Going back to school with an offer

10 weeks of internship passed by really fast! There's no better way to end this summer than having a return offer in my pocket :) even thought it would be great if I haven't dropped and broke my laptop in the last week.

I have certainly learned a lot through my internship at Citi. Just 10 weeks ago, I was completely new to financial service industry, new to the company structure, and had no idea how corporate tax works. I picked up everything from scratch, made significant progress on my project, and was able to deliver my finds during the final presentation to Citi finance controller and other finance executives.

 Corporate tax is definitely not one of my expertise or the area that I would grow into, but this summer experience taught me how to adjust to new environment, absorb new information quickly, and effectively communicate with my peers and managers. No one would be able to accomplish anything in a big corporation by himself/herself. Knowing when and who to ask for help/information is essential.

The best thing about this summer is that my coworkers and I become very good friends. We established strong connections not just at work, but also on a personal level. I was recommending dress brands and shops to my manager, and exploring NYC restaurants and food trucks with coworkers.

Now is almost time to go back to school. I'm very excited to see everyone and find out how their summer went.

Powerpointing away..

Hey folks!

Time has just flown by- I'm already in week 10 of my internship- 2 more to go..

While the excitement of going back to Ann Arbor and seeing my friends is immense, I am also very sad- since I had such a great time here in Seattle, with the MBA interns from the other B-schools and at Microsoft. I am in the process of developing my final presentation(s) and writing out a white paper documenting all my work.

I will be presenting to three types of audiences:
1) Exec: CFO, GM and Directors
2) Revenue Finance Group consisting of analysts, managers and senior managers
3) Directors from other departments who are interested in the topic of my project

As I refine the individual slide decks for each of these presentations, I am extremely cautious about my audience, the key messages I want to leave with each group and the level of depth/ complexity I want to go into. My mentor has been extremely supportive in providing me feedback on my slides do far. One thing that has really helped me is that from the beginning of my internship, I used Powerpoint slides as a tool to run meetings and gather information. While it consumed a lot of time, it also helped me develop a story as my project progressed and now I am completely comfortable with the story-line for my final presentation.

Creation of the slide deck early helped me in another way as well- as I met with business partners and other team mates for their inputs on my project, I also got their views on the way I visualized the slides. Believe me, I have changed every slide in my deck atleast 7-8 times now. This makes me extremely comfortable now that any audience, no matter how different, will be able to understand the slides as they incorporate the feedback of so many people.

As you can tell, I am dreaming powerpoint right now...and am proud to be working for the company that developed this great tool- Powerpoint! I am also super excited about the new Office 2013- I have had a chance to test it (or dogfood it in Microsoft terms) and it was far beyond my expectations! So watch out for this great product! You can see the customer preview on the site:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en

Now back to slide number......:)

7 weeks into internship

At the beginning of this summer, financial service industry was a completely new area for me. In the past 7 weeks, through working and attending summer speaker series, I have learned so much about the industry. Digitization and urbanization are two of the biggest trends impacting people’s life. Financial service industry has certainly evolved around these topics as well. The whole industry has invested billions of dollars to develop technologies that provide better, faster and cheaper financial services. Financial institutions will continue making investments in technology in the future, and technology will continue shaping the industry.

Few years ago, Citi redirect its strategy to promote responsible finance and to focus on its core business. Through my work at Citi tax, I can certainly feel these changes going through the whole organization. There were many successful spin-off transactions during the last 2 years. They are part of the execution of Citi’s strategy to get out of the areas that are not in line with the company's strategy so that we can focus on customer and services related business. These spin-off transactions are also a result of higher liquidation and capital requirement in financial service industry after the 2007 financial crisis. Banks started to act more conservatively, and authorities are trying to figure out better ways to guide the industry.

In terms of company culture, Citi promotes diversity and encourage employees to gain exposures by taking positions in different functions, products and regions. I was amazed by the level of mobility and the amount of transitions people could make within Citi. Lots of people that I have talked to have taken advantage of Citi’s global representation by taking international rotations. Their exposure to different circumstances and challenges not only provide them the full-picture view of the organization, but also enable them to bring the best practice together, and come up with innovative ideas.

The finale

12 weeks….it is indeed amazing how time flies.  In 12 weeks the sun has risen and set 84 times, new friends have been made and colleagues have left the company.

My final presentation  to the team is on Tuesday. Here I will brief my team on the three projects I completed, giving a synopsis and producing a transition document.  My presentation will also include a list of thank yous to various individuals without whom  I would not have  been able to get up to speed.

As I reflect on my internship, I feel this has been a very eventful journey – working in the tech industry has made me appreciate the culture, the work –life balance and also the kinds of work available if you are not a hardware/software engineer.  Exposure to the job fluidity within the industry is also a nice experience……a lot of Creative Destruction taking place in the valley – exit opportunities and entry opportunities are many. I have improved several skillsets – presentation and analytical among them.

Having more fun while it lasts….is what I would encourage everyone to do so.  You will not realize how time flies. I started attending the bay area Ross Intern meet ups held every weekend and it was fabulous.  We all had similar experiences across firms/companies.  We are all also hoping that we get offers for full time positions but getting full time offers depends on several things at once – head count projections, internship performance, reviews etc.  I also recommend building your network within the company and with fellow interns in other companies as it will help improve your general knowledge about the tech industry.    Also it is important to participate in intra company events, so that you are able to greater appreciate the culture of the company.

My final notes: Work diligently, Network Broadly and Appreciate fully!

It's only words and words are all I have to take your heart away....

Hi there folks!

You must be wondering why the title of my post is from a Boyzone song from decades ago. The rason is because no matter what context the boyzone used these lyrics in, it applies to every situation I can think of. Do you remember when your mum warned you that words are like arrows- they can never be taken back ? (well except ofcourse in sci-fi movies they can..but lets pretend not to be superheroes here :)

Why I'm dwelling so much on this message of words is because the last two weeks, I have been trying to socialise with and influence several business partners about a framework that I have developed, and my best friends are impactful words, thoughtful messaging and attention to my audience.

Thanks to my manager at Microsoft, I am paying a lot more attention to the way I relay my messages to business partners and it has been a great learning experience so far. It is not sufficient to have a great model/ framework/ findings if they are not messaged carefully and with impact. This is a skill that comes with awareness, practise and experience (in the words of my mentor). So I'm practising...:)
So for all the finance guys out there- remember, your numbers are only as good as the "words" accompanying them. And the right words take some preparation..

And btw, tomorrow the MBA interns at Microsoft (just the 60 of us) are having lunch with Steve Balmer- I'm super excited!!!!!

You have to love New York

Time flies! I’m already half way through my internship! On Wednesday, I had my mid-summer review with my manager and HR. My project is right on truck; and ready to move to the next phase on Monday. I’m so grateful that my manager has been very supportive during the past 5 weeks. Despite her extremely busy schedule, she made sure that I can attend all summer speaker series and training sessions, and worked out my project schedule round it. One thing that I feel is very important to be successful during the internship is being independent and self-efficient. Since my internship is based on one big project, there is not a typical day of work. I manage my own work pace and keep my manager informed of the project progress.

Besides working on my project, I have also been learning about other areas of Citigroup through net working with other interns, and my junior and senior mentors. However, because the first phase of my project was mainly done silo, I feel I haven’t put enough effort into networking and getting to know other FMAs. That is one of the things I intend to work on during the next five weeks.

Life in New York City has been amazing! There is always so much to do. Lots of my friends in NYC are investment bankers and consultants. Because of their irregular working hours, it has been hard for us to make get together plans ahead of time. However, this doesn’t stop us from enjoying the city at all. No matter how late it is at night, we can always find great places to go. From rooftop lounges to beer bars, from museums to riverside parks, the city offers everything to its residents. Outside Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn also offer great additions to the city life. This past Sunday, I went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for NYC Food Truck Rally. Spend a few dollars, you can get amazing kimchi tacos, exotic ice-cream or delicious grilled cheese : )

Shhhh....I'm listening....

Hey there,

I cannot believe that 5 weeks of my internship are already over and next week I hit the mid-point. The last few weeks have been phenomenal in every sense of the word. I have met the most interesting people, learned so much about technology, received some of the best advice on career advancement and had so much fun!

My project is shaping up very well and there are so many dimensions that have been added to it, that every morning, I cannot wait to get to work and get started. I joined the Corporate finance world, expecting lots of spreadsheet modeling, financial valuation and analytics. Yes, I am getting to do all of that, but only 50% of the time. The other 50% of my project is purely qualitative- understanding the products (software!!), studying customer behavior and projecting that behavior for future development and socializing different ways of thinking about processes across different groups within the company ( marketing, product management, business managers, sales, strategy and operations).

With so much time spent on meeting people from so many different departments and functions, I am learning to further hone my communication and relationship management skills. At Microsoft, like any other big corporation, people and relationships are the real key to success; and this has been reiterated by all the C-level executives that we have met so far. They have all attributed their success to their relationships with the right people and influencing skills.

Another skill that I feel I use everyday is that of mindful listening; which can be argued is a part of communication skills, but I like to separate it out because what we mostly learn about communication is how we express ourselves, in written, verbally or through body language. We are not taught or trained to "listen". There have been several times during my conversations with business partners when I have been best served by just listening, and not rushing to share my own opinion of the matter to impress my counterpart.

So what I've learned to do is : don't just communicate, LISTEN. And when you speak AFTER carefully listening to the other person, your words will INFLUENCE and IMPRESS them.

Hopefully I continue to develop this skill as I continue in my career.....

So now Shhhh...I'm listening....:)

Half way through the summer

It is half way through the summer and this is my last post, but it is not the end of my internship. I will stay in Lear until the end of July. Through the past two months, I have learned a lot. The internship has not only offered me an opportunity to apply what I learned in class, but also introduced me to the working environment in an American firm. 

What I have learned first is that big companies have their own database systems. Lear has several systems that are responsible for different activities. What we have learned in Business Information Technology class can help us a lot in real work. I am glad that I took the BIT 311 Excel class. A lot of daily jobs are conducted in Excel.

Also the experience has confirmed that the best way to learn is to ask a lot of questions. When I first started the project of account reconciliations, I had a lot of questions at first. However, I hesitated to keep asking the assistant controller, because I was afraid that I would interrupt her normal work. Later she clearly told me that she understood that I had just started and was more than welcome to help me with my questions. To work more efficiently, I usually went through the work first and made sure that I myself could not solve the problems.

Meanwhile there are some improvements I can do. I am still working on the fixed asset project, which is the biggest project assigned to me from day one. To finish this, I need to cooperate with the maintenance manager to tag the untagged items and modify the entries in the Fixed Asset System. However, he is always very busy and we have not finished tagging the assets yet. There is not much time left, so I definitely need to find a better way to cooperate with him. Or I should try to reach out to other people and see whether they can help.

In all, this internship has benefited me a lot. I got to know many great friends and learned from them. No matter in which company I will be working, the experience I gained today can definitely help my future adjustments to the new working environment.

Taste of Taxation

Till two weeks ago, I could never image myself working on a taxation project. I thought taxation was a necessary evil, something corporations cannot avoid; there was no creativity involved in the work. However, meeting my manager completely changed my view on taxation.

My manager has spent her last 20 years working in taxation field (both public and private sectors), and has great passion for her work. She sees taxation as a constantly changing field. Thus, finding the best practice in taxation never ends. Given the Financial Management Associate program goal is to provide us an overall understanding of all 6 Citi corporate finance functions, my manger started our conversation with stories of tax involvement in corporate entity spin off process and M&A project.

My project specifically involves the 52 billion dollars Deferred Tax Assets that Citi has on its balance sheet. Recent financial service industry regulation changes require banks to have more capital on its balance sheet. Traditionally deferred tax assets were treated as part of bank’s capital. However, under Basel rules, only 14 billion out of the 52 billion DTA that Citi has can be classified as its capital in Basel calculation because of the contingency nature of tax assets. This makes trueing up tax balance from legal entities to business units an urgent task.

Besides working on my taxation project, I also gain insides of Citi’s business operation as the summer speaker series and leadership training continues through the summer. Earlier this week, Prof Scott Snook from Harvard Business School came to Citi talking about finding a sweet spot (amount what a person’s good at, other’s appreciation and personal passion) as an import factor of becoming an effective leader. To ensure I can learn as much as possible from the internship experience, my manager also includes me to other business meeting outside of my project.

Surprise Surprise.......whooom! and here's the Surface!

Hi all,


Nothing much has happened since my last post- only Microsoft has created a HUGE stir in the tablet market by introducing its own new tablet- the Surface, AND they introduced the Windows Phone 8 AND they acquired the work-place friendly social networking business Yammer for $1.2B- all in 2 weeks! Yes- that is the kind of market-swinging movement at Microsoft right now, which makes it an extremely exciting place to spend the summer. 

USA Today's article comparing Surface to the Ipad


As an intern in such a dynamic company, there are so many new things to learn- from enjoying  and adding to the wide-spread speculation before the Surface was launched (yes- no one outside of the immediate Surface team even had a whiff of what was being launched that day) to considering what effect this and other launches (and acquisitions) will have on the company's products, business model, branding and future strategy. 


A midst all this excitement in the Redmond campus, there are moments when Microsoftees come up with more brilliant and innovative ideas and new products are incubated after these key moments. Which then explains the environment that has been created in the Redmond campus- casual, lots of nature and free of many of the redundant corporate fads- an environment that is conducive to creativity and open to radical ideas (about tech obviously).

That also explains why Microsoft gives its MBA interns such great opportunities to meet with the highest level executives. We have an Executive Lunch series where the 60 of us are put in a room with C-level people, so far we have met with the Chief operating officer, Kevin Turner (60K poeple around the world report to him- just a fun fact) and Lisa Brummel ( the Chief People Officer, who has had the most unconventional career- going from an MBA to leading the marketing for some of Microsoft's best products to being on the team that incubated the Surface several years ago!). During these lunches, we eat great food and get this exec's full attention to ask any question that we have for around 1.5 hours. The full time employees here say that this opportunity is not even afforded to those who have been at the company for 6-7 years- That is the kind of learning we as MBA interns have at Microsoft.

Now when I am not talking to C-level execs at Microsoft :), I work on my project with an absolutely great team, meet with people from several different departments and enjoy more events. Last week, the Microsoft Business Division had our summer party- we went golfing at this amazing golf course called New Castle. See the picture of the view of Seattle from this Golf course=> it was breathtaking!  And the weather was on our side that day, lots of sunshine.


Last week we also had a happy hour for the interns at this (again) amazing place called Ray's boathouse in Ballard (added to my "must go list" in Seattle!) All these events are accompanied by open bars and buffet lunches/dinners.

In between all this fun, my project is gaining momentum and I am getting into the swing of things. Last week I had a chance to present to my Director my progress and findings so far and realized that I was making a presentation after a very long time. That made me think- we do not make enough presentations during our MBA really, we should do more of those. Microsoft is very a Power point heavy company- everything is done in Power point and excels and presentation skills therefore play an extremely important role in the communications to higher management levels. Another important skills that I feel I am developing at Microsoft is that of balancing detailed analytical thinking with high-level strategic thinking. Every discussion moves back and forth between these two views and its important to think about the nitty-gritties as well as from the 30,000 feet level at the same time. 


So guys- that's been my last two weeks of a lot of fun and excitement- and its only been 3 weeks since I started...I could get used to this fun....:)


Chao! Till we meet again....

Driving ahead

Lear corporation is one of the leading companies in the automotive industry. Its business is mainly focused on the seating and the electrical power management system (EPMS). The Taylor division I intern in is an EPMS division.

As a finance intern, part of my job is to make journal entries and also deal with some other financial related work. As I work, I have heard a lot of familiar famous car companies that cooperate with Lear, including General Motors, Volkswagen, Delphi, etc. Last month a German engineer from Volkswagen visited our plant, because VW is considering to further cooperate with us. I had an opportunity to spend a few minutes speaking with him in German. He seemed to be very happy about what he saw. I am sure that we can cooperate with VW more and receive more orders from them.

Michigan is the center for automotive industry. When I work in the company and attend the events, I feel that the companies in the industry are tightly connected. Last week I attended an event held by CoNext, Inforum. The organization evolved from the Women Economic Club and focuses a lot on building professional women's network. The event aims at offering an opportunity for the interns working in the automotive industry to get to know each other and start building our network within the industry early. I met some students from U of M who I did not realize are interning in the same industry as me. After mingling in the event, we felt more connected. Additionally, I met a lot of interns coming from other schools. It was very exciting to meet different people and learn what they are doing in their internships. Also, I got to know the industry better after the event.

The automotive industry is the main leading industry and  there are a lot of great companies in here. I am proud to be interning in one of these companies and gain the essential knowledge and skills for my future.

First week at Citi

Citigroup’s SFMA is a well-organized program. I received the summer position placement document from Citi in mid-May. It includes 8 positions within the global finance area. Each position came with description of its department, tasks, requirement and perspective. Later on, I found out that there were only 8 of us in the SFMA program, and each of us got placed in a different team. It is a bit sad that we will not see each other much after the training week, but this structure provides us a way to broaden our network within the company, and learn as much as we want about other teams.

The first week started with presentations given by CFOs of the Institutional Clients Group (ICG) and Global Consumer Banking (GBC). It was as much a presentation as a conversation. We all had plenty of time to ask CFOs questions. During the week, directors and controllers of Treasury, Financial Planning & Analysis, Corporate Accounting policy and Tax gave us a brief introduction to their team. The managing director of Treasury reminded us that the Key to financial management is not getting into details of rules and regulation reform, but to think logically and act ethically. We also had breakfast chats with our junior and senior mentors. Everyone I have met so far at Citi is extremely knowledgeable and supportive. Through out the summer, we will participate in speaker series from top executives of Citi.

In addition, this year is the 200-year anniversary of Citigroup. As members of Citigroup, my colleagues and I went out on Thursday to paint a local community park. It was a great time to meet people from consumer banking group, and give something back to the community.

Hello Seattle!

Hey there!

Its good to be back here on the blog. The last two weeks have just flown by. I got to Seattle on the 1st

(remember I told you in my first post that I will be interning at Microsoft this summer), so yeah, got here, and drove directly to the apartments that Microsoft ("MS") arranged for us. And lo and behold!- these apartments are bang in the middle of downtown Seattle, just minutes away from the famous Pike Place Market and the beautiful harbor!!!

The weekend was inconsequential as I bought the basics to settle into my fully furnished service apartment. and then the week began....
Monday was orientation day (called NEO- New Employee Orientation) at MS where about a 100-200 full time employees, about 500-600 undergrad interns and 20 MBA interns started their journey at MS. Yes, we later found out that MS received 3000 MBA applications for internships, they interviewed 892 applicants and finally 60 of us made it through- I feel honored to be part of this extremely smart group of individuals. So the class of interns at MS was a good mix from the top 10 schools- but one thing was common among all of us- I found every one of my peers extremely down-to-earth and amicable. And that made so much sense when I met the MS team that I will be working with during the summer.

People at MS are like that- brilliant and modest. They like to have fun even as they work really hard and every five minutes I hear people cracking up into laughter in the corridor outside my office. So on Tuesday, I was introduced to my team in the Microsoft Office Division and I felt very much a part of this team very quickly. My mentor introduced me to all the members of the 8-member team and briefed me on the details of the project. My summer project is about the transition of MS's customers in the business productivity space to cloud computing- yes- its looking at the existing and future strategy for the  exciting new Office 365!!!! This is an exciting time in Redmond, as Microsoft prepares to compete with Google in the area of cloud computing.

As I began working on my project, I realized two very important things that I learned at Ross, which I am applying directly to my project-
1) The way I look at problems has become so much more structured
2) Complexity and overload of information doesn't seem to bother me anymore (especially after those strategy cases which every Rosser will agree were info overloads!), enabling me to filter the more important pieces of information and focusing on those.

Outside of the project work, my team members (both senior and junior) had taken me out to lunch and on tours of the Microsoft Commons (they have awesome food and shops- even a massage parlor and salon!) on three out of the four working days I have been here. So far, I'm loving this casual environment- yes! I'm wearing jeans and t-shirts to work everyday!!!!!!!!!!!!!...some more !!!!! It's a big change from NYC and I'm loving it! Now off to tour the Pike place market and enjoy the Seattle downtown! Will be back with some more news next time..Chao!

More than just work

It has been more than a month since I started my internship in Lear Corporation. I have learned a lot during work and enjoyed working with my coworkers. They are all quite humorous. The social life here is quite enjoyable. 

Every week we try to schedule a lunch to gather all the employees in the office together. Although probably not everyone attends the lunch, we can still have about ten people every time. The lunch gives us a chance to communicate with each other and learn about what is going on in the other departments. 

Cute cat from the animal shelter

What I like most here is that we have a “Casual Friday” rule. Every Friday we can wear jeans and T-shirts, which requires us to donate at least one dollar every time to an organization that changes every month. Last month we donated about 200 dollars to the Animal Shelter in Taylor. Some coworkers and I visited the animal shelter when the HR person sent the money there.  The cats and dogs there were all adorable. Also they need more volunteers to be there, so we decided that we would help there sometime this month to walk the dogs. 

Besides, Kim from the HR department has worked on getting discounts for us to go to the gym nearby. She has got us a great deal. It’s only a $10 dollar sign-up fee and $5 monthly fee for us to go to the gym nearby. It is kind of hard for me to maintain going to the gym, but I am trying to go there at least once every week during lunch time with my colleagues. I definitely need more exercise.

In all, I am enjoying myself right now. The social life in Lear gives me a lot of fun and I am glad to work with my colleagues.