Each summer, we welcome several MBA students to GSK Consumer Healthcare, based in Warren, NJ, from schools across the U.S. to help us create and bring to market innovative, everyday healthcare brands.
Our program is robust, with projects ranging from driving growth and brand leadership in eCommerce, to spear-heading advocacy programs and consumer insight initiatives. Our interns deep dive into various topics, spending three months working with the Marketing, Sales, Analytics, and Innovation teams – along with many others across the organization – and interfacing with leaders across all levels. While the range of summer projects is diverse, the one thing the projects have in common is their true impact on the business.
Meet our Summer 2020 interns, learn about their projects, and how they navigated a remote internship program during a pandemic.
This summer, Micah worked on our Nicorette team, developing a Marketing strategy to drive retention – because quitting smoking is tough, but important. His favorite parts of the internship included learning about the brand, the company culture, and of course, the remote game nights with his fellow interns. He also enjoyed the fulfillment of working at a company trying to help others improve their health and learned critical skills to enable him to become a better leader.
“The level of support the interns receive from manager to executive. And how hard GSK works at caring and building solutions for consumers.”
Sona spent her summer with the ChapStick team, focused on building out a gifting strategy. She enjoyed the analytical rigor and creative freedom and is excited to see the clear link between the project she worked on and how it fits into the brand’s priorities. And, despite the challenge COVID-19 presented this summer, Sona felt incredibly connected to the company, noting that the team put in tremendous effort to ensure the interns had ample opportunity to network with leadership and learn about the culture, albeit virtually.
“Through observation and interaction, I’ve learned what makes a successful brand manager and an impactful leader. Open-mindedness, vision, and dedication to your brand and to your team. One person cannot know the answer to every challenge, however, a successful brand manager should be willing to continuously learn and ask relevant questions. As I go back to school, and prepare for my future career, these lessons will shape the kind of leader I aspire to be in the future.”
Throughout the summer, David worked with the TUMS team, looking at new and creative eCommerce opportunities for a 90-year old brand. His biggest learnings included getting input and alignment across teams, which not always an easy task in a virtual work environment. Although it wasn’t a typical summer, David felt a true sense of teamwork and collaboration, and valued the ownership he had in his work.
“I was most surprised by the amount of direct project ownership that I was given from day one as an intern and how open senior leadership was to hearing my recommendations.”
Francesca joined us this summer on the Flonase team, where she led the creation of an advocacy program driven by trials. She enjoyed the collaborative company culture, and how committed the team was to each other’s success. Her biggest summer learning is how to effectively leverage resources – whether it’s people or data – to get the job done.
“I’ve enjoyed making connections with my intern cohort and bonding over competitive (and hilarious) trivia. It has also been great to learn about various marketing-related career opportunities in consumer health.”
This summer, Sean supported our US Oral Health business, leveraging insights to develop a plan to focus on the customers. This was his first opportunity to work in brand marketing, and he found the hands-on experience fascinating – especially understanding how research and insights are used to make decisions regarding product launches and promotions. One of his key learnings was the value of changing roles to work on different brands as a way to learn a company’s broader portfolio.
“Always support your recommendations, suggestions, proposals with insights, facts, and data. This is very much needed to strengthen your argument and get people on board with your ideas. I think this is an important takeaway that I can apply to whatever my future career turns out to be.”
Caroline spent her summer working on our Digestive Health team, focused on developing a digital education strategy and execution plan. She appreciated how seamlessly the interns were integrated into the team, despite the challenges presented by a remote work environment. She will leverage that learning, along with an enhanced marketing skill set, in the future.
“I have enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about best practice marketing in the consumer healthcare space while expanding my knowledge and skillsets around content creation and content marketing.”
To find our more about our internships and co-op programs across the company please visit: https://us.gsk.com/en-us/careers/apprentices-students-and-graduates/internships-and-co-ops/about-our-programs/
