Internship company name and location: Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, Ohio
Hometown: Edison, New Jersey
Pronouns: she/her/hers
The SOM classes you’re using on the job: YCCI Discovery Projects, Customer, Executive, and Competitor
Go-to work lunch: Currito
After-work routine: Running or playing pickleball with fellow interns!
Favorite thing about internship city: The sense of community—we’re always hanging out together and bump into each other at various events!
Prior to Yale SOM, I worked as a software engineer, but I’ve always been drawn to consumer psychology and tangible products that people use every day. I hadn’t heard of brand management before coming to SOM, but when I learned about the internship opportunity at Procter & Gamble (P&G), I was immediately intrigued. What attracted me most was P&G’s culture of developing leaders; the opportunity to work at the intersection of functions including finance, marketing, media, analytics, and supply chain; and the chance to contribute to meaningful, high-impact projects from day one. Plus, I’d be working with iconic brands I’ve grown up with.
When I received my internship offer, I knew I wanted to make the most of it, especially since I had no formal background in marketing. That’s why I joined the Yale Center for Customer Insights (YCCI) Discovery Projects: to build a foundation in real-world consumer insight work before my first day at P&G.
Through the course, I worked with the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association (LPGA) on a project aimed at increasing viewership and attendance among Asian American audiences. We conducted online ethnography by digging into social media platforms, performed competitive patterning, interviewed consumers to uncover beliefs and goals, and tested creative hypotheses by developing ads and social posts ourselves. It was a crash course in insight generation, strategy, and storytelling.
Those skills transferred directly into my summer on the Olay Body team at P&G, where I’m focused on understanding trends in body wash routines and how Olay can meet consumers’ evolving needs. I used the same toolkit I developed through YCCI: conducting online ethnography to analyze bath-related trends, identifying consumer sentiment around Olay and competitors, defining a clear target segment, and conducting interviews to learn more about people’s shower routines. I was even able to synthesize insights from past interviews conducted by my team, quickly spotting patterns and unmet market needs.
As with the LPGA project, I sought inspiration from outside sources. In this case, I studied competitors in the bath and body space and what Olay could learn from their approaches. As the summer progressed, I applied frameworks from core courses Customer, Executive, and Competitor to shape a go-to-market plan that brings those insights to life.
This internship has been so much more than just a summer project. I’ve been able to meet amazing peers from MBA programs across the country while sharpening my brand strategy skills and exploring Cincinnati, where the intern community is strong, social, and supportive.
I’m incredibly grateful to the team at P&G, SOM, and YCCI for preparing me so well for this experience—and for making this summer so meaningful and fun.