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Internship Spotlight: Jay Shah – McKinsey & Company

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Internship Spotlight: Jay Shah – McKinsey & Company

jay_profileCompany:  McKinsey & Company

Position: Summer Business Analyst

What steps did you take to secure your internship?

I think to really maximize your chances at getting an internship; it’s very good to be proactive. Most students begin to think about recruiting over the summer and tend to focus on case prep and networking. I actually think the best thing to do before hand is to evaluate your current commitments/involvements and look for ways to really excel and make an impact. Behavioral and case prep can be mastered in a set amount of time, but you can’t go back and change the results of your previous internship/experience. When the interview comes around, what will you have to say about your last job? Make it a good story and don’t worry about the interviews. That will come later.

 

What were the responsibilities for this role?

The role focused heavily on analysis. Each day, the team would have a discussion on small problems to solve. For example, if our overall goal was to improve our client’s marketing efforts, one week we may focus on the sales funnel (generating leads all the way to closing sales). As a summer business analyst, my responsibilities were two-fold:

1) Contribute to the overall discussion and direction of the project

2) Find data, perform analysis and extract insights based on #1. For example, I would look at what data do we have regarding the sales funnel? How many leads do we generate? What percentage of them do we close? Where are we losing the most people in the process? What does that say about our client’s problem? Most of this involved Excel, industry research and interviews to extract tangible insights regarding the problem.

 

Describe the culture within the organization.

McKinsey’s culture was extremely tangible and was a guiding tool for all members at the firm. McKinsey really focuses on creating exceptional value for clients and attracting/developing exceptional people. Even as an intern, I attended two conferences in Atlanta and Miami which offered not only great team bonding experiences, but the opportunity to learn from people much more senior than me at the firm. McKinsey is constantly investing in people development and I was amazed at how much my own mentor invested in me.

 

What was most surprising or unexpected during your experience?

Building off of my last answer, I was surprised by how much my own mentor cared about my development. In most jobs, feedback happens every 2-6 months. At McKinsey, I sat down with my manager every 2 weeks so he could gauge how I was feeling about the overall project and help provide guidance. Furthermore, feedback always went both ways, and most senior people at the firm were open to feedback. This feedback happened in various channels from anonymous bi-monthly surveys to casual team dinners.

 

What advice would you offer your peers in the Honors Program about getting the most out of an internship?

The tendency in an internship is to be on cruise control – let the work come your way and be more reactive than proactive. In my first internship, I didn’t set any goals for myself because I assumed that a competitive internship would naturally teach me a lot. If I could go back in time, I would set hard goals for myself because the reality is that everyone is busy (especially in a corporate environment). No one is more responsible for your development than you. Set some tangible goals – it could be excel skills or getting guidance from senior people. What ever it may be, be able to define what a successful summer for you is before school even ends.

 

What was your favorite part about this internship?

Definitely the people. This is very cliché, but the diversity and intellectual horsepower was very refreshing for me. I worked with three PhDs, former entrepreneurs, lawyers, and many more interesting backgrounds. I’ve never had that kind of exposure before and everyone had a good story to tell.

 

How did you find your classes in the Business Honors Program at the university to be applicable during your internship?

I think the case study approach is really valuable in consulting. So much of the value we (consultants) bring is just industry knowledge and best practices. When I think back to the cases in management, it was very cool to compare and contrast concepts such as org design between my client and the companies we studied in class. The process of learning industry practices was very similar to analyzing cases in class.

 

How did this organization ensure you got the most out of your internship experience?

Constant feedback, frequent conversations about how I was doing, and lots of time outside the office.

 

What are the most valuable lessons you gained from this internship?

There is always someone smarter than you and someone who worked harder than you to get here.

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Most recently, Jay has accepted a full-time offer with McKinsey as a Business Analyst. Congratulations, Jay!

BHP Students Spend Summer Abroad in Argentina

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BHP Students Spend Summer Abroad in Argentina

Argentina Group Photo

This year was the second year BHP offered the short-term study abroad program in Buenos Aires. This five-week summer program allows BHP students take two management courses while studying at one of the top business schools in Argentina, the Universidad de San Andres. The program is so popular, it took less than a week to fill all of the spots this year.

Once again, the group stayed in the beautiful neighborhood of Recoleta in central Buenos Aires. Students were able to experience class both at the downtown campus as well as the main campus of Universidad de San Andres. They earned six hours of credit towards their degree, taking Organizational Behavior (MAN336H) taught by McCombs professors Ethan Burris and Doug Dierking and Non-Market Strategies in Emerging Markets, taught by an English-speaking professor at the host university. “The two classes were definitely manageable for the five week program,” said BHP junior Zach Weissgarber. “Each night we would have some reading to prepare for the next class discussion, and we occasionally had write-ups and essays due for each course along with exams.  It’s remarkable that we were able to accomplish so much coursework in such a short period of time.”

The program wasn’t all work and no play though. Students participated in planned cultural activities such as a visit to an Argentinean Estancia (a ranch), where they tasted typical Argentinean food and learned about the Gaucho culture. They also attended a Tango show, followed by private Tango lessons where they got to try it out themselves. They also organized their own trips to Igazú Falls, Mendoza, Uruguay and even Brazil. Weissgarber said the visit to the falls was his favorite part of the trip. “The last weekend in Argentina we visited Igazú Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  We spent an entire day hiking the park trails to different viewpoints and overlooks to see all of the waterfalls, and we also had the chance to take a boat ride to the base of the waterfalls.”

Sophomore Bryson Hearne captured the trip to the Falls and the entire five weeks in a series of videos. “For the past few years, my older brother used a Go Pro to video our family vacations. I loved being able to actually look back on the places we visited. I did not want my experiences in Argentina to fade with time. The videos have also helped me share what happened in Argentina with friends and family back home. Rather than trying to explain what all had happened, I can point people to my videos,” he said.

This year was special with the FIFA World Cup going on next door in Brazil.  Argentina being one of the best soccer teams in the world was in full “soccer fever” mode, so watching the games with the locals and supporting both the USA and Argentina teams became a big part of this year’s experience. In fact, the group even organized their own inter-program soccer matches where BHP played against the BHP/MPA group.

2014 Buenos Aires Group“I would definitely recommend the trip and the course to other students.  My five weeks in Argentina were unmatched by any other trip I’ve taken before,” said Weissgarber. “If I had the opportunity to go back, you can bet that I would be on the next 11 hour plane ride to Buenos Aires to do it all over again.” Hearne agrees, “My trip to Argentina was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I wish every BHP student has the opportunity to do something similar.”

BHP students interested in the 2015 Buenos Aires program, should check with the BBA International Programs office for registration dates and procedures. Registration for the program will occur in the fall.

Check out these videos from the trip done by Bryson Hearne.

Argentina Part 1

Argentina Part 2

Argentina Part 3

Alumni Spotlight: Daniel Payne, Class of 2002

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Alumni Spotlight: Daniel Payne, Class of 2002

Daniel Payne HeadshotDaniel Payne graduated from BHP in 2002. After working in investment banking and financial services, he decided to change paths and pursue a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University. He is now a consultant for AEA Consulting, one of the world’s leading arts, culture and entertainment consulting firms based in New York. Prior to joining AEA, he worked on exhibitions and installations that appeared in the New Museum, Center for Architecture, New York Fashion Week, PS1, Storm King Art Center and the galleries at Columbia University.

 

Tell me more about what AEA does and your role as a consultant with them?

AEA is an arts and cultural consulting firm. We have two main services. We serve as consultants for anyone involved in the arts and cultural world planning a capital project, helping them determine what spaces their buildings will need to fulfill the organization’s mission and also figure out what they’ll need to do from an operational and organizational side to use the space to the best of their abilities. The other thing we do is help with strategic planning and program assessments for these same sorts of arts organizations, as well as foundations and governmental bodies who have an impact in the world of arts and culture. I am often called in on the capital project side where I can merge the business and architecture sides of my background, but I work on the strategic planning side as well.

 

You started in investment banking working for Citigroup then moved into design. How did that shift come about? Was design an area you were always interest in pursuing?

I was always interested in design. I took a few classes in the architecture school at UT. I also did a lot of home projects and woodworking growing up with my dad. I had come to a point working on Wall Street where I was ready to expand my horizons and work in a more multidisciplinary way than I could in banking. I started thinking about the options and talking to people, and I decided that if architecture was something I wanted to do, it was the right time to make the shift. I took a year off to complete some prerequisites I needed in order to apply to architecture school, then got into Columbia for their three-year Master of Architecture program.

Architecture provides me the opportunity to have my hands in lots of things. I am not doing pure architecture per se right now – we don’t draw the building’s plans or manage the construction –but I am working with architects, fundraisers, artistic folks and a wide range of people who have an impact on culture.

 

You are consulting on projects all over the world from China to Afghanistan. What are the most challenging aspects of this?

The most challenging part is getting to know the local environment in each place and understanding how art has a role in that society. We are working on a project in Malaysia right now and there is a long tradition of art there, but not a long tradition of supporting art philanthropically like we have in the West. Developing people’s mindsets for what these institutions can do for them in preserving their history and how that can impact their lives today through museums, opera houses, theaters, is a challenge. We are finding ways to get people to understand that dual role and teaching the organizations how to maximize their resources – financially, organizationally and creatively. We are also working on a project in Athens [the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center] and they have completely different challenges. They are dealing with many economic challenges in Greece, and we are helping them put together a strategy that will allow them to maximize their huge financial commitment for the benefit of both the nation’s culture and the economy as a whole.

 

What aspect of your job do you enjoy the most?

The sheer variety of things we are involved in and the way our work has an impact on the lives of the people in the cities where these projects are housed. Art and culture can play a big role in promoting creativity. To be able to see that happen in so many places and so many ways is great. Knowing that what I am doing has a lasting impact on a city and its people is really exciting and gratifying.

 

Daniel Payne Reader PhotoYou did independent design and installation work in New York. What were some of your favorite projects?
I was a part of an exhibition at the New Museum called “The Last Newspaper” exploring how things were changing in news and media. This was in 2010, so there were many changes happening, especially following the financial crisis, that had still not been explored at much depth. During the exhibition, I was on the staff of a short-run newspaper called the New City Reader, which aimed to explore these issues further and examine the impact of these changes on cities and citizenship.   The project was particularly interesting because we worked out of the galleries in the museum, so I got to interact with people coming in and out of the museum on a daily basis – they didn’t know there was a newspaper being produced inside, so their reactions in watching us work were fascinating. We would translate conversations we were having with people into stories for the paper, and then we would paste the papers weekly all around New York City. It was really interesting to take what was happening in this one place, the museum, and take it into the city to see how people react to it. It was a great social concept.

I also worked on the design and implementation of a project called “Low Rise High Density” which was an exhibition on history of the housing type at the Center for Architecture. I was involved at an early stage and helped develop it with my friend who was curating. It was an interesting lesson in how to make research tangible and understandable in a gallery.

 

Daniel Payne constructionHow do you think your degree in Architecture has complimented your degree in business and how have you seen the two disciplines intersect in your work?

They complement each other incredibly well. There is a myth that some architects would like to perpetuate that there is a grand singular genius behind designs, but in reality, it is very collaborative. Business, and in particular the way BHP teaches business, with its team-building focus and how to connect people to one another, are so important. Ultimately that is how architecture happens. It is about how to make the vision a reality and all of the planning and steps that go into that. You have to create the organizational structures needed to make the project successful.

I was able to leverage my business background when I was in architecture school to add a unique voice to the conversation, because most people had a liberal arts or architecture background. The business side drives so much of the project in the “real world”, so there is a lot of that which needs to be thought about even at the conceptual level during school. At Columbia, they are doing a great job of thinking of all the ways architects can be involved, not just through purely design. In business, you are thinking of all the aspects involved in decisions and that is the same in architecture.

 

What advice do you have for current BHP students?

Spend time building your network of people you know inside and outside of the program. That will lead to a lot of opportunities later. When you are in school, you are thinking about that first job, but there is 50 years of work life after that, and you are going to be looking for interesting opportunities down the line, which may come from people you know. Don’t limit yourself by what you think the options are when you come out of the program. There are so many options out there and there is probably a position that fits exactly what you want to do.

 

What was the best piece of advice you received while in college?

Early in the program, someone said half of what you will get from college will come from outside of the classroom. I did lots of things on and off campus and the city of Austin is an incredible resource. Don’t be afraid to get experience in an area that you love, even if you don’t know how it might apply to your eventual career. There are so many amazing opportunities in Austin, even if it is through volunteer work with an organization you find interesting.

Alumni Spotlight: Paul Myhill, Class of 1989

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Alumni Spotlight: Paul Myhill, Class of 1989

Paul Myhill3 Paul Myhill is an entrepreneur and consultant for social ventures and non-profits. He graduated from BHP in 1989 and earned an MBA from UT in 1991. While at UT he took to heart the motto, “What starts here changes the world,” and he has spent his entire career working to make a significant contribution to the world by creating and collaborating with companies to fund charitable causes that are close to his heart. He is the founder of the Traffic Jam Campaign that rescues children from trafficking and slavery and, most recently, he founded One Percent for Children which enlists companies – primarily start-ups and early-stage ventures – to give one percent of their equity and/or one percent of their annual gross revenues to a variety of pre-selected global causes that impact the safety and wellbeing of children

How would you describe your unique career path?

I have always had a desire to change the world and make a difference and while I was in BHP and the MBA program, I developed a real love of entrepreneurship. To me success is not monetary, but defined by significance and how much positive change I can create. I wanted to make a significant contribution to the world while pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors. My career has been focused on creating income-producing ventures that can benefit the world through their close association with, and support of, relevant causes and charities. My passion for entrepreneurial pursuits has spanned a host of industries, products, services and business models, both public and private. In all cases, there is a common theme of using the products or services directly, or the income they produce, to help high-impact charitable endeavors. The charitable gifts can come from equity on the front end, a percentage of annual revenues or royalties, an amount based on the attainment of certain performance benchmarks, or any number of other options. As the businesses are successful, the charities they are supporting are also successful. Value is also created for the businesses involved in these programs through increased exposure and goodwill, resulting in greater revenues through better customer attainment and retention.

Tell me more about the causes you are passionate about and what you are working towards with your various involvements in these causes.

Paul Myhill1I am passionate about helping orphaned, abandoned, abused and exploited children. My primary goal is to use businesses to fund work that helps children around the world. My involvement first started with orphans in the developing world. I wanted to get them into loving homes in their communities instead of the default institutionalization model or, worse, letting them fend for themselves in slums and sewers. As I was working with these populations of orphaned and abandoned children around the globe, I started to notice them going missing, later finding out that they were being snatched up by human traffickers and sold into the child sex trade. I wanted justice for these kids and to help prevent them from being preyed upon. I realized the need for more prevention and rescue programs, safe houses, and aftercare support – rehabilitation and restoration facilities. Now my goal is to help create a movement of companies to tackle the gross injustices suffered by tens of millions of children around the world through One Percent for Children. I initially started with businesses I founded and consulted with to make an impact. Now I am scaling what I learned through my venture and philanthropic experience to expand for greater outcomes and impact.

What has been the most memorable moment of your work so far?

There are memorable moments from all aspects of my life. Getting a product [Protandim] featured on ABC Primetime Live was very memorable. That breakthrough product alone is a legacy creator and that was the proudest moment of my life from a business and product-development standpoint. Likewise, winning the MOOT CORP competition was my greatest memory and proudest achievement from an academic standpoint.

It is hard to pick one on the charitable side. I adopted my daughter from Asia and my heart leaps even more so when we see kids rescued from slavery in Asia. For example, I work with the Vietnamese community in Cambodia, a population that is at high-risk for sex trafficking. It is estimated that thirty-percent of the Vietnamese families in Cambodia have sold a child into the Cambodian sex trade just to survive and pay off debt.  On one of the many trips I have taken there, a local teacher pointed out two 12-year old girls and told me their parents were going to sell them the very next week. I was able to immediately make sure that didn’t happen by putting their girls in a skills-development program. We invested in the girls by educating them. We prepared them to be able to produce an income for the family in the future so the parents wouldn’t sell them. I have pictures of those girls on my desk from then and also from when they were 16 and 18. I know that those two girls didn’t have to endure the prostitution, rape and resulting stigma, and that they are now able to help support their families and community. Those kinds of prevention stories are the ones that impact me the most, even more so than the rescues.

You continue to use your business skills to make an impact through non-profit work. Are there any common themes you see in your work with non-profits that are barriers to their success?

One of the problems is a lot of the non-profits are well-intentioned but because they are US-based charities, they have to go through a series of partnership connections to get their money into the field because they aren’t in the field themselves. For example, you might have a non-profit that raises funds, then takes out their administrative fees before they pass the funds on to another non-profit oversees, that also takes out their own administrative fees before they pass it on and so on. By the time it gets to the front-line specialist, there could be four or five levels of administrative fees that were taken out, so only fifty-percent of the original donation is in the field.

We focus on finding the right front-line partners through extensive due diligence and high-accountability systems, to cut out this chain of diminishing applied resources. My non-profits direct 100 percent of public donations to the front-line specialists who are doing the real work. Partnerships with companies to apply equity and revenues to administrative costs enables general public contributions to go straight into the field. One Percent for Children, for example, is a warehouse for getting such funds from businesses, but we also have developed and apply core competencies that have been achieved through the collaboration with child-focused programs in over 75 countries. These competencies include due diligence and accountability in the field, getting funds straight into the hands of front-line practitioners without “middlemen,” and the sharing and implementation of best practices for more effective and lasting outcomes.

You won the UT MOOT CORP competition while you were in school. What was your business plan and did that lead to anything?

It was for advertising sales and placements using the boards that you now see in multiple locations like restrooms, stadiums, elevators, etc. We were one of two companies started at the same time that opened up this whole new concept in advertising. We could sell extremely targeted advertising to captive audiences that were very well defined demographically. When we won the competition with that plan a couple of the judges subsequently invested in the company. All expenses were tied to the revenue and so the costs were completely variable. It was a great business model, but the other teammates had other dreams, so we ran it for a year or so, then passed it on to another operator who now franchises it around the world.

*Note: The UT MOOT CORP competition was the predecessor to the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition.

What advice do you have for current students?

Paul Myhill2The opportunity that you have been given – being part of such a prestigious program – is not only going to embed skills that can be used to make a tremendous difference, but will open many doors to you. As they say, “with great power comes great responsibility” – you are in a program that is truly empowering. Appreciate that, but realize you have a responsibility to use that in ways that can create positive change, and not just earn you money. You will have opportunities that others can only dream of. Define success as significance and truly change the world as you strive for it. Of course, I would encourage you to give to One Percent for Children if you end up creating a new business. How beautiful it would be to see many businesses run by BHP students and alumni coming together to help impact so many children’s lives around the world.

I also want to stress to you that, for me, it has never been a case of either choosing to go into for-profit or non-profit. With the right motives and plans, there can be a great synergy between the two. You can indeed be in a for-profit making a difference. It doesn’t have to be compartmentalized; they can be tied together in a mutually-beneficial relationship, as platforms of support for each other.

Alumni Spotlight: Rod Morris – VP of Marketing and Operations for Opower, Class of 1995

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Alumni Spotlight: Rod Morris – VP of Marketing and Operations for Opower, Class of 1995

Rod MorrisRoderick Morris is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Operations for Opower, the global leader in cloud-based consumer engagement solutions for the utility industry. Rod graduated from UT Austin with degrees in Business Honors, Philosophy and MIS in 1995, then went on to earn an MBA from Stanford in 2002. Using behavioral science and big data analytics, Opower creates innovative software that motivates utility customers to save energy and better manage demand. Since 2007, Opower has become an industry trendsetter, working with 93 utilities and serving 32.1 million households worldwide. To date, the company has helped consumers save more than 4 terawatt hours of electricity – equivalent to $460 million dollars or €338 million euros.

You seem to have vast responsibility within Opower. What are the main functions of your role and what are your main goals in the position at this time?

At the highest level, I run the marketing, client services, and operations sides of the company. I am growing Opower’s top line through marketing, enhancing relationships with the client base, and delivering on an increasingly streamlined quality implementation of our products around the world. Opower’s future growth is going to come from new customer acquisition, existing customer expansion, new product introduction, and international market growth. Everything I do is in support of that: from creating awareness around our new products, to ensuring that the client base is interested in expanding relationships, and making certain our clients are satisfied with the execution of rollouts on their behalf.

What gets you excited about the work you are doing?

It’s really exciting being a part of a double bottom line business. In addition to serving our utility client’s needs, every dollar of revenue has a benefit to the planet. With our double bottom line and high growth, we have a huge opportunity to make a difference in the world while also providing great growth opportunities to our employees.

Before coming to Opower, I was working in software and doing volunteer work on the side. I never had an opportunity to do something for profit that also had a social benefit. This job gave me the opportunity to combine both of those worlds (watch a short video about this).

When I joined, we were less than 100 employees and had 23 clients. Today, we have more than 500 employees and 93 clients worldwide. We had $89 million in gap revenue in 2014 and had an initial public offering (IPO) in April.

You work with both domestic and international utility partners. What are the unique challenges of working with your partners in foreign countries and how do you determine the best messaging for the consumers in those cultures?

With our utility partners, we spend a lot of time localizing our products and innovating in those markets. The core elements of behavioral marketing are pretty consistent across all parts of the world though. What compels someone in Europe to turn off the lights is the same thing that compels them to do it in the U.S. It’s just a matter of localizing the product so we give them clear actions they can take that are relevant to their situation.

We have rapidly expanded the portion of our revenue that is international. One of the main differences in other countries is there isn’t as much regulation of the utility industry. In the U.S., there are many regions that are highly regulated. In other countries, there are more competitive markets for energy. Our U.S. utility partners use us to reach energy efficiency goals, whereas international partners are interested in the competitive advantage we bring to them.

You have degrees in business, philosophy and MIS. Your role seems to have an element of all of these areas. How did your education at UT prepare you for your career?

The thing they have in common is logical problem solving. As I have become more senior, a lot of the problems I have seen require me to go back to those problem-solving skills I learned in school.

In philosophy I learned that the best messages are the simplest ones. It is actually really difficult to come up with simple messages that resonate with people on an emotional level. The building blocks I gained in my MIS classes and as a TA for a software development class have helped me work with teams doing software implementations around the world. I use the building blocks from BHP in all aspects of my job. I would be hard-pressed to find a better business education than I received from BHP.

How did your experiences in BHP compare to going through the Stanford MBA program and did the program prepare you well?

The program prepared me very well. Stanford’s curriculum is tailored to the individual. Because of the base of knowledge I had built in BHP, I was able to focus my learning on elective projects. I wrote entrepreneurial cases, did entrepreneurial coursework and led the marketing club. Those of my classmates who had degrees in business had more freedom to pursue their own interests earlier. I think my BHP education put me in good standing within my cohort.

Your career has had many twists and turns. You had roles with the Peace Corps, Simmons & Co., Bain, LexisNexis and Vovici. Did you find that one thing led to another or were you deliberate in your transitions?

The only thing I was deliberate about was working hard and helping out whatever team I was on, as well as networking to build relationships. I didn’t plan out my career. I sought out the best opportunities and did the best I could in those positions. The variety in my career has given me valuable perspective and kept my life interesting. While recruiters were sometimes involved, pretty much every job I have had has happened because of a relationship in my network. I learned a great deal in each position, but I learned a tremendous amount as an investment banker at Simmons and a consultant at Bain. Those positions were foundational for me and really impacted how I approach my work daily.

What advice do you have for current BHP students?

I would encourage people to be more linear than I have been. It has worked out for me to bounce around to different opportunities, but there is a lot to be said for building functional expertise in one area. If you can find that area earlier on, it will be easier for you.

What is next for you?

Opower just went public and we have a huge market ahead of us. I will be working on growing the company. I had never been through an IPO and it was thrilling to be an integral part of it. I built much of the company from the early days, and had an opportunity to be deeply involved in scaling a really cool company. It was rewarding to go from that to helping in the IPO roadshow to share the company’s story and growth opportunitywith investors. It was a milestone in my professional life.

Note: To learn more about opportunities at Opower, visit the current postings page on their website.