As I look back on my internship while abroad in London, I have noticed some specific trends and challenges. At Weller Media Agency, I was a part of a team of 2 other people, Emma the Global Director of Finance and Hattie the Finance Manager. Both of these women manage the entire finances for not only WMA’s UK company, but also WMA’s US firm. In a company with millions of pounds of transactions and roughly 50 employees across the world, this is clearly a ton of work for both of them. Going into my internship, I thought I would be helping out with the smaller, menial tasks that needed to get done around the office and only doing some minor data analysis. I was not excited for work along these lines as I did not think it would challenge me enough, but I was still grateful to be working in a fast-paced business in London.
When I finally began my internship back in May, my perceptions were proven wrong right away. I was working in a very fast-paced environment, but it was still very laid back and casual. The first difference I noticed was how I dressed compared to the other men in the office. Almost everyone was fairly young, and the dress code of “smart casual” was mainly jeans or khakis, nice yet casual t-shirts or hoodies, and tennis shoes. I was dressed in khaki pants with a button down tucked in and a nice pair of dress shoes. I was definitely the nicest dressed here, but since this was not the workplace culture, I decided to conform and dress as everyone else for my next six weeks.
As for my tasks at WMA, I did have to do some rather simple tasks, but I was fine with this as I realized it needed to be completed by someone. One of these tasks was taking pictures and uploading the receipts to transactions into the accounting software that WMA uses, FreeAgent. However, I also undertook a few larger projects that I had not expected to be given. During one of my first days, Emma asked me to look over all revenue received from the five biggest clients in the UK and the US and create a presentation noting any trends, observations, and recommendations for how to approach these clients.
Another large project I completed was reviewing WMA’s current lead conversion process. I computed the lead to new business conversion rate for most employees, but the process WMA currently uses was not very effective and somewhat hard to use. To overcome this challenge, I made my own recommendations as to how the process can be improved. My supervisor loved my ideas and showed them to the CEO who also loved it. WMA will be using my recommendations in the future to efficiently manage leads for new business. I faced a few obstacles throughout my internship, but my advice to future international interns is to just keep at it. Pitt has prepared me well to tackle plenty of challenges that are thrown my way, and if I ever need clarification I am not afraid to ask for help. I am going to miss my time at WMA but I am ready to move on to face new challenges in my life!