I can’t believe the last couple of months have gone by so fast!  Of all the summer internship offers that I was extended, I ultimately decided to come to Dallas, TX and work for Celanese Corporation—a Fortune 500 multinational chemical company—as a part of the Celanese Leadership Program.  The internship is meant to give us an inside look into the full-time rotational program which consists of three year-long rotations within finance and commercial functions of the company.

So far I have very much enjoyed my time with the company.  For the last month I have been working in Investor Relations.  It has been a great opportunity to learn a lot about the company from an enterprise perspective and to see how each of our portfolio business fits together into the overall strategy of the company.  I have been privileged to get involved with projects that run the gamut of experiences, from analyzing our place in the minds of investors compared to our competitors (and the overall market), to the formulation of a communications strategy as the enterprise shifts to a more differentiated position in the market, to the preparation of presentation materials outlining our plans for continued growth in China (where Celanese has a large presence) and the rest of Asia. 

For me these projects have been exciting because I’ve been able to creatively apply the tools I developed during the first year of business school to real issues within the company.  I have meta lot of great people in different functions across the company.  One of my favorite things about the internship is our “passport” program where we are given the opportunity to sit down with many of the company’s top executives and spend time learning from their experience inside and outside the company as they reflect on their careers.  So far I have found this to be a great opportunity to learn about the company from different angles, and the executives have been very candid about what they feel are strengths and challenges for the company moving forward.  At the end of the day, my purpose is to gather as much information about the company as I can in order to make an educated decision about whether I want to come back full-time after I graduate from Darden.  So far, so good!