HEC Paris MBA Students Gain Valuable Experience Through Summer Internships

HEC Paris MBA students secure diverse and impactful internships worldwide for summer 2022, spanning sectors from biotech to luxury. They share insights on their career backgrounds, internship pursuits, and how these experiences align with their future aspirations, highlighting the global reach and versatility of their MBA education.

Summer internships are a great way for MBAs to gain valuable work experience and explore a new city, sector, and industry. For the summer of 2022, our HEC Paris MBA students have secured high-impact internships in everything from biotech to luxury. We caught up with a few of our students to find out more about their summer plans, and how the next few months will help them achieve their future goals.

Nathan Bailey, Strategy MBA Summer Intern, Nike, Hilversum, Netherlands

Prior to joining the MBA program at HEC Paris, I was a Manager in KPMG’s digital strategy team, named CIO Advisory, based out of San Francisco. My clients were mainly those in the tech industry and I gained experience in strategic, product management, and program management roles. I am a basketball and football/soccer enthusiast and also have been enjoying traveling more frequently since coming to Europe.

How did you learn about the internship?
I found the internship linked on our MBA Focus dashboard and applied through the Nike portal. Shortly afterward, I was invited to the first-round interview, which was a virtual interview where short video responses were recorded, and the two subsequent rounds were panel interviews.

How does it apply to your future career goals?
Since its creation, Nike has established one of the world’s strongest brands, continuously inspiring and innovating. Not many companies have existed for 50+ years and maintained market and product leadership like Nike. I hope to experience and learn the culture, standards, and strategic frameworks that have led to this. As the internship will be based at Nike’s EMEA headquarters, I’m also looking forward to learning about how they adapt their strategy to tailor to the local region.

Ava Gurekain, MBA Commercialization Intern, Corporate Strategy, Biogen, Cambridge, MA, USA

I worked for almost seven years at a growth strategy consulting firm called The Beacon Group in Portland, ME, USA. I exited as an Associate Director in The Beacon Group’s Healthcare and Life Sciences practice, where I developed lasting relationships for the firm and inked deals with new client teams. The relationships that I fostered led to collaboration on strategic commercial strategy and marketing projects. As part of these projects, I advised my client teams on how to grow organically and inorganically by assessing client needs/goals, conducting on-demand market research to gain fresh perspectives and industry insights, developing frameworks to assess the commercial viability of assets, and providing recommended strategies as an output of engagements.

How did you learn about the internship?
I applied directly online after having seen the opportunity posted on LinkedIn. The CEO of Biogen graduated from the HEC Paris MBA (Michel Vounatos, MBA ’89), as did a recent Biogen MBA rotational program hire (Krishna Mehta Shah, MBA ’21), so the recruiters were specifically looking at HEC Paris MBA profiles. I had the privilege of interviewing with Krishna as part of the process and she in turn spoke at an alumni panel for the HEC Paris MBA Healthcare Club of which I was the president last term.

How does it apply to your future career goals?
I’m currently working with the Corporate Strategy team helping them identify new opportunities and assets to pursue. This is an exciting time for a company with a specialized neuroscience and immunology portfolio, especially one as innovative as Biogen’s. Having worked in the pharmaceutical growth-strategy consulting industry, I had hands-on experience developing commercial and marketing strategies with the purpose of efficiently bringing transformative therapies to patients. Now, I am gaining the insider knowledge on how to execute these strategies.

Hugo Pontes, Summer Associate, Bain & Company; São Paulo, Brazil

Originally from Recife, Brazil, I completed my bachelor’s degree from Denison University in Ohio, USA, as a double major in Economics and Philosophy. After moving to São Paulo, I worked as a Strategic Planning Analyst for Raízen, a Brazilian energy firm. There, I developed and ensured the execution of business strategy related to the production of bioenergy and bioproducts from sugarcane residue.

How did you learn about the internship?
When I arrived on campus, I learned about Bain’s Summer Associate role from other HEC Paris MBA students who had recently finished the program. I quickly became interested in the program but was also made aware—both by more senior colleagues and the Career Center—of the long journey I had to prepare for the interviews.

With the support of others who also wanted to apply to consulting internships and the guidance of the Consulting Club, I practiced case cracking diligently and worked on telling my story in an effective manner. I also attended information sessions and scheduled a few networking calls to get acquainted with Bain’s culture, ensuring that we had the right fit before making the decision to apply for the program.

When the time for the interviews arrived, I felt simultaneously prepared, nervous, and confident. I truly enjoyed the conversations I shared during my networking sessions and interviews, and felt that I had made the right decision, accepting my offer almost as soon as I received it.

How does it apply to your future career goals?
I hope to work alongside highly competent and dedicated colleagues on projects that will help me learn and grow as a professional. Bain offers a very structured and well-thought-out 10-week program to develop new Summer Associates into accomplished Consultants. This is very much aligned with my main goal, which is to learn best practices and prepare for a full-time role at Bain in 2023.

Aminata Seck, MBA Launch Program Intern, Amazon, Paris, France

Originally from Senegal, I did my undergrad and most of my work experience based out of Washington, D.C. I’m experienced in the design, management, and implementation of large-scale international development projects, primarily in West and Central Africa and Haiti. My main interest is in private sector-led inclusive and sustainable development to better social outcomes in West Africa.

How did you learn about the internship?
Everyone knows Amazon as this logistics behemoth and, as someone with more of a business development and project-management background, I didn’t really see it as a “natural” fit for me. Oddly enough, a friend recommended that I give it another thought, which prompted me to apply to the Launch internship program. The whole process moved fairly quickly, and after getting some interview prep help from other MBA students who had gone through the process, I felt comfortable going through the first and second rounds.

How does it apply to your future career goals?
I know it will give me solid exposure to the world of tech, especially in its usage to enable other business-development services. I have several career goals, and several of them involve working with startups in developing countries. Tech is the “new frontier” for a lot of entrepreneurs so my goal is to become better versed in that sector.

Egemen Serbetci, Associate Intern, McKinsey & Company, Istanbul

I was born in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, but raised in beautiful Istanbul. For six years before starting the MBA, I worked at Solvoyo, a software company specializing in supply chain planning and optimization. Just before joining HEC Paris, I led the Export Sales and Business Development team in our family business, a medical device manufacturer.

How did you learn about the internship?
Applying for jobs and knowing how to succeed in a typical interview is public knowledge. In consulting, especially at McKinsey, the process up until the application stage requires additional effort, including thoroughly researching the company and the projects the office you are applying to is working on, networking with the consultants there, preparing for the case and fit interviews, and so on. I, of course, diligently followed these steps and enjoyed every moment.

How does it apply to your future career goals?
Start-up experience early in my career exposed me into a variety of business cases and processes in a very short time. That experience helped me gain two key skillsets: sales (I had to sell promises rather than tangible products) and adaptability.

What I hope to get from McKinsey has two parts: one is the continuous improvement of these skills through constant challenges, and the other is gaining the consultant skillset, which I hope to understand and enjoy by the end of my summer. Along with honing all these skills, including the ones already in my arsenal and what HEC Paris provided so far, I look forward to kicking off my own entrepreneurial journey.

Jacqueline Lane, Graduate Research Assistant, Chloé, Paris, France

Before starting at the HEC Paris MBA, I did market activation and experiential marketing for a real estate project in North Carolina, USA, but it’s actually my work in community development and gender-based violence prevention that are more relevant to what will be doing this summer. I’ll be helping Chloé develop its SP&L (Social Performance & Leverage) tool, the first tool in luxury sector designed to measure the social impact of a company.

How did you learn about the internship?
I reached out to the project manager and head researcher directly on LinkedIn. We connected on a very authentic level about the work she’s doing, and the role research and collaboration have right now in this fast-changing industry. I happen to have experience in an area many brands in the industry have been struggling to address, so it is very gratifying to be able to fill that piece of the puzzle in a Maison so committed to achieving sustainability targets.

How does it apply to your future career goals?
The SP&L is the first of its kind in the sector, and has been a collaboration with some very talented minds in the industry, including the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (CNAM) and Institute Français de la Mode. The tool will measure six indicators: gender equality, living wage, diversity and inclusion, training, well-being and job quality.  Through this work, I get to see how science-backed social and sustainability targets are created and integrated at every level of the value chain. It’s an honor to be able to contribute.