Name: Samantha (Sam) Lustberg
Major: Canfield BHP, Management Information Systems
Company: Bringg
Position: Business Solutions Analyst
Topics of Interest: kickboxing, all the foods in the world, social dance, the ukulele
It’s not often students get to travel abroad for an internship, but Samantha (Sam) Lustberg had the opportunity to work not one, but two internships this past summer in Tel Aviv, a city on the coast of Israel.
Sam began her summer in Tel Aviv as a consultant at a boutique firm, Targo Consulting, where she worked with pre-seed startups analyzing the ideas presented by budding entrepreneurs. After working at Targo for a few weeks, Sam pivoted to a new role at Bringg.
Bringg, a Series C technology startup, is a delivery logistics software that partners with Fortune 500 companies to ensure data security when working with food delivery services like Uber Eats and Postmates. Sam worked as a Business Solutions Analyst on the Business Development team. She had the opportunity to strategize with the sales and marketing teams for the rest of the summer.
“I had two experiences. A lot of it was me transferring what I learned in the consulting firm to this new tech company, Bringg, where I worked in Business Development,” Sam said. “My job was to realign the sales and marketing teams. There was this problem with connecting the most recent marketing materials with sales. So I helped create a centralized platform for all of that.”
In addition to helping to create a centralized platform, Sam worked to develop Bringg’s international marketing efforts. As an American intern in another country, she brought a unique skillset to the table.
“Bringg is an international company and I was in Israel and obviously there’s a huge language barrier,” Sam said. “They were looking to market around the world and I helped with building emails and content so their English language marketing was improved.”
Throughout all of her work, Sam said she loved her time in Tel Aviv. As someone who hails from New York and has studied abroad in Hong Kong, culture shock does not come easily for her. The biggest challenge Sam faced was finding and securing the internship in the first place. Sam’s advice to other students is to network and stay involved outside of McCombs.
“Navigating actually getting these opportunities is not as easy because I didn’t do it through McCombs. I went through Texas Hillel, which is an on-campus organization which then connected me to the third party organization that led me to the internship,” Sam said. “If you want to have an opportunity outside of McCombs, then you really have to talk to other organizations, continue networking with people and just make sure you put yourself in the right places at the right time.”
Sam also advises students to find friends and champions to support them through the recruiting process. She said peers from Canfield BHP and Texas Hillel kept her connected and vouched for her during the recruiting process.
“There have been other Canfield BHP kids in the past who have gone to Israel and using them as champions was helpful,” Sam said. “For example, a friend was going to do the program that I did, so she helped me make all the connections. The key takeaway from that is there’s a network within Canfield BHP for whatever you want to do. If you want to go into Tel Aviv it can happen. If you want to go into television or any other industry, it can happen.”