Author Archives: CBHPrecept

Intern Spotlight: Jessica Breckenridge – HEB Customer Insights

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Intern Spotlight: Jessica Breckenridge – HEB Customer Insights

Jessica Breckenridge

Position: Customer Insights Intern

Majors: BHP, Marketing

Company: H-E-B Grocery Company, San Antonio, Texas

Topics: Brand Design, Virtual Platforms

 

 

What were you doing in your role?

I interned in the Customer Insights Center, H-E-B’s internal research department. I worked with the Packaging and Brand Design Manager to investigate questions around H-E-B’s Own Brand products by brainstorming research questions, fielding and documenting studies with customers, and sharing findings with key stakeholders across the company. Apart from that, my primary project this summer was to spearhead the search for digital efficiency solutions within our department. I focused on virtual platforms and recruitment strategies and had the opportunity to lead the search from early exploration to the beginning rounds of testing. I developed platform criteria, evaluated and negotiated with top market research vendors, and collaborated with teams across H-E-B to map use cases and implementation paths.

Biggest lesson you learned, or ways you grew from this internship?

I learned that I can succeed, thrive even, outside of my comfort zone. Prior to this internship, I had no knowledge about digital platforms, and yet I ended up leading the search for one. I had to embrace my learning role and ask questions constantly. Luckily, H-E-B is very welcoming to curiosity, and while many of my questions were simply for me to learn the ropes, some of them also ended up sparking some pretty important conversations in the department. I felt excited and encouraged by the amount of responsibility I was given.

What did you like most about the internship?

The people, hands down. H-E-B’s company culture is felt at every level and every interaction. My fellow interns were kind, enthusiastic peers and my management teams made incredible mentors. The Customer Insights Center valued me as a true member of the team, welcoming me into the heart of the business and challenging me to perform my best. The respect they gave me pushed me to pour my energy into my role and explore any question that crossed my mind. I was also able to learn a lot about how I work and about what types of teams and leaders best fit that work style.

Anything else you want to point out to other students about your internship experience?

Be open to opportunity. This summer took me from marketing and research (makes sense) into product management, data security, and law & privacy (never saw this coming). I followed this path with inquisitiveness and an open mind, and although it wasn’t what I expected to be doing, the breadth of exposure allowed me to really picture a defined career for myself for the first time.

Intern Spotlight: Avish Patel – Avia-Tek

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Intern Spotlight: Avish Patel – Avia-Tek

Avish Patel

Majors: BHP, Finance, Pre-Med

Company: Avia-Tek, Shanghai, China

Topics: Aerospace, Airlines, Finance, Emerging Markets, China

What were you doing in your role?

I got to put on a lot of different hats throughout my time at Avia-Tek. Initially, I was doing market research on the Chinese aerospace industry, and aircraft leasing and financial structures. After that I did sourcing work to find aircraft parts for trading and maintenance. Towards the middle of the internship I did finance-related work in the form of financial modeling and planning. For the last few weeks I learned how to code a bit in Python (I’m a Finance/Pre-Med major), and then wrote a program that streamlined supply chain processes within the company and for clients.

Biggest lesson you learned or ways you grew from this internship:

Becoming a quick-learner was by far the biggest lesson learned from this internship. I came in to the internship expecting to do work related only to Finance, but I was given a variety of projects that often I knew nothing about. In addition, being that I’m going into my sophomore year I haven’t had any major specific courses making the learning curve even larger. For every project I took on while at Avia-Tek I had to find time to teach myself what I didn’t know often times meaning that I was taking my work home or working later. Especially for my last project which included coding, I had no coding background whatsoever, but I had to learn quickly, and eventually came out with a successful deliverable.

What did you like most about the internship?

Although the free lunches were amazing, the best part of the internship was definitely the variety of projects I got put on. Even though I was a rising sophomore with limited experience my boss constantly tried to test me with new projects or things completely out of the scope of my major through things like coding and even working at photoshoots. This left me with a much wider scope of knowledge and experience, in addition to a great internship.

Did you get to experience living in a new city? If so, what was that like for you?

Living in Shanghai was amazing and lots of fun. Shanghai is like living in New York or LA minus all the English requiring me to learn a considerable amount of Chinese. It is very fast-paced, and always alive. Bargaining is an actual thing in China making shopping much more fun. The nightlife there is endless very diverse. The food was great! I got to try lots of foods I definitely wouldn’t have tried in America. Being that Shanghai was very central I got to travel around China to places like the Great Wall and Huangshan Mountain (the mountain that Avatar was based on). Overall, Shanghai was an amazing place to spend 3 months interning!

Anything else you want to point out to other students about your internship experience:

Although interning abroad is somewhat intimidating it is something that I feel like it is an experience more people should try. Although everything from workplace culture to language is completely different it makes every single moment a learning experience.

Alumni Spotlight: Rakesh Apte – Investment Director at the Global Innovation Fund

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Alumni Spotlight: Rakesh Apte – Investment Director at the Global Innovation Fund

Rakesh Apte

Majors: BHP, Economics

Featured: Impact Investing, Entrepreneurship, Working Abroad, Emerging Markets

Rakesh Apte, BHP 2007, is an Investment Director at the Global Innovation Fund, which invests in social innovations that aim to improve the lives and opportunities of millions of people in the developing world. Rakesh has also worked as an investment manager for Eleos, a business development manager for H2O Venture Partners and a strategy manager for Microsoft.

Take me through your career so far.

While finishing up college, I thought I wanted to work in quantitative finance. I went to work for D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund in New York doing quantitative finance, but found that I was more interested in the fundamentals of business and technology. I made a shift and joined Microsoft. I worked there for several years in corporate strategy, finance, and M&A across various product groups including the cloud computing group and the Windows group. Our team was tasked with analyzing trends in the industry, identifying disruptive technologies, and evaluating Microsoft’s ability to compete with new technologies.

During my time at Microsoft, I took a post in Turkey, Microsoft’s Middle East & Africa headquarters. That was my introduction to technology and business in emerging markets.  After 4.5 years at Microsoft, I decided to transition my career to technology startups and venture capital investing. I decided to do a MBA at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business to learn how to integrate the core business skills I developed at Microsoft into the progressive work of impact investing. During my time at Haas, I worked at a venture fund focused on commercializing technologies and supporting new startups in emerging markets. After that experience, I worked for a few years with another fund – Eleos – based in California. Eleos is a pioneering for-profit social venture fund that invested in several companies in India, Africa and Latin America. When I moved to Washington D.C. to support my wife’s career, I joined the Global Innovation Fund where I have spent the last few years investing up to $15 million per investment in Seed to Series C stage companies.

What are the challenges of investing in startups in emerging markets?

The venture capital industry is about successful exits. As an industry, we have yet to see whether investing in impactful startups in emerging markets will lead to successful exits. These are tough business environments which make it challenging to apply the same venture capital template we have in Silicon Valley to impact investing. We are starting to see success through interest from first-world commercial entities. They see the opportunity to make money while contributing to the social good. The amount of interest and money that has been invested in these startups is a positive indication, but we are waiting for these companies to mature and become successful acquisition opportunities or even publicly traded companies.  We have seen a few successful exits from double-bottom line companies here in the US such as Coca-Cola’s acquisition of Odwalla, Unilever’s acquisition of Ben & Jerry’s, or Clorox’s acquisition of Burt’s Bees   However, one of the inherent differences between startups in emerging markets and those in the United States is that companies may achieve high volume but not the profit margins that are expected from traditional institutions.  This is exactly the setback that one of Eleos’ earlier portfolio companies in India faced when it started to scale.  They were providing services to over 500k customers a day and were profitable, but private equity players were not excited about the economic upside of the business given its lower profit margins.  Overall, the industry’s long-term goals are to achieve large-scale impact while delivering risk-adjusted financial returns for investors. Success for the Global Innovation Fund would be a portfolio of companies which have scaled to millions, provided liquidity to investors, and continue to deliver impact that is inextricably linked to the core business.

What is an example of positive change you have seen from investments your funds have made?

Two examples come to mind.  One example we invested in while I was at Eleos is a company in the edtech sector called Eneza Education that is making affordable education available to those who have limited access to it.  They have an innovative digital platform that is providing interactive study content to millions of customers across Africa.  Their mobile phone based solution is particularly powerful for students outside of major cities who attend significantly under-resourced schools and have low national exam passage rates.

Another example is a company called SafeBoda based in Kampala, Uganda.  This is one of the investments I am most proud of because the company is solving an important safety problem, one that directly affected my close childhood friend.  Back in 2010, my friend was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident in Kampala.  In Kampala, and in some other major cities in emerging markets, it is common to take motorcycles as taxis.  SafeBoda is disrupting the status quo of unsafe, helmetless driving by allowing people to use an uber-like app to call a safe motorcycle taxi driver – one that has received special training and is required to provide helmets for riders.  Now riders in Kampala are taking thousands of safe rides per day while setting a new standard for drivers in Kampala with the hope that this model can scale up quickly to other cities with similar road traffic issues.

What are you responsible for in your role as Investment Director at the Global Innovation Fund?

We are a geography agnostic investment fund that has invested in startups working across sectors including in clean energy, fintech, agriculture, and smart cities.  In my role, I seek out cutting-edge private sector startups that have a clear plan for delivering financial and impact returns and have a strong team to get to scale.  I assess the market opportunity and risk through rigorous due-diligence which includes an onsite visit to the company’s headquarters.  Most recently, I was in Nigeria evaluating a later-stage fintech company that is looking to help Nigeria evolve from a fully cash-dominated society to one that uses digital payments and digital financial services.  I am also responsible for structing investments and adding value after the investment is made.  This includes sitting on Boards, providing advice on growth planning, and mentorship.  As an early employee of the Global Innovation Fund, I contributed to setting up the investment process and thesis development.

You have travelled extensively throughout your career. What have you enjoyed most about that and how do you think seeing the world and other cultures has affected your work and you personally?

Traveling around the world and experiencing various cultures first-hand is life-changing.  There are a number of differences across countries in what the general population has access to in terms of resources and opportunities. Professionally, this has made me a smarter investor, as I am better able to understand what the real needs and challenges are in these countries. Personally, I have enjoyed meeting people from various backgrounds and forming life-long friendships.

For students interested in impact investing, what advice would you give them and what would you tell them about where you think the industry is headed in the future?

Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t able to immediately get into the industry full-time. There is value in cutting your teeth in more traditional business roles such as in finance or management consulting. You need to spend time developing core skills, which will allow you to provide value to the industry. Impact investing is still evolving and is competitive to break in to full-time. However, if you have a diversity of experiences in areas such as investing, working with startups, and travel, you can leverage these skills to join an impact investing fund.  Showing genuine interest in the sector through pro-bono projects can also help.  It is important to remember that impact investing is not just international facing.  There are domestic funds investing in local startups solving issues such as in healthcare or education. Finally, keep in mind that there isn’t one specific set of experiences you need to get into impact investing.  The opportunities in the sector are growing quickly so keep learning about the various types of funds and startups.

Intern Spotlight: Swetha Davuluru – Deloitte

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Intern Spotlight: Swetha Davuluru – Deloitte

Swetha Davuluru – Deloitte, Houston

What were you doing in your role?

I was a Pioneer Intern at Deloitte. I rotated between what’s called an enabling area (the IT department) for one week and a client-service line (Audit) for two weeks. I also worked on a final project with the other two Pioneer interns in the Houston office. During the internship, I was able to travel to Dallas and Atlanta for training where I met the other 70 interns from around the country. While working in IT, I deployed pre-images on Deloitte laptops and assisted at the walk-up. While I was in Audit, I worked on the Enterprise Products team assisting in updating workpapers, rolling-forward memos and balance sheets, and shadowing members of the team to see the various aspects of an audit.

Biggest lesson you learned or ways you grew in this internship:

I realized how important fit is with a company. The Audit team I worked with was in a very dreary office space, but they were able to make it lively with their team dynamic and relationships with one another. I was able to see firsthand how important it is to have a positive relationship with the people you work with. I also feel this showed me how diverse people can come together in the workplace. Deloitte is a huge proponent of diversity initiatives (our final project was centered around it), and I was able to learn a lot about how diversity contributes to success. I personally was intrigued by how diverse people can make an unexpected good fit.

What did you like most about this internship?

I appreciated that I saw so much within the company. Because I worked in two different areas and was able to freely contact other professionals, I feel that I was exposed to a lot of what Deloitte does. This was very helpful to me, as an incoming sophomore, to figure out what path I want to take in my career. Everyone around me was very honest about what they do which allowed me to form an accurate opinion.

Did you get to experience living in a new city? If so, what was that like for you?

I did not live in a new city during this internship, but I was able to travel to Atlanta and Dallas through the program which was a great experience. Aside from training in Atlanta, I was able to see various attractions around the city like the Centennial Park and the CNN center with other interns. In Dallas, all the interns came together at Deloitte University. It was a great way to supplement the relationships we had built in Atlanta.

Anything else you want to point out to other students about your internship experience?

I would say to take the opportunity to reach out and ask for what you want in any situation. At Deloitte, this was clearly told to us. Once I followed this advice, I saw the positive impact it had on my career path and even my personal thoughts. I clearly communicated to my team what work I was interested in, and they did their best to give that to me. This made my internship experience so much more enjoyable and engaging. I think the ability to speak to people who have been in your shoes, whether it’s about classes or your career, and their insight is extremely helpful.

Alumni Spotlight: Krystel Baeza, Class of 2007 – Strategy Director for Wunderman

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Alumni Spotlight: Krystel Baeza, Class of 2007 – Strategy Director for Wunderman

Krystel Baeza, BHP 2007, is a Strategy Director for Wunderman based in London. Wunderman is a leading digital agency with 175 offices in 60 countries. Prior to her time at Wunderman, she completed a three-year rotational fellowship with WPP, the world’s largest marketing services company, where she worked with numerous brands including Volkswagen, Hasbro, Nestle, Cannon and Heineken. Krystel is also involved in the Texas Exes UK Chapter, helping to bring Longhorns living in London together.

The WPP MBA Fellowship allowed you to explore various roles and work with different clients. Tell me about that program and about what you learned from it.

There are two WPP programs, the MBA Fellowship and the Graduate Fellowship, which is for people who are fresh out of college or have other master’s degrees, but not an MBA like mine. I went to Carnegie Mellon to get an MBA to help me transition from agency-side to client-side, but I ended up realizing I still preferred agency work. When I returned to school after an internship, I talked to my advisor about my career options, and she told me about the WPP MBA Fellowship.

The MBA fellowship is very competitive. Hundreds apply each year, but only 5 people from all over the world are selected. The program is three years long with three one-year rotations within the different companies WPP owns worldwide. It is a very large company, so I had the opportunity to find the path that was right for me. I found that the consumer was my passion, so I felt a career in strategy was the best fit. The first year, you get a spreadsheet with all the roles they have worldwide. You are able to pick the roles which interest you, and interview directly with the CEOs, or other leaders of those companies.

The first year, I chose a year at Grey New York, working in strategy for the Hasbro account. I then moved to London to do a media and consumer insights rotation at Mediacom with the Volkswagen account. The last year I did digital strategy at POSSIBLE London for a luxury chocolate company owned by Nestle, called Cailler. At the end of the program, I knew I wanted to stay in London and work in digital strategy so I ended up working at Wunderman UK for a software client, Dassault Systemes.

The years I spent in the fellowship helped me figure out my true passion, which was consumer insights. The program also helped me learn to adapt to different cultures. You go in at a pretty senior level for each rotation, so you learn very quickly because you have a whole team relying on you. As soon as you learn to do one role, it is time to interview again and switch gears. It makes you realize that you can do anything, you just have to have a team willing to let you learn, try and fail.

What made you stand out among all the hundreds of applicants vying for a spot in the fellowship?

I had to write seven to eight essays for the application, some of which were personal, so I was able to tell my story. I made it to the interview round, where you interview with multiple CEOs. One CEO focused entirely on one of my essays about an obstacle I had faced.  In that essay, I had written about how I came to the U.S. from Venezuela at 13, not knowing any English. As an immigrant family trying to build a new life in America, we didn’t have the money for me to go to college, but my mom made it clear that I needed to go, so I had to figure out a way to pay for it on my own. I worked hard to become the valedictorian of my high school so I could get a full scholarship for school. I ended up getting a full scholarship to UT. It was a huge accomplishment for me, and the CEO recognized that I had been able to achieve that, and was very impressed by it.

You have worked with numerous brands in different capacities throughout your career, but the common theme seems to be brand strategy and customer insight. How do you successfully use customer insight to drive brand strategy?

For me, the key thing about being a strategist is that in a room filled with creatives, project managers, producers and account services, you are the true voice of the consumer. Everything I do is rooted in the consumer insights. You have to be able to discover the undeniable human truth and lead with that. I ask questions like, how are they consuming content, what are they reading, how can I convert someone past just awareness. I have to make sure that every meeting I go to, despite all other objectives, if my feedback isn’t rooted in consumer insights and my gut feel, we can’t move forward. For Wunderman, it begins with strategy and ends with strategy. Consumer insights isn’t an afterthought, which I appreciate. Our motto after all is “creatively driven, data inspired”.

Was there a campaign you worked on which you think did this really well?

Last year I worked on Cailler, which is a mainstream brand in Switzerland similar to Hershey’s in America. The company wanted to turn it into a luxury brand, like Godiva outside of the U.S. They decided to change the packaging and launch it on Amazon, which is pretty much the worst place to launch a chocolate. Chocolate is very tactile, and when you’re charging $35 per box, it is difficult to sell online. Cailler was pretty successful in Switzerland, but no one had heard of it in the U.S. They had issues with delivery not going well, including the chocolate melting during the shipping. We knew they needed a do-over. I used secondary research to determine who was their target audience, then asked if we could do a primary research study to validate the audience and get further insights. I partnered with a research agency, and did focus groups in Austin, New York and the West Coast. I validated insights and found new ones which drove the strategy and were the base of all of our creative work.

What do you think has changed in brand strategy since you started and where do you see this work headed with the proliferation of platforms competing for attention in the digital age?

There are a lot of new formats. In one day you might be competing in one format and the next, that format is obsolete. The rise of Snapchat is an example of that. Tons of brand jumped at the opportunity of using Snapchat as part of their marketing mix and quickly realized that it didn’t fit in with their consumer strategy. Marketers have to learn all these different platforms very quickly. You’re always finding yourself reading tech trends to see what the new social app of the moment is. It’s no secret that digital is going to pave the road for the future. There is a move towards content. Brands are starting to behave more and more like a publisher, and moving from doing ads to doing more thought leadership pieces which are more valuable for consumers, especially in the B2B market. That is where I see it moving. Being a thought leader really increases brand image. Think EY – it’s no longer a financial services company, it’s a financial thought leader helping people ask better questions for a better working world. I am seeing a trend of ad agencies looking more like consulting companies, offering digital transformation consulting services, and hiring management consultants to lead such projects. This means that as we move forward, we not only have to worry about other ad agencies taking our clients but we also have to worry about companies like PWC and Deloitte wanting a piece of the pie.

You have been working in London for three years now. What do you enjoy most about working abroad?

I love that I am able to leave work at 5:30. When I worked in New York, I was working until 10 pm most days and 2 am some days. I couldn’t make plans with friends or family. In London the mentality is different. If I wanted to take a vacation when I was in the U.S., I had to ask permission from at least five people for it to be approved. In London, when I want to take vacation, I don’t need to ask for permission, I just inform my team I’ll be out and they’ll figure it out. People respect your family time there much more than here. There isn’t a feeling like you can’t leave work whenever you want. As long as you get your work done, you can leave. We also get a lot more vacation days there – 27! You can have a much better work/life balance. I see my family more now living abroad than I did when I was living in New York!

For students studying abroad or hoping to work abroad after graduation, what would you tell them?

In general, be resilient. It is possible to have an internship abroad and work abroad. People love Americans, and love the education system here. Coming from BHP, you will have opportunities. Also, things change. You might have a plan, but life hits you. It is okay to do something different than your peers. I was the only one in my class to pursue advertising and I always felt different, like the odd sheep, but it’s super important to not compare yourself to your peers. You are your own person, you’re following different dreams. It is okay to be the odd person out and follow what you really want. Just keep at it and you will get there.