During my time here in London, CEA CAPA has done a fantastic job in placing me with an interning company that perfectly matches my interests to really build my knowledge. Being interested in finance and real estate for a career, I was given the opportunity to be a finance intern with Aloft London Excel, one of Marriott Hotel’s incredible companies that targets younger, tech-savvy, social individuals.
Aloft London Excel is exceptionally placed next to the London City Airport and the London Excel center, which is an international exhibition and convention centre that hosts dozens of incredible events every year, one currently being the popular F1 Exhibition. This ideal placement allows me to have a far better understanding of how events in the area are affecting the business, cashflow, and expenses that the hotel experiences.
As a finance intern, my role covers various responsibilities that help keep the hotel running smoothly. I’ve been working with accounts receivable, credit control, and accounts payable—basically making sure money coming in and going out is properly tracked. I have also given my fair share of repetitive, easy work handed down to me that may seem boring but helps understand all the small parts in play and where all these numbers come from and go. Watching the money string throughout several different financial analyses and systems and seeing how it affects each one teaches me far more than I could learn from a classroom.
One of the key things that I have needed to have to understand as much as I have is curiosity and not being afraid to ask questions, understanding that my coworkers do not know what I do and do not understand and that I am here to learn, so the more questions I ask the better my understanding and knowledge will grow. That is why some of the most important Clifton strengths to utilize are communication, adaptation, and analytic thinking. Being able to communicate with your team about problems or misunderstandings will allow me to exceed far faster than trying to figure things out on my own, being able to adapt to new tasks and understand new concepts and thinking about them with an open mind will excel me in my understanding of finance concepts in the hotel, and analytical thinking ensures that I am thinking deeply about my work and the noticing everything that’s happening in my work.
One thing I’ve noticed about the business environment here is how structured and process-driven everything is. Marriott has a global reputation for consistency, and that carries over to how financial operations are handled. There are clear procedures for every task, and I’ve had to be extremely detail-oriented to make sure everything lines up and all of my work is correct, or else it could damage several structures. The finance team is small but incredibly efficient and smart, and I’ve been learning a lot just by watching how they navigate problems and communicate with each other.
Some interesting things that I have noticed about the European work environment is that the office seems much more laid back and friendly than most places in the US. People are focused on their tasks while also joking around with coworkers or talking freely about things not related to work. I have also been thoroughly impressed at Aloft London Excel’s massive commitment to fighting food waste, reducing pollution, and staying green. Within just my first three things, I have been a part of three separate meetings, all with the main goal of discussing how to best manage these topics, and have been incredibly successful within the last few years, winning several awards and certificates every year for their efforts. A final major thing I have noticed is that people largely respect the difference between work time and personal time; work is not discussed or worked on outside of working hours, breaks are taken and highly encouraged by management, and tea time/lunch time is especially encouraged to be taken advantage of. Work is respected when working time is active, but when working hours are over, working is actually over. People will not respond to emails or ask you to do work outside of your hours; you will not be expected to do extra outside of work, and you are highly encouraged to take your time off from work, which I have found incredible and very inspiring.
All the new hires and I getting the tour of Aloft London Excel