Photo, above: Stephanie Chen and fellow interns at a baseball game!

This summer, I interned at Hill’s Pet Nutrition with the Global Marketing and Innovation team, and I had a wonderful experience! Hill’s Pet Nutrition is a global division of Colgate-Palmolive, and the mission of the company is to help enrich and strengthen the special relationships between people and their pets. As a pet-lover and a dog parent, I was extremely passionate about the business!

Stephanie and her dog, Riley.

The program was very well-organized and has extremely high visibility within the organization. The 10-week internship started with a warm welcome by the entire marketing team, including the marketing leadership team. We also got to have one-on-one sessions with the senior leaders in the organization— including the Global CEO! In addition to all the meetings, we were also exposed to cross-functional teams and visits to the factory, a visit to the creative agency, a tour in the Pet Nutrition Center, and a volunteer opportunity with the local Humane Society, where Hill’s Pet Nutrition has shelter programs. All the activities not only helped us to understand the business and the company much better, but also helped us to meet new people and bond better with the Hill’s family.

My two projects included therapeutic portfolio simplification and delivering recommendation to drive share on the non-core categories, which I truly enjoyed. In addition to market research and data analysis, I had a lot of interaction with a cross-functional team: from regional marketing teams in Canada, Europe, and the Far East, the customer development team in the U.S., and finance, supply chain, and vet affairs, I enjoyed meeting different people and learning from them! I also got to do a field visit with one of the territory managers, which helped a lot in understanding our customers and the business. By the end of the ten-week program, we all had the opportunity to deliver the final presentation to the senior management team, including the Global CEO and all the functional leaders.

Last but not least, what I enjoyed most was the culture and the friendly colleagues. We all had great managers and mentors to work with and to learn from. What’s more, you would be surprised by the number of nationalities represented in Hill’s corporate head office in Topeka (10!), especially in the global marketing team. Everyone was extremely friendly and supportive of one another!

Guest blogger: Stephanie Chen, MBA ’17