Tag: internship



Abhinav Gabbeta, MBA ’21, writes today about his summer consulting with CognizantHe was invited to return to Cognizant full-time after graduation. His contribution is part of a series by students sharing their summer internship experiences with the Olin blog.

My summer internship was one of the most pivotal parts of my MBA education. It not only gave me the chance to apply specific skills I’d learned in the classroom, but also helped me to prepare for the next chapter in my career. After going through the nerve-wracking interview circuit, I was blessed with the great opportunity to intern with Cognizant as a senior consultant in their healthcare business unit, and have recently been granted an offer to return full-time.

As with much of our class, the sudden onslaught of COVID-19 meant that my internship experience was not business as usual. Every aspect of my internship was run virtually, including onboarding, day-to-day work, and networking. Quite frankly, I was initially nervous about this shift. However, I soon realized that in the ever-changing business world, this moment represents an important inflection point. I had a first-hand look at how leading firms address global adversity and I am now in a unique position to help create the “new normal.” I found this to be especially interesting and relevant to the field of consulting.

Consultants are known for heavy travel, immersive client interaction, and close team collaboration. The entirety of this business model was threatened by the pandemic, but fortunately, consultants are also known for solving complex problems.

During my internship, I saw how the industry adapted by embracing virtual meetings, while still maintaining close relationships with clients and delivering the same high-quality results. This new model has the potential to provide significant cost savings, wider capabilities, and a more appealing work-life balance for consultants.

However, this transition was not without its challenges; I had to manage learning curves for new technology, blurred lines between work/off-work hours, limited employee motivation, and difficulty with networking. I worked through these issues by being vocal and proactive, being intentional with my outreach, volunteering for more work, forming feedback loops with mentors, building real relationships with team members, and staying flexible in the face of unexpected change.

My Olin training prepared me to take on these challenges by giving a me a strong foundation in strategy and management, communication skills, and workplace dynamics. My internship also proved to me how important Olin’s pillars for success are (values-based and data-driven, globally oriented,   experiential, entrepreneurial).

When I worked on my main project regarding Cognizant’s 2021-2023 healthcare business unit strategy, I helped make decisions and set goals that were informed by industry data and founded on company values. I worked directly with off-shore colleagues and realized how to work effectively in teams around the globe and around the clock.

I jumped right into projects with all the responsibilities and expectations of a full-fledged senior consultant and learned through practice. Perhaps most importantly, I embraced Olin’s entrepreneurial spirit by taking ownership of my internship experience and building a well-rounded experience. I was able to create an internal strategy, solve external health payer and provider segment client engagements and develop new thought leadership.

As I go further in my consulting and healthcare career, I will take all these lessons with me and look back fondly at Olin and Cognizant for helping me to develop the skills and mindset I need to succeed.




Part of a series about summer internships from Olin MBA ’20 students. Today we hear from Destiny Davis, who worked at Inspiring Capital as a consulting and strategy intern.

Over the summer of 2019, I interned with Inspiring Capital, a New York-based strategy consulting firm that integrates profit and purpose within the social impact sector. Being in a joint degree program, I knew I wanted to infuse both of my worlds of social work and business together to have impact. Inspiring Capital gave me the perfect opportunity to do just that.

How I prepared for my interview and landed the internship?

The interview process for Inspiring Capital was a combination of three rounds. This included a virtual video interview, a strategy deliverable and a group business case. I made sure to be my genuine self throughout the entire process, and made sure to know about the firm to the best of my ability. This included knowing the history, past portfolio of clients and level of impact had the previous year. As a part of my preparation, I did case prep as well.

A day in the life?

My day-to-day activities at Inspiring Capital were two-fold. Tuesday through Friday were spent working directly from my client’s office on my project on evaluation in downtown Brooklyn. My project was to work with my client’s operations department to make a sustainable business strategy to enhance their impact value, evaluation metrics and data management processes.

In addition, every Monday was spent at a different company. From understanding the importance of the roles that both not-for-profits and for-profits play in achieving our nation’s sustainable development goals with the United Nations Global Compact, to design thinking with Salesforce, to comprehending the landscape of innovative impact investing with The Rockefeller Foundation, along with using Blockchain for Good with IBM and grasping the long-term impact of circular economy in fashion with Eileen Fisher Inc.

This summer was nothing short of impactful. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing what business for good looked like in all of these different spaces—therefore, helping me to understand what profit and purpose looked like being integrated together to change the world.

How did the internship prepare me for my final year at Olin? How is the internship shaping my long-term goals?

My summer at Inspiring Capital solidified what I truly want to do. I enjoy the idea of doing strategy for a firm that wants to maintain profitability, but still considers the social impact of their footprint on the world.

Understanding this, I am able to take classes that pertain to this area of work. For opportunities, I am willing to seek out connections that will allow me to use the mindset of profit plus purpose, and doing great business while having impact.




Part of a series about summer internships from Olin MBA ’20 students. Today we hear from Rebecca Matey who worked as a JD/MBA intern for Baker McKenzie Law Firm.

My internship was nothing short of amazing. As a JD/MBA, I was able to merge my business and legal interests working in the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie, an international law firm. I primarily worked in the banking and finance practice group on projects and deals regarding private equity fund formation, mergers and acquisitions, refinancing, private placements and much more.

This summer confirmed my passion for banking and finance, and I will continue to pursue taking such classes during my final year at Olin.

To secure the internship, I knew I had to align my interests with the firm’s. I quickly learned Baker McKenzie was primarily a transactional firm that focused on helping its clients pursue global legal and business endeavors.  I also researched my interviewers and tried to find noteworthy aspects of their lives and work that intertwined with my passion and goals.

Lastly, I made sure to introduce myself to the head of the summer program and show off my personality. Although she wasn’t an attorney, I knew interns spent the most time with her and knew she had the ear of the hiring committee.

Prepped well with Olin coursework

As a result, showcasing my global identity, interest in international transactional work, and ability to understand legal and business issues helped me secure my dream internship.

Courses such as Mergers & Acquisitions, Power & Politics, and the numerous finance classes I took positioned me to understand concepts and issues in great detail. I could ask questions about the makeup of particular private equity funds and follow the numbers our business partners drafted for acquisitions.

Also, navigating the politics of which attorney to work for or go to lunch with was equally vital in extracting the most value from my experience.

I made sure to meet attorneys and partners who worked on projects that intrigued me and expressed interest in working with them even if it meant listening in on calls. Being proactive not only introduced me to substantive legal work, but also enabled me to get to know partners on a personal level.

Working at Baker & McKenzie exposed me to how corporations operate in a multitude of jurisdictions such as Thailand, Nigeria, Honduras and more. I have a greater understanding of how the business and legal worlds intersect, especially from an international perspective.

Baker McKenzie is the perfect firm to pursue my global development goals because of the immense exposure to industry leaders across the world. With more experience, I hope to position myself gain the necessary expertise to pursue larger projects within Africa.

With an established African practice, Baker McKenzie is poised to support me in these endeavors. I am ecstatic that my dream internship ended with an offer to pursue my dream job.




Part of a series about summer internships from Olin MBA ’20 students. Today we hear from Nathan Boerneke, who worked as a business management intern for the National Park Service.

I had an opportunity this summer to spend my time assisting and learning within an organization I have always been passionate about: the National Park Service.

The business plan internship is a consulting internship focused on solving complex problems while navigating the nuances of a mission-driven service. I was teamed with a fellow intern to create a strategic plan for Buffalo National River in Northern Arkansas.

I prepared for the interview through case prep practice and speaking with former interns from various MBA programs. Most importantly, I clearly understood how I aligned with the mission of the park service, which allowed me to communicate my passion for the role.

Olin prepared me with the skills to provide immediate value to the park. I continually fell back on my education to address challenges in a formulaic manner. Additionally, my project with the Center for Experiential Learning was a fantastic precursor to assist in managing executive communication.

The internship was a great opportunity to apply the skills I am learning in the classroom and from my peers. It renewed my excitement to take advantage of every opportunity available at Olin as I enter my final year. 

A day in the life

I started every day by waking up in a national park. My co-consultant and I drove the 5 miles of dirt road out of the park and commuted to headquarters located in the big city of Harrison (population 13,000). The morning typically consisted of data analysis regarding visitor information, financials, and various other park specific data pools.

The afternoon entailed driving around the park to interview staff and see how areas of the 135-mile-long river way are utilized. After leaving the office, I typically spent my time further appreciating the Buffalo River by either canoeing, fishing or hiking around the park into the late evening.

The National Park Service internship left me with two primary takeaways.

First, understanding the mission of an organization is critical to provide value and ensure professional growth.

Second, the knowledge and skills taught at Olin are translatable to nearly any opportunity.




Part of a series about summer internships from Olin MBA ’20 students. Today we hear from Tim Segrist who worked at Spire Energy as a corporate development intern.

I spent the summer as a corporate development intern at Spire Inc.—a natural gas distribution company serving cities throughout the Midwest and Southeast. Entering my MBA at Olin I knew I wanted to get involved in mergers and acquisitions and being able to do that from my hometown in St. Louis was a great opportunity.

Throughout the summer, I was able get involved in many of the different steps in the deal process (sourcing, modeling, due diligence, etc.). Ultimately, I was fascinated at how many inputs go into the buying decision as a strategic buyer and how different it is than a strictly financial process.

Day-to-day, my tasks were never the same (no two deals are truly alike, after all). I spent the first few weeks doing a deep-dive into the natural gas industry. It is difficult to be impactful in corporate development without fully understanding what the drivers of the business are.

I enjoyed this process as I was able to connect with different leaders throughout the company and hear about their experiences. My first real project involved doing analysis around the weighted average cost of capital we use for our models and helping build a precedent transactions model for buying local distribution companies (utilities). After that, I did work sourcing potential deals by researching financials, operations, and strategic fit.

Finally, I led the modeling on a deal which gave me practical experience on how to build a model that is scalable, flexible, and accurate. I really appreciated the variety of the role, as it gave me significant opportunity to learn as much as possible.

The internship was valuable for a plethora of reasons—notably, being able to apply classroom learning and work closely with impressive people (the corporate development team consistently presents to the C-suite). If I were to pass along any advice to others looking for/starting an internship:

1. Find a role where you can constantly learn. This summer has given me a lot of clarity on the type of industry, role, and career path I am going to pursue going forward.

2. Talk to as many people as you can throughout the internship—it has given me a great network of people I can keep up with going forward and allowed my projects to be more impactful.