I finally had proof that this Anderson MBA blog is useful for a few people, so I have decided to make the effort to keep on going on with my posts. If you are reading this, I encourage you to leave us bloggers a message every now and then because it keeps us, writers, motivated. I imagine that, to do so, you actually have to register with TypePad, which is undoubtedly a major pain you know where, but your feedback does make a difference. Looking at my old posts, I realize that I never announced that I spent the summer in San Francisco working for McKesson, a drug distribution company that you probably don’t know because you and I buy our drugs straight from pharmacies. Yet, McKesson is a giant: it supplies over 40,000 pharmacy locations, employs over 30,000 people, and is actually a Fortune 15 company.
I must say I was very lucky to get this internship. The person who was supposed to interview me during the first round couldn’t make it, and was replaced by, of all people, a vice-president. I hit it off really well with her and advanced to the second round. The second round didn’t go so well, however, but the next day I got a phone call from the VP telling me that she wanted me in her group for the summer. I guess miracles do happen. And so I spent the summer in a corner office on the 31st floor of a San Francisco skyscraper doing work in Corporate Financial Reporting. I had the best supervisor ever. She provided the support that I needed while giving me the leeway to do things how I thought they should be – a welcomed contrast with the control freaks who used to rule my professional life so far. I am glad to report that I even got an offer for McKesson’s rotational program. Mission accomplished, indeed!
In all honesty, this internship experience was beyond my expectations. All of us interns (including Marketing, Strategy, Operations, etc.) were treated to many happy hours and social events. We got to meet the CFO and many senior executives. Anytime I wanted to know more about a unit in McKesson, all I had to do was to shoot an e-mail, and everyone always replied and never refused to meet, usually over lunch. McKesson is a company that understands that it needs to keep growing to provide challenges to its employees and keep them happy. If I accept the offer, the corporate finance program will expose me to the many units within the company for the next two years through 6-month rotations. I find myself very fortunate, although I did work pretty hard during the summer…
–Simon
