business of the year happens between September and December!

Okay, now I’ll leave everything aside and talk about the serious stuff. Yes, we can eat as many chocolates as we want. So, if you don’t recognize me in the fall when school re-opens, don’t blame me. I am the victim here."

That's all for this week! We will take a week hiatus as next week is 4th of July weekend!! But be sure to check back in 2 weeks to learn more about what the Class of 2016 is doing this summer.

Summer Internship Series: Francesca, Ike and Jen

This week we hear from Francesca Pat-Ekeji,  Ike Okose and Jen Abalajon, who are working in 3 of my favorite cities!!

Francesca is concentrating in Supply Chain Management and is based in Austin, TX this summer...

"This summer I’m interning at Dell in Austin, Texas. I’m working with the team that handles planning and strategy for global operations aptly titled ‘Global Ops. Planning & Strategy’. The first week was a boot camp of sorts followed by 2 weeks of shadowing different members of my team to learn the data, lingo and culture. I’m in the 3^rd week now and have spent most of my week interviewing different stakeholders invested in my project to make sure that I’m approaching my task from many different angles and synthesizing all that information to discover where the areas of opportunity are. The learning curve is steep because we deal with dynamic data and a lot of variables, however I’m taking it one day at a time and asking a lot of questions. Outside of my team and project, the networking has been great and that’s one of the things I really like about Dell.  Anyone is willing to sit for 30 minutes and talk to an intern and if you’re from a foreign country, there’s bound to be someone –or in my case like 25- here from your home country.

I live a 10-minute walk away from my office in round rock and the weather has been pretty nice so I’ve been walking to and from work. It’s quite sub-urban, which can mean long trips to the downtown area in search of fun and frivolity on the weekends. In terms of major summer plans, besides seeing as many musicians as I possibly can, I’d really like to drive up to San Antonio and explore for a day. I’m keeping my plans flexible though because the best plans tend to come together when you’re not fixated on them." 

Ike is a Finance student working in NYC...

"This summer, I am working in midtown Manhattan at AdvancePublications.  You may not know the company, but I’m sure you know some of their products.  Some of their products include GQ, VanityFair, Vogue, and Allure magazines, and some of you may also be familiar with reddit.com.  I am working as an intern in the finance group, and I will have the opportunity to work on projects in areas like Treasury, Financial Planning & Analysis, and Tax. 

I started at Advance Publications on June 8^th, so I’m relatively new here, but they have me working on a couple things while I get familiar with their reporting processes and systems.  One project I’m currently working on is analyzing our competitors, or benchmarking, to not only determine how well we are doing in our respective industries, but also to help determine targets to create a budget for 2016.  Another project they currently having me work on is trying to determine how much we should plan to spend on 401K expenses by month for next year based on 2014 and 2015 data.  These projects are very interesting and engaging, and I’m really starting to learn a lot here in such a short time. 

Though I’m just starting out here, I can tell I will learn a lot from this internship, and I’m excited to get to work on some of the tasks they will have me doing.  The short commute from my apartment in Hoboken is also very nice!"

Jen specializes in Marketing and is working in Princeton, NJ...

"This summer I’m doing the 10-week MBA marketing internship program at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Princeton, NJ.  Currently, BMS has a robust pipeline in the area of immuno-oncology, which uses drugs that work with your body’s own immune system to help fight cancer.  Not only is BMS a leader in this space, but these new advances in immunotherapy are truly revolutionizing the way cancer is treated, which is one reason why BMS is a very exciting place to be.  Another reason is a recent company-wide initiative to put the patient at the center of everything they do.  If you’ve ever taken Branning’s US Healthcare class, you would truly appreciate this.  Especially for patients fighting cancer, you can imagine how much of an impact a comprehensive patient support program could have, given the severity of condition, complexity of treatment and the emotionally tolling nature of the experience.  BMS wants to be there for the patient every step of the way and that’s why I’m spending my summer working with the digital marketing team to develop a patient CRM* platform for the immuno-oncology franchise.  

BMS functions as a matrix organization, so one of the biggest challenges of this project is gaining alignment on the concept of the program with seemingly disparate groups who have varying interests when you don’t have any formal power.  One employee likened it to herding cats.  Not to mention project managing several internal groups and external vendors to actually execute the program.  I’m seriously learning a ton and so far, I have fallen in love with marketing because there are just so many roles you can have, from digital to analytics to product management.  Marketing is certainly for big-picture people who can juggle many things (including personalities)!"

*CRM stands for customer relationship management and refers to practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage, record and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the marketing lifecycle in order to drive sales growth by deepening and enriching relationships with their customer bases. (Definition taken from TechTarget)

Thanks for reading and see you same time next week! 

STUDENT FEATURE: Trevor Jackman, MBA ‘14

Trevor Jackman 

Finance Concentration
Treasurer, Investment Banking Group

Treasurer, Black and Hispanic MBA Association

Trevor is a full-time MBA candidate with a concentration in finance.  After becoming fed-up with his former workplace, Trevor decided to take his skills to the next level by enrolling at RBS.  He is now well on his way to his dream job at the FED.

How did you find yourself at RBS?

Born and raised in Jersey and went to Rutgers New Brunswick for undergrad, where I completed a double-major in Economics and Political Science. Before attending RBS, I had been working as a Financial Aid Advisor at a college in NYC. After 3 years of working hard (and dealing with a lot of office politics) I just wasn’t happy with the job. Also, I got tired of constantly being called to put out fires at work. It’s never a good thing when you wake up and dread going to work in the morning. I finally had enough and quit my job to pursue my MBA full-time.

Where do you see yourself in 15 years?

Working as a senior officer, directly under the President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.  It’s unrealistic to think I could be the Chairman of the FOMC in 15 years…that may be 20 years down the line.

How was your summer internship?

I loved my internship because I got to interact with so many different people within the Federal Reserve. My coworkers all were very helpful and answered any questions I had about my projects.  We had luncheons with senior leaders and during one event I had the chance to speak with William Dudley, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Additionally, I got to meet some of the RBS alum that work at the FED, who really supported and taught me throughout the summer.  Overall, it was an amazing experience.  I was given a full-time offer, and I’m excited to start working at the FED next summer.

What has been your favorite class so far?

“Doing Business in China” I got to travel through China for ten days and experience a side of the world I’ve never been to.  We toured 3 difference cities in China and got to meet with several business leaders who have worked in various industries in China over the past 20 years.  I was surprised to learn first-hand the different challenges businesses face in the Chinese market, but it was a great learning experience. It’s pretty obvious why this was my favorite class. I’d highly recommend the class to any student. 

Who is your favorite professor?

I have to say Farrokh Langdana. He is really great at explaining complex financial issues in plain English that anyone off the street could understand.  I had his class from 6-9pm on Wednesday nights, after 6 hours of class… so for him to keep my attention the whole time tells you how great of a teacher he is.

What would you do differently if you could repeat your first semester all over again?

I would have talked to more second year students focusing in finance. I really didn’t take the time to get to know the second years as much as I should have and that could have been very helpful networking and for interview prep. Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing about first semester.

Trevor and two other RBS students tour China as part of
the "Doing Business in China" course