(MBA, Jiangtao) Finally, after weeks of work, my final presentation day comes!
At the very beginning of the project, I talked with my supervisor to nail down the audience name list and then sent out the invitations to relevant department heads from Global Treasury and Business teams. During my projects, it was very important to schedule one on one meeting with these people to let them understand my background and the projects. Often, the more you involved them in the process, the more they were willing to provide their insight and advice which I found very useful to refine my project and final presentation. In addition, the networking enables me to understand their daily jobs and them to know about my background and projects. In Lilly, one of the most valued elements is the relation you build with different people. Lilly people often agree that it deepens the mutual understanding and enhances work efficiency.
My final presentation starts at 8:30am. So, I came to the office at 7:30am and spent 30 minutes checking the projector and setting up logistics. The first to come in is Assistant Treasurer. We greeted and had a small talk on the baseball game last night. He is a very nice and smart boss. Very soon, all other audience came in one by one. In total, I have 10 people in the room. My supervisor kicked off the presentation and introduced me to the audience. After that, I started to present my projects to the audience, showing slides and talking about the details. During the presentation, my audience threw me lots of questions and I managed to answer all of them. We had a good discussion on lots of alternative solutions and possible barricades as my project touches a brand-new territory with global implication.
The final presentation itself lasts for around one hour and we had 15 minutes Q&A. At the very end, HR Director also invited me to share my impression on Lilly and the overall culture. The whole presentation was very good.
The biggest takeaway for me over the summer is to find ways to quickly know your team’s working style and achieve alignment with them. It enables you to understand the team’s priority and concerns as well as personalities. Meanwhile, your team can appreciate your role and contribution. Once both parties achieve the good alignment and mutual understanding, the efficiency will naturally ensue.
All in all, the summer internship at Lilly allows me to understand better the pharmaceutical industry, treasury jobs at corporate, and the fit to Lilly. It is a really memorable experience!
Showing posts with label Eli Lilly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eli Lilly. Show all posts
Monday, July 19, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Season 4: About Pharmaceutical Industry and Eli Lilly
(MBA, Eli Lilly) First of all, pharmaceutical industry is important to us because it creates new drugs to cure many kinds of diseases that damages people’s life quality. It is a great industry to work with if you are passionate on improving people’s life quality and prolong lives. Nowadays, this industry, especially for leading patent pharmaceutical companies are facing increasing competition from generic companies like Teva in Israel. In 2011, many blockbusters will go off patents and thus these big companies will face huge losses in their ever cash cows. This trend puts lots of pressures and urgency on patent pharmaceutical companies. Most of these companies’ response will be to emphases innovation and accelerate the pipeline to overcome the gap. Also you may read news on pharmaceutical companies’ restructuring to cope with this strategic move. Last, another thing you may be interested in is that pharmaceutical industry has very long cycle. From a molecule to a fully approved drug on the market, it normally takes around 12 years. If you really care about the fast outcome and fast innovation, pharmaceutical industry may be not the right one for you.
With respect to Lilly, it is a good company. People in the company are generally nice and willing to share their experiences and offer advice. The overall culture is all about excellence, respect for people and integrity. Today, Lilly is still in the progress of global restructuring and you may clearly feel how fast they want to develop new drugs to replace those old blockbusters that are going off patent in the next few years. Lilly, like many other big pharmaceutical companies, has two key focuses in the corporate, one is R&D, over $3 billion investment every year, and the other is sales and marketing. Other functions and administrations are revolving around these two centers. In addition, Lilly, like many other pharmaceutical companies, is starting to expand business in emerging markets such as China, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and etc. because of the fast increasing need on effective drugs.
All in all, pharmaceutical industry will be a good fit if you feel yourself are fascinated with healthcare. Lilly will be a good fit if you are in the spirit of teamwork and humbleness as well as agility of learning.
With respect to Lilly, it is a good company. People in the company are generally nice and willing to share their experiences and offer advice. The overall culture is all about excellence, respect for people and integrity. Today, Lilly is still in the progress of global restructuring and you may clearly feel how fast they want to develop new drugs to replace those old blockbusters that are going off patent in the next few years. Lilly, like many other big pharmaceutical companies, has two key focuses in the corporate, one is R&D, over $3 billion investment every year, and the other is sales and marketing. Other functions and administrations are revolving around these two centers. In addition, Lilly, like many other pharmaceutical companies, is starting to expand business in emerging markets such as China, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and etc. because of the fast increasing need on effective drugs.
All in all, pharmaceutical industry will be a good fit if you feel yourself are fascinated with healthcare. Lilly will be a good fit if you are in the spirit of teamwork and humbleness as well as agility of learning.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Season 3: Beyond work
(MBA, Eli Lilly) Beyond daily work, we have world cup. :D
The world cup is definitely a popular topic in Lilly. When you have a talk with Lilly employees, it is easy to open the conversation by starting to discuss on how USA team can beat the rivalry teams.
Besides daily work, Lilly HR encourages us to reach out people from different departments. I usually schedule two meetings with different people in the same day and learn their daily job and department. I think it is a great opportunity for me to go outside my silo and understand what is going on in every corner of the corporate. Talking to 30 people during the internship is my goal. During these meetings, I find most people from Lilly are easy to approach and willing to share their experiences and offer advice. The most benefit from networking with them is to open your eyes to their worlds, for example, you can appreciate what is their urgency now, what is the challenge they are facing, what keeps them staying with Lilly for over 30 years, so on and so on.
I often invite people to go lunch together or grab a coffee in the afternoon. Especially, on Friday, that tactics works much better. People are more than happy to meet you and talk more on Friday. In addition, Lilly also organizes many intern events to broaden our networking with senior leaders. During these events, you will have opportunity to talk to the executive vice presents and listen to their unique experiences with Lilly. This gives us more flavors about the life in Lilly.
The daily workload is a bit heavy for my project because this project is tied to a bigger urgent project conducting by the team. The typical day is like this: 6:30am get up. 6:40am breakfast and read WSJ news on iphone. 7:30am drive to Lilly Corporate Center. 8am check and answer yesterday’s emails and set up today’s to do list. 9am-12am focus on project taks. 12am-1pm, go lunch with some interns or with Lilly colleages. Stir fried pasta and Taco salad are my favorite. 1-2pm back to back meet and talk with people from different departments. 3-6pm continue to work on the projects and attend related business meetings.
The project is close to the end, and hopefully I can add some value to the team by coming up with new solutions to their current issues.
The world cup is definitely a popular topic in Lilly. When you have a talk with Lilly employees, it is easy to open the conversation by starting to discuss on how USA team can beat the rivalry teams.
Besides daily work, Lilly HR encourages us to reach out people from different departments. I usually schedule two meetings with different people in the same day and learn their daily job and department. I think it is a great opportunity for me to go outside my silo and understand what is going on in every corner of the corporate. Talking to 30 people during the internship is my goal. During these meetings, I find most people from Lilly are easy to approach and willing to share their experiences and offer advice. The most benefit from networking with them is to open your eyes to their worlds, for example, you can appreciate what is their urgency now, what is the challenge they are facing, what keeps them staying with Lilly for over 30 years, so on and so on.
I often invite people to go lunch together or grab a coffee in the afternoon. Especially, on Friday, that tactics works much better. People are more than happy to meet you and talk more on Friday. In addition, Lilly also organizes many intern events to broaden our networking with senior leaders. During these events, you will have opportunity to talk to the executive vice presents and listen to their unique experiences with Lilly. This gives us more flavors about the life in Lilly.
The daily workload is a bit heavy for my project because this project is tied to a bigger urgent project conducting by the team. The typical day is like this: 6:30am get up. 6:40am breakfast and read WSJ news on iphone. 7:30am drive to Lilly Corporate Center. 8am check and answer yesterday’s emails and set up today’s to do list. 9am-12am focus on project taks. 12am-1pm, go lunch with some interns or with Lilly colleages. Stir fried pasta and Taco salad are my favorite. 1-2pm back to back meet and talk with people from different departments. 3-6pm continue to work on the projects and attend related business meetings.
The project is close to the end, and hopefully I can add some value to the team by coming up with new solutions to their current issues.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Season 2: Deep diving in the work: gear up, man
(MBA, Eli Lilly) The first week was almost about learning the background information about the project, getting familiar with the team members and the facilities. Lilly has many campuses in Indianapolis and I am sitting in the most magnificent building called Lilly Corporate Center. Inside there are lots of facilities such as cafeteria, food court, lecture halls, employee clinic, gyms, laundry, and credit union (yes, they indeed have credit union…). At Each noon, I always try different cuisines and enjoy the wide range of choices from Asian food to Mexico food.
Now I have clear understanding about the project: I am going to create a model to assess the global credit risk and generate credit limit recommendation, involving enormous stats testing and data matrix calibration. It is challenging as it aims to standardize the credit risk assessment practice all over the world where there are currently over 100 different practices among countries. My supervisor apparently has set a very high expectation on my project: tight schedule, many milestones, and plenty of small projects. She is a straightforward supervisor who is aggressive and tough, quite different from my ex bosses. It actually posted a challenge to me as I have to manage well the relationship with her and make sure she will buy in my project results at the end of the day. To make the situation more complicated, she is expecting me to work closely with another analyst who has worked in credit team for around two years. And the feedback of the analyst is having a big influence on my supervisor’s comment for my final performance. Albeit these challenges, I am pursuing a strategy to align the analyst and indirectly my supervisor, i.e. keeping close communication with the analyst and working hard to win her respect and coordination. Once I get her on board, it is certain my supervisor will recognize.
As it is closer to the project deadline, my calendar is becoming more and more occupied. Usually I get up at 6:30AM and arrive in office at 7:30AM. Attend averagely three meetings and have a 30min talk with two new people respectively per day. It is quite helpful to talk with people from different departments, as they can give me introduction to the business they are doing, suggestions on my project and why they like to work in Lilly. Then I will spend the rest of time on the project… At around 6:30PM, I will leave office.
In all, the working style is a little different from what I perceived in Lilly’s on campus presentation but it is good to deeply dive into my colleagues daily work life in Lilly. Yes, it is a tough project, far more challenging than MAP. But it is also a good opportunity to test my competence out of my comfort zone. Let’s cross figures and best luck. Gear up, man!
P.S. Today I went to a “How we make the drug” lunch and learn presentation hosted by the EVP of Research in Lilly. Very interesting topic…
Now I have clear understanding about the project: I am going to create a model to assess the global credit risk and generate credit limit recommendation, involving enormous stats testing and data matrix calibration. It is challenging as it aims to standardize the credit risk assessment practice all over the world where there are currently over 100 different practices among countries. My supervisor apparently has set a very high expectation on my project: tight schedule, many milestones, and plenty of small projects. She is a straightforward supervisor who is aggressive and tough, quite different from my ex bosses. It actually posted a challenge to me as I have to manage well the relationship with her and make sure she will buy in my project results at the end of the day. To make the situation more complicated, she is expecting me to work closely with another analyst who has worked in credit team for around two years. And the feedback of the analyst is having a big influence on my supervisor’s comment for my final performance. Albeit these challenges, I am pursuing a strategy to align the analyst and indirectly my supervisor, i.e. keeping close communication with the analyst and working hard to win her respect and coordination. Once I get her on board, it is certain my supervisor will recognize.
As it is closer to the project deadline, my calendar is becoming more and more occupied. Usually I get up at 6:30AM and arrive in office at 7:30AM. Attend averagely three meetings and have a 30min talk with two new people respectively per day. It is quite helpful to talk with people from different departments, as they can give me introduction to the business they are doing, suggestions on my project and why they like to work in Lilly. Then I will spend the rest of time on the project… At around 6:30PM, I will leave office.
In all, the working style is a little different from what I perceived in Lilly’s on campus presentation but it is good to deeply dive into my colleagues daily work life in Lilly. Yes, it is a tough project, far more challenging than MAP. But it is also a good opportunity to test my competence out of my comfort zone. Let’s cross figures and best luck. Gear up, man!
P.S. Today I went to a “How we make the drug” lunch and learn presentation hosted by the EVP of Research in Lilly. Very interesting topic…
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
1.2 Week at Eli Lilly
(MBA, Eli Lilly) Time flies so fast before I realized it. After helping the nice sponsor identify and validate the most reasonable acquisition strategy in MAP, I flew to Yellowstone National Park with friends and drove over 6 hours in the park every day for a week. The scenic view is really amazing and phenomenal. Bisons, Elks, Bears, and the geysers...
It seems like a nonstop journey for me after that. I flew back to Ann Arbor in the afternoon on May 16 and drove another 5 hours down to Indianapolis on May 17. The next day, I got up at 6 am and it took me a while to find the right way to the building where we were going to have the orientation. The first interesting I found about Lilly is that the streets in their campus cannot be located by GPS.
But the decoration in the building is pretty impressive. And, the orientation took half of the day, going through company culture, code of conduct, logistics and etc. During the orientation, the interns had chance to chat with each other. I came to know some interns with very interesting background. In the afternoon, my internship supervisor came into the lecture hall and picked up me.
At first glance, she had no smile on her face. A little bit seriousness to me though. But I tried to crack the iceberg and found some topics to schmooze with her. It did not work well but at least made me less embarrassed. So the US office culture is going to be the first lesson to learn here!
My supervisor walked me around the office and introduced me to Treasury team. People are nice to me. Then we set down to discuss my internship project. The project is to help Lilly Treasury build a new tool which is used to assess the trade credit risk of its customers and calculate the credit limit accordingly. This is related to all affiliates in the world. Obviously, she has set a pretty high expectation on me.
So far, I am clear about what I am going to deliver at the end of the day and leveraging sources, i.e. talk to process owners to understand current situation and seek their advice on the project. Meanwhile, I have to read through many documents to understand the credit policy and the change the team would like to vision in the near future. It is a bit challenging for me because it is my first time to work in a US office environment – the etiquette, the small talks, unwritten rules and jargons and so on are pretty new to me. Thus, I have to deepen my learning curve quickly to catch up with the fast-passing timeline. Lots of things to do, lots of fun to have but definitely hard work is the pre-requisite.
Indianapolis is a nice city, bigger than Ann Arbor. I had no time to wander around in downtown but plan to explore the area later. Also, Indy 500 is coming at the corner. There are going to be a lot of roaring at this weekend. I would be very excited to see the match then!
It seems like a nonstop journey for me after that. I flew back to Ann Arbor in the afternoon on May 16 and drove another 5 hours down to Indianapolis on May 17. The next day, I got up at 6 am and it took me a while to find the right way to the building where we were going to have the orientation. The first interesting I found about Lilly is that the streets in their campus cannot be located by GPS.
But the decoration in the building is pretty impressive. And, the orientation took half of the day, going through company culture, code of conduct, logistics and etc. During the orientation, the interns had chance to chat with each other. I came to know some interns with very interesting background. In the afternoon, my internship supervisor came into the lecture hall and picked up me.
At first glance, she had no smile on her face. A little bit seriousness to me though. But I tried to crack the iceberg and found some topics to schmooze with her. It did not work well but at least made me less embarrassed. So the US office culture is going to be the first lesson to learn here!
My supervisor walked me around the office and introduced me to Treasury team. People are nice to me. Then we set down to discuss my internship project. The project is to help Lilly Treasury build a new tool which is used to assess the trade credit risk of its customers and calculate the credit limit accordingly. This is related to all affiliates in the world. Obviously, she has set a pretty high expectation on me.
So far, I am clear about what I am going to deliver at the end of the day and leveraging sources, i.e. talk to process owners to understand current situation and seek their advice on the project. Meanwhile, I have to read through many documents to understand the credit policy and the change the team would like to vision in the near future. It is a bit challenging for me because it is my first time to work in a US office environment – the etiquette, the small talks, unwritten rules and jargons and so on are pretty new to me. Thus, I have to deepen my learning curve quickly to catch up with the fast-passing timeline. Lots of things to do, lots of fun to have but definitely hard work is the pre-requisite.
Indianapolis is a nice city, bigger than Ann Arbor. I had no time to wander around in downtown but plan to explore the area later. Also, Indy 500 is coming at the corner. There are going to be a lot of roaring at this weekend. I would be very excited to see the match then!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Life is an incredible journey, and now it's another start at Ross.
(MBA, Eli Lilly) I am a rising MBA 2 student. Yes, a rising MBA 2 student now. Time really flies before we realize it. My wonderful journey starts at Ross School of Business.
After the hectic recruiting season from Dec 2009 to Jan 2010, I got the offer from Eli Lilly Corporate Finance and will start my summer in Indianapolis! This summer internship is definitely giving me brand new experience in a dynamic industry – pharmaceuticals. I worked in an energy company before coming to Ross and this internship will provide a valuable opportunity to me to work in another important sector related to people’s life and happiness. I am very glad that I grasped this opportunity and look forward to tasting the real flavor there.
At Lilly, I will work in Treasury, leading the credit management improvement project. It involves creating new training materials, process improvement, building up new templates and streamlining SAP relevant modules. This is somewhat linked to my past experience in corporate finance and I think I could get on hand very quickly. For this internship, my goal is to test my fit to this company and find whether I like people there and the future job I am going to undertake on full-time base. This is going to be very exciting as I can meet new and different people every day, know more in depth about the pharmaceutical industry and Lilly, and also have fun with other MBA interns who live in the same building!
As for the things I am ‘nervous’ about, it may be whether I can quickly mingle with the team I am going to work with. As an international student, there are still too many things such as culture, language, working style, unwritten rules and etc, to learn. How to make you likable in the team may be an important task for me. : ) Therefore, I decide to do homework to research the company and team before I arrive in Indianapolis as well as refer to the internship 101 slides shared by OCD.
Alright, I will keep updating my internship experience in Indy and see you in May!
After the hectic recruiting season from Dec 2009 to Jan 2010, I got the offer from Eli Lilly Corporate Finance and will start my summer in Indianapolis! This summer internship is definitely giving me brand new experience in a dynamic industry – pharmaceuticals. I worked in an energy company before coming to Ross and this internship will provide a valuable opportunity to me to work in another important sector related to people’s life and happiness. I am very glad that I grasped this opportunity and look forward to tasting the real flavor there.
At Lilly, I will work in Treasury, leading the credit management improvement project. It involves creating new training materials, process improvement, building up new templates and streamlining SAP relevant modules. This is somewhat linked to my past experience in corporate finance and I think I could get on hand very quickly. For this internship, my goal is to test my fit to this company and find whether I like people there and the future job I am going to undertake on full-time base. This is going to be very exciting as I can meet new and different people every day, know more in depth about the pharmaceutical industry and Lilly, and also have fun with other MBA interns who live in the same building!
As for the things I am ‘nervous’ about, it may be whether I can quickly mingle with the team I am going to work with. As an international student, there are still too many things such as culture, language, working style, unwritten rules and etc, to learn. How to make you likable in the team may be an important task for me. : ) Therefore, I decide to do homework to research the company and team before I arrive in Indianapolis as well as refer to the internship 101 slides shared by OCD.
Alright, I will keep updating my internship experience in Indy and see you in May!
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