This #TBT post is thanks to Nicholas Cruise, a student at Providence College and a former ISA Featured Blogger. Nicholas interned abroad with ISA Internships in Shanghai, China in Summer 2013.
On my first day of work for my internship, I woke up in the morning very excited and anxious to begin this new experience. I was offered and accepted an internship for an Investment Bank in Shanghai called Viking Investments.
This firm was originated over twenty-five years ago in the Wall Street area of New York City. The Chairman, a native from Sweden, decided to bring the company to Shanghai nearly five years ago. The switch was challenging, but it enabled the firm to open into a market that they were unable to reach before. Viking Investments works with both U.S. and Chinese companies through financial consulting, and the underwriting of various financial securities. The main objective of this firm is to reach out to a client and fulfill their financial needs, whether it is through raising capital in an IPO process, or issuing debt in the bond market.
As an intern with this firm, I have many responsibilities and job duties, including but not limited to providing support to the direct manager to accomplish due diligence work, assist the team with business plans and assignments, and act as a liaison to communicate with American banks.
On my first day of work, I entered our building in the northeast part of Shanghai and walked to the 9th floor. My first interaction was with my supervisor, Elle. As a native from China, Elle works as the Chairman’s manager in the firm when he is away on business negotiations. In addition to Elle, our firm has employees located in various locations across the world, including tech-developers in India and consultants in the States.
Within my internal team at the firm, I am currently working alongside two interns, Blair and Narain. Blair comes from a small town in western China, and speaks Mandarin as her native language. Narain is from Washington D.C. and studies at Carnegie-Mellon University. It is a great opportunity to work with interns who come from a different area than I do. This allows us to learn a lot from each other and ultimately be more effective in the work place.
My first project this week was to complete due diligence work for one of our clients. This company in China reached out to us for consulting and loan services. This company is in the process of creating an online pharmaceutical company, where citizens of China can purchase major drug prescriptions online and hassle-free.
My job as an intern is to research a list of the one hundred most popular prescription drugs in the world. Gathering information from various online databases, my job is to assemble a 2-3 page reports on each drug. In addition to these reports, I must come up with keywords for search engine optimization. These keywords are crucial because the more specific and thought out, the easier it will be for consumers to find the specific drug products when they search online.
Over the course of the week, I have put together roughly ten reports on various drugs. Most of the drugs I have been researching have to do with common problems that our world faces today. The reports I put together will be the online information consumers read upon purchasing the specific products.
My first week as an intern went very well. Although we are doing a lot of research and administrative tasks, it is what is necessary to complete our overall objective of providing our client with the proper consulting services. We have some very interesting projects ahead of us for the summer, such as: creating an online classified shopping center that is based off of China’s http://www.58.com, and America’s Craigslist.com. I am definitely looking forward to interning for the firm this summer and more importantly to learning more about how investment banking business operates in a foreign country.
The World Awaits…Discover it.