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.

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.

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.

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.

Citigroup ! New York !

I am going to be in New York this summer! Joining Citigroup as a summer Financial Management Associate (SFMA). I’m very excited about this opportunity and things I can learn from it.

It was not part of my plan to join the financial service industry before coming to Ross for my MBA. However, during the recruiting process, through my interactions with Citigroup’s employees, I fell in love with the company and its culture. People who work at Citigroup are very talented and humble. The company has a true global perspective and promotes diversity. So the take away here is we should be open minded towards different opportunities. Even though most of us came to business school with a specific industry and functional area in mind, there are things that surprise us, and we should be ready to take adventures.

Given my previous retail industry background, I knew very little about financial service industry besides merchant banking system. I’m expecting a steep learning curving this summer. In fact, the learning process started months ago during my interviews - I learned about tier one common ratio from an SVP of Citigroup.

 Even though I haven’t received my project for the summer, I know my internship will start with a series of training sessions (including current topics in the banking industry, and technical finance & Accounting skills), and business overviews from senior professional within the finance faction. This process will prepare me for my summer project. Through the SFMA program, I will have the opportunity to work closely with senior-level finance managers in key functional specialties including Controllers, Treasury, Financial Planning and Analysis, Investor Relations, Strategy, and M&A.