G’day mate! My name is Jonathan Li, but most people call me JJ. Like many others, I am from outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is where I have lived my entire life. Prior to committing to the University of Pittsburgh, I had never been to Western Pennsylvania, so attending a school in the great city of Pittsburgh has been an incredible experience thus far.

This fall 2021, I will be a junior in Pitt Business pursuing a B.S.B.A. degree. Here, I am double majoring in Marketing and Supply Chain Management and am working towards earning a certificate in Leadership and Ethics (CPLE). Since beginning my journey at Pitt, I have also gotten involved in multiple organizations ranging from professional to residential governance. Currently, I serve as a Resident Assistant in the Pitt Business Living and Learning Community for first-year students and am the Treasurer of the Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity.

Through these classes and extracurricular activities, I have gained valuable knowledge and enhanced my communication skills—both of which have set me up for success in the Global Business Institute: Virtual Internship program. Most notably, I applied for this program because I wanted to put into practice what I learned from the classroom setting. Up until this point, aside from several consulting projects I have done with local clients, none of my experiences have been directly related to either of my majors. Secondly, as someone who has only been to one country outside the United States, I felt it was important for me to have more international experiences (and without having to travel in the middle of a global pandemic).

At the time this post was written, I am wrapping up my second week as an intern with an Australian boutique software startup, Kaizntree, which primarily helps small business with their inventory management needs. Already, I have been able to effectively apply the knowledge I learned from several of my Marketing classes (shout-out to Professor Peggy Liu). Truthfully, this is likely to be the best organization that I could have been given the opportunity to intern with. After all, I will be working on Marketing activities while immersing myself with their software, which deals with activities related to Supply Chain Management—this covers both of my business majors.

While interning with Kaizntree, I hope to continue applying what I have previously learned and gain industry experience by helping them develop direct marketing campaigns for user acquisition and utilize data analytics for SEO. There is so much to do and to learn, and I cannot wait for the next couple of weeks to begin!