Samantha Speakmon is a BHP/Finance senior who spent the summer working as an Ethics & Compliance Intern at BP, a multinational oil and gas company that is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world.
How did you find out about your internship?
The internship was posted on OCR. I emailed a BHP alum who works at BP because the job description wasn’t a normal corporate finance role. She forwarded me a little more information about the team and I applied.
What do you think set you apart from other candidates and led to you getting the position over other candidates?
I think what really set me apart during my first interview was my genuine interest in the industry. I knew a lot of background information on the energy industry, and I came in with good questions that helped me understand the team’s role in the business. I left that interview convinced that it was the best internship for me. So when I had a second interview, I made sure to communicate my confidence that it was a perfect fit.
What were you doing for your internship?
I was working at BP with the Ethics & Compliance team in the natural gas and power trading group in Houston. The E&C team oversees trading activity to ensure that traders are behaving within external laws and internal policies. As an intern, my big project was an assessment of the main risk areas that E&C oversees, which include risks like money laundering, market manipulation, and misleading communications. I also ran daily reports that looked at BP’s positions in the market relative to the mandatory position limits, which are there to prevent market manipulation.
What did you enjoy most from the experience?
I really enjoyed working on a trading floor; it was a great experience. BP’s “one team” culture was very visible, especially in such a fast-paced and high-risk environment. Everyone was friendly and ready to help out, so I was always able to ask questions and network with people, even if they weren’t in my group.
What were the key takeaways for you?
My biggest takeaway is learning about and actually seeing the extent to which regulatory forces affect and change a trading business. When the penalties of market manipulation can be upwards of $300 million, an Ethics & Compliance department is a valuable line of defense. The group decreases the risk of a regulatory breach by monitoring the positions and communications of traders and adapting the business to new legislation like Dodd-Frank.
How do you think this internship will help you with your future career goals?
I have always been interested in the energy industry, but this internship helped me find a few specific career paths that I would enjoy. There are so many more unique opportunities to use a finance degree than I thought. Since I may want to go to law school, I was glad to see areas where I could use both a finance and law degree.