Summer 2018: Where IUCGers Went
This summer, our group members gained valuable experiences in wide range of industries. From Consulting to Financial Services to Logistics, IUCG members developed and refined skills, while leveraging group experiences to excel in their internship positions.
Matthew Doheny
Internship: Berkley Research Group Summer Associate
Main Projects and Responsibilities: For the majority of his summer, Matt worked on a mid-sized retail chain client. He spent time on two different work streams. The first focused on an out-of-stock assessment of the company. He analyzed millions of lines of data to weed out the root cause of the company’s out-of-stock issues. The other work stream focused on developing a go-forward strategy for their men’s and women’s retail. With his team, Matt conducted store visits, consumer surveys, and competitor analyses to develop strategies to improve the outlook of their retail departments.
Key Internship Takeaways: Matt gained valuable experience in the consulting world. He was able to travel each week to the client site and helped to put together decks that he and his team presented to c-suite executives. Through this, Matt improved his ability to analyze real business problems, while also improving his Excel skills along the way.
IUCG’s Impact: Matt feels that his role in IUCG greatly impacted his experience this summer. Through IUCG’s developmental workshops, he felt confident in his hard skill ability to use PowerPoint and Excel. Additionally, case studies and real client exposure gave Matt a strong foundation of analytical thinking, which helped him succeed at the client site.
Shane Doherty
Internship: Fidelity Investments Client Services Intern
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Shane worked mainly on resource management and process improvement. He worked with Fidelity’s Central Planning Group and was responsible for innovating ways to maintain and increase service levels at advisor call centers. Service level optimization relied on market environment and seasonality. Shane was also responsible for creating forecasting models using historical Excel data, as well as day-to-day resource management functions.
Key Internship Takeaways: Shane learned how to effectively gain insight and data from managers in order to make meaningful recommendations to project teams. While doing so, he learned about the dynamics of working in the financial services space.
IUCG’s Impact: IUCG equipped Shane with the skills to succeed in his position. He leveraged these skills to dissect data, communicate in a team setting, a make a valuable impact to any given project or business challenge through the use of process improvement methodologies.
Conor Ward
Internship: PwC Risk Assurance Intern
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Conor worked on three separate engagements that evaluated SOX compliance for Fortune 500 companies. In each engagement, he was responsible for requesting evidence from clients, performing sample selections, and testing IT controls to determine their operating effectiveness. Other tasks included improving status trackers of engagements to reduce administrative meetings and delegating work to offshore teams to optimize efficiencies.
Key Internship Takeaways: Conor has always known that relationships are essential to getting your foot in the door at a firm. However, he was surprised to realize that they are even more important once you begin working. He observed that Associates who excelled at creating positive relationships were exposed to internal opportunities that others were not and had a much easier time getting staffed on the types of projects they wanted.
IUCG’s Impact: IUCG’s greatest impact on Conor’s internship was the problem-solving skills that the group has instilled in him. While he was not solving the same grand-scale problems we do with case studies, much of the thought process required was the same. Each day Conor was faced with a series of unique challenges, and was forced to use his finite resources to promptly come up with adequate solutions.
Benjamin Naftal
Internship: Product Visioning Analyst at Liberty Mutual
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Ben’s primary responsibilities were to were to support the directors of state operations to provide analysis and strategic recommendations for product management in various state markets. These projects involved risk mitigation and product expansion to limit exposure and increase profitability of the firm’s insurance products.
Key Internship Takeaways: Ben gained a comprehensive understanding of the insurance industry. He strengthened his skills in Excel and PowerPoint through daily exposure and enhanced presentation skills through the delivery of recommendations to upper management. On top of this, Ben gained exposure to SAS, a data enterprise system, and used SQL to query data.
IUCG’s Impact: IUCG was essential in not only landing the position, but also to Ben’s success during the summer. IUCG alumni who previously held this same role gave Ben insight into the recruitment process and allowed him to compete against candidates who were a year older. The work Ben did as an Analyst with clients directly prepared him for data analytics and ultimately delivering recommendations to stakeholders.
Mitchell Omelenchuck
Internship: Amazon Area Manager
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Mitch was a team member of a process improvement project designed to improve the flow of containers throughout the cross-docks.
Key Internship Takeaways: Mitch learned to take ownership of your impact and that the implementation plan for any solution is just as important as the solution itself. Changes are rarely adopted without problems, planning for potential issues and making time to address unexpected ones is a critical part of a successful process improvement project.
IUCG’s Impact: The public speaking aspect of IUCG helped Mitch significantly. The feedback he receives as a member of the group when presenting gave him confidence when pitching his ideas to senior managers at work.
Heather Stratton
Internship: State Street Corporation Wealth Management Services Intern
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Heather tracked and deposited checks into trust funds while also analyzed the processing data for both her onshore and international teams. Processing data and insights were captured and developed in presentation decks for senior management.
Key Internship Takeaways: Over her ten week internship, Heather learned a lot about the inefficiency that exists in the workplace, especially in the asset servicing industry. Most of the tasks were completed with paper across her entire department. Over time, she saw how paper slowed the work and was susceptible to human error. From this, she learned that the industry is in great need of transformation through technology and data.
IUCG’s Impact: One large emphasis in internship programs is the networking opportunity they provide. Through IUCG, Heather developed the networking skills that she utilized on daily basis. She felt prepared walking into the internship to work with a team because of IUCG, and her teamwork skills did not fail her once! Heather was able to learn her role very quickly, which impressed her manager. Had she not had her Junior Analyst semester where everything was new, Heather believes it would have taken her longer to learn and adjust.
Julia Sullivan
Internship: Finance & Operations Intern, Virtual, Inc.
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Julia worked with the time entry system to manage employee time entry, client budgets, and client billing. She also worked with Microsoft Excel and Access to create weekly financial reports for stakeholders.
Key Internship Takeaways: Julia learned about the importance of communication with clients, especially in regards to budgets and invoices. She gained exposure to the process of billing and how companies track the time they work on certain projects while staying on budget. To round out her summer in the finance industry, Julia also developed knowledge on common financial report structures.
IUCG’s Impact: When asked to prepare slide decks and present them in order to train new employees, Julia discovered that she was able to put together a professional and effective deck and present it in a way that was useful.
Ali Asladadi
Internship: King Abdullah Medical City Medical Intern
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Ali conducted feasibility studies regarding certain drugs and their manufacturers. He evaluated the method through which doctors prescribe medicine and procedures to patients. Following this, Ali was responsible for providing recommendations regarding VIDA, the information system used in the hospital to monitor, log, and view patient data.
Key Internship Takeaways: Working within the healthcare industry and implementing his knowledge of operations and information management helped Ali realize the degree to which healthcare institutions can be improved through efficient information systems. After working closely with the pharmacy within the hospital, Ali learned what it takes to manage and store these drugs and how negotiations are done with suppliers. Conducting feasibility studies on those suppliers and drugs helped him to understand the delicate nature of supplier relation management. Above all that, Ali gained exposure to patients with chronic diseases and learned how to understand and communicate with them, improving his interpersonal skills.
IUCG’s Impact: Ali’s role required him to be analytical and detail-oriented. Working with IUCG has helped him develop and retain those skills, allowing him to transpose them into a working environment. Through working on case studies and projects for clients, Ali learned how to think quickly on his feet and pay attention to hidden details. This helped him gain recognition in his role as an intern.
Samuel Baltrus
Internship: Landmark Partners Quantitative Research Group Software Development Intern
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Sam helped develop and maintain private equity financing modeling tools with his time at Landmark Partners.
Key Internship Takeaways: This internship allowed Sam to develop an ability to collaborate with professionals of varying skill sets and backgrounds to create one functional end product. The opportunity offered insight into how financial companies are supported by both their own data and their own in-house technology and software.
IUCG’s Impact: As part of the incoming Fall 2018 Junior Analyst class, Sam is eager to see how IUCG can help him develop furthered skill sets that he can in turn apply in future work experiences.
Satish Pokuri (Not Pictured, Operations and Information Management, 2020)
Internship: Ken’s Foods Supply Chain and Logistics Intern
Main Projects and Responsibilities: Satish’s main responsibilities included organizing and scheduling an average of 100 weekly outbound shipments from the Kens Foods Las Vegas plant to West Coast distribution centers. He communicated with the customer service department and external vendors to ensure 97% on-time deliveries
Key Internship Takeaways: Satish was exposed to the intricacies of the supply chain in the food and beverage industries. He learned LeanLogistics software and was able to contribute to upper management discussions concerning the optimization of shipping routes and carrier expansion. These conversations led to a reduction in transportation costs and an increase in loading efficiencies.
IUCG’s Impact: Experiences working on a process optimization project for a multi-million dollar manufacturer with IUCG helped prepare Satish to think critically about his responsibilities at Ken’s. He got into the mindset of finding ways to optimize repetitive tasks and use his time more efficiently. Along with this, Satish was able to receive advice from his fellow members in IUCG while interviewing with various companies in the spring.
