Italy pics

The Duomo in Milan -




Stained glass in The Duomo -




The real thing :)




Lake Como -

A sojourn in Milan

After three weeks in DC, I left for Milan. Accompanied by a couple of my new colleagues from the DC office, we set out to create an internationalization strategy for an Italian IT firm. The next few weeks were spent at the client's office - meeting, interviewing, presenting et al.
It felt good to be able to use stuff I learnt a few months back at Tippie to solve a strategic problem in the corporate world. In Italy. :)

A few weeks later, when we gave our final presentation to the client's executive team, I felt much more comfortable and relaxed than I've felt while presenting during the Marketing class at the Tippie MBA!! And my consulting gig during the spring semester definitely helped a lot.
After our final presentation (which, by the way, was very well received), I worked on my next project - an international acquistion deal.

I worked on the strategic analysis of the deal and helped in the intial business diligence. An awesome experience, especially since I got the chance to be involved at the very highest level. During this time I worked out of my company's office in downtown Milan - located at Corso Venezia, we were right at the heart of the city! A few blocks from the beautiful Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral) and the very trendy street of Via Montenapoleone, it was definitely a great place to work!

Amazing food, excellent coffee, great wine.. all in a vibrant, fashionable city - Milan just stole my heart. It was an excellent experience to be submerged in a totally different culture and I feel that this brief stint has definitely helped me grow - both as a professional and as a person.

An awe inspiring monument

The Lincoln Memorial

Standing at this vantage point, it is difficult not to feel overawed. And dwarfed.

Summer chronicles... contd.

I spent the first three weeks of my summer internship in Washington, DC. During this period, most of my time on the job was spent in getting to know the firm, the people and the clients I would be working with during the summer.

Over the last few years I have come to realise that work-culture, and the people you work with, are as important (if not more important) than the actual job itself. And my summer experience was made even more memorable by the fact that I worked with an absolutely fabulous bunch of people. Not only did I get to do some really good work, I had a blast doing it!

And DC is an awesome city! Of course, it was great to see the monuments and galleries, but DC in summer seems to have a unique charm of its own. Lounging on the lawns of the National Gallery of Art on a Friday evening, listening to jazz and enjoying your drink... aah... I can't think of a better way to spend a summer evening. :)

Another discovery that pleasantly surprised me... tucked away on Massachusetts Ave, opposite the British Embassy, is a memorial park dedicated to Khalil Gibran. One of my favorites, Gibran is a Lebanese-American writer/poet/painter/sculptor. (His book "The Prophet" was the bestselling book of the twentieth century in the United States, second only to the Bible!!)

Some pictures... :)

Summer chronicles

Hi folks.. I'm back!

Apologies for my prolonged period of absence from the blogosphere. For the record - it was indeed my intention to have at least a couple of posts on my summer experience before now. :)

But here we are, and to pick up from my last post - I decided to take the internship in Washington DC, implying that I would start working 3 days after finals week.

After 2 days of farewell parties for the graduating MBA Class of '08, I landed in DC on a Sunday afternoon in what we shall charitably call "an exhausted state". And so began what has been, in hindsight, a fabulous summer.

As I'd mentioned earlier, I'm interning at a consulting firm that specializes in international business. Two swaying factors in my decision to take this internship - first, the work I would be doing seemed really great.

One project involved creating an internationalization strategy for an Italian IT firm; and the second involved working with a European Clinical Engineering firm that is trying to enter the Indian market through an acquisition.

The second factor was that I would be located in Milan, Italy for half the internship. Now, in addition to the fact that I'd never been to Milan before, this was enticing for better (?!) reasons too - I would working from the client location for a while and this meant more exposure and responsibilities and by implication, more challenges.

I would be getting excellent exposure to strategy consulting and would be able to work at a much higher level than regular summer internship jobs. And I would be in DC/Milan.
In the end, it was not too difficult a decision to make.
:)

Summer in DC !

I've (finally) decided on what I'll be doing in summer. And guess what? I took neither of the jobs I talked about in my previous post. I will be working with an international business consulting firm in Washington, DC.

They are quite a niche firm doing great work. Their main focus is on helping firms expand to emerging markets - Latin America, India, China, Africa etc. I will be working on two projects during the summer - both with clients based out of Europe. I have a good feel for the kind of work I will be doing and am I excited! :)

The flip side - I will need to start as soon as finals week is done (Thats two weeks from now). Which means no real break after the semester. I could have used a week off, but I guess I'll have to wait till summer's over. And then there is all the logistics associated with moving to DC for the summer. But I'm not complaining!

I've got a pretty packed schedule for the next couple of weeks.. the final presentation for our consulting class is due this Friday (we'll be presenting at the Zurich office in Chicago) .. got a couple of cases due this week.. next week is finals.. then I start my internship the Monday after that. But I guess its only a fitting end to what has been a hectic semester!

Decision time...

Not all decisions can be postponed indefinitely...
I now have two internship offers and both are great opportunities. One is with a strategy group of a multi-national media company - they have just acquired a competitor and if I were to join them I would work on the strategic integration of the two firms. Pretty cool stuff. And it is located in Iowa City. Considering that I have a lot of travel lined up in fall, I wouldn't mind spending the summer here.

The other offer is equally interesting - it is with a UK based engineering firm that has operations across the globe and the internship serves as a feeder to their full-time rotational program. The interesting part of this job is that the rotational program will have me working in different roles in least three different countries in two years. In summer I will probably be located out of Chicago, but that is still open.

And now comes the dilemma.. I will have to choose one fast! I need to reply to the folks in Iowa City by tomorrow and I think I know what my decision is. But I'll hold out till the last minute! And I'm also waiting on a consulting gig I interviewed for. This one's on the East Coast and I should hear from them soon.