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Many MBA candidates get internships between their first and second years of the program. Some of these are very structured and traditional; others are more flexible or part time. One member of our 2018 cohort, Steena Chandler, took a different approach to her summer experience. 

What did you do for your internship this past summer?

I started my own consulting company, called Twiga Consulting LLC. I worked on a wide variety of projects with 5-6 different companies/organizations. Since I mostly worked remotely, I decided to use the Impact Hub co-working space as my office. 

Describe your internship search, and why you decided to start your own company?

My approach to finding an internship was less traditional. I started with the approach, and identified a list of 40 companies I wanted to work for, or learn more about. I reached out to one person in each company who had a similar background (¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ alum, renewable experience, etc.) and asked to meet for coffee/have a phone conversation. I probably spoke with about 25-30 people throughout the course of the year. I found that most of the companies I was targeting had no formal MBA internship in place, but they were all busy people who needed work done. I figured I could find a way to do project-based work for some of the organizations I liked most, and once I landed my first project in April, I decided to follow through with creating a consulting LLC.

What project(s) did you work on?  How did you go about finding clients?

I worked on about 8-9 different projects for a variety of organizations including UN, UNICEF, other consulting firms, non-profits, and startups in the Boomtown accelerator. My work was varied - from financial modeling, to monitoring and evaluation (M&E), to website development. To find projects, I reached out to the network I built over the school year, and asked to have another meet-up/phone conversation. I mentioned the work I was doing, asked those connections for advice, and to connect me to anyone else they thought would be valuable for me to speak with. Oftentimes, these connections would give me projects, or connect me to someone who needed project-based work. Being at Leeds helps - everyone wants to help students!

What was the most valuable learning experience from this experience?

The importance of saying "yes". I was asked to create a financial model for a start-up (I had little experience in modeling), and I said "sure, I can do that - no problem." The point is that we are often asked to do things that we know very little about, and have to learn along the way. I did this with most of the projects I worked on, and while I had to do some unpaid background learning, I developed new skill sets, and overall, gained more confidence. 

If you could change one thing about your summer experience, what would it be?

I decided pretty late in the game to start Twiga, and had to do quite a bit of hustling in May and June to get projects for the summer. In hindsight, I would have set up the projects for the summer earlier.