During the summer of my MBA, I worked at 3M in their Strategic Business Development group. This group is responsible for tackling the Company's most significant strategy and marketing challenges through internal consulting engagements. Below are my key accomplishments: >> Product Positioning: Developed a product positioning strategy that resulted in a 40% increase in interest among customers (vs legacy positioning) for a product in the medical industry. Positioning strategy was created through a design thinking framework that incorporated 20 in-depth interviews and key industry trends. >> Marketing Strategy: Created global "go-to-market" strategy for a new-to-the-world software product to deliver $10 million in incremental sales in first year. Strategy was developed through gaining expert opinion from industry leaders, understanding consumer behavior through secondary research, benchmarking key competitors, and optimizing product/pricing mix. This strategy was executed through partnering with an advertising agency. >> Product Development: Identified $25 million opportunity in the global sealant business and defined new product specifications to capture opportunity. Conducted 12 in-depth technical interviews and customer visits across 4 countries to identify global customer needs and market opportunity.

In this role, I primarily interfaced with senior engineering leadership to plan and manage their financial budgets. This was a part-time role that General Mills allowed me to take so that I could spend more time at home with my mom who was battling cancer. Below are my key accomplishments: >> Managed $225 million R&D budget by developing tool to increase business partner ownership and eliminate transactional finance work. Tool aided 60 cross-functional partners collectively manage budgets within 0.1% of plan and eliminated 1,200 labor hours per year>> Led an initiative to develop “mini-MBA” curriculum to promote corporate entrepreneurship among rank and file R&D engineers. The class was oversubscribed, as I ended up presenting it to over 350 engineers. >> Recognized with General Mills "Nourishing Lives" Award, from among 400 individuals, because of my work in the Minneapolis community.

I joined the GMI M&A team during its most active period in the last decade. Below are my key accomplishments:>> Corporate Venture Capital: While GMI has historically made minority investments in food technology-related firms, the company had never made investments into emerging brands. I helped develop the Company's emerging brand investment process, including the (a) corporate approval process, (b) diligence playbook, and (c) candidate sourcing strategy. Additionally, I performed due diligence, valuation, terms, and execution on our first two minority investments. >> Mergers and Acquisitions: I was the lead analyst involved in conducing due diligence associated with 15 prospective M&A transactions and 7 prospective minority investments. As an analyst, I collaborated with senior leadership and cross-functional partners to evaluate the strategic and financial merit of potential deals, presenting recommendations to COO and CFO. Recommendations led to two successful acquisitions.

I was awarded a unique opportunity as a relatively junior analyst at General Mills to serve as a Finance Manager at a Yoplait yogurt plant outside of Boston, MA. In this role, I managed a team of 3 employees to administer the $33 million manufacturing plant budget. Below are my key accomplishments:>> Created video-based modules (similar to Khan Academy) to improve financial literacy within 250 employee plant. In the first month, the modules helped engineers identify $3 million of savings. The concept was celebrated by GMI leadership, as it was shared to all GMI plants by VP of Supply Chain. >> The plant had historically earned below average results during key audits. As a result, I created an internal audit committee and procedure in which every month, a random set of policies and procedures were audited within the plan to ensure compliance. >> Led campaign to raise $61,000 (+35% from prior year) for United Way as community faced record unemployment.

I worked on the $2.3 billion US cereal business to help plan and forecast financial results for the month, quarter and year. Below are my key accomplishments:>> Managed 5% reduction in $20 million admin budget through business partnership. Created analysis, uncovering $1 million in admin savings through travel and entertainment management. Influenced Division Finance Officer (DFO) to prioritize project and was nominated for "Champions of Finance Award" for efforts.>> Led division-wide "spring plan" financial exercise, developing excel-based tools for over 30 marketers to utilize in order to forecast unit volume sales. Results from analysis were synthesized and presented to Division President.

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Led a team of five Carlson School of Management MBA students (while I was an undergrad) to develop a comprehensive digital media marketing strategy for new CPG brand. Conducted primary digital media usage market research, competitive positioning analyses, and case studies to recommend digital media strategy encompassing search engine optimization, social media, affiliate marketing, company website, and paid media.

Financial operations intern at General Mills cereal plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Worked with functional leaders in operations, distribution, and quality/regulatory to develop five tools to improve cost-based decision making, generating annual savings of $170 thousand to the Albuquerque plant. Persuaded plant leadership and supply chain director to implement tools across network of nine similar plants.While at plant, elected to be on a specialized team to target energy consumption. Through a combination of in-depth interviews with functional leaders, knowledge sharing with other plants, and secondary research of academic literature, created utilities management strategy and action plan to decrease plant utilities cost by 5% in two quarters.

Worked on team with five Carlson School of Management MBA students to develop customer segmentation strategy in order to mitigate customer erosion for largest B2B category for 3M, representing $350 million. Conducted primary marketing research through in-depth interviews and customer survey to investigate customer psychographics. Developed six behavioral customer profiles to counter erosion and presented analysis to division Senior Vice President and executive team. Recommendations were implemented through follow-up study with the Carlson Brand Enterprise.

Financial Analyst intern in General Mills' marketing services division. Worked with internal marketing teams and external advertising agency partners to develop an activity-based costing framework to promote margin management for $73 million of annual advertising procurement. Completed additional project to identify product sampling process across marketing, promotions, supply chain, and fulfillment functions to capture $500 thousand in accounting fallout from consumer-related spending budget.

Received Target Intern Excellence Award - an award given to 5 of 250 of interns at Target Headquarters for exemplifying execution, energy, and enthusiasm.