I was lucky enough to have literally stumbled upon my HBS job after spending the prior part of my career working exclusively in finance roles. Before HBS, I worked in investment banking, asset management and had been the CFO of a private equity-backed company. I also acquired a portfolio of multi-family residential properties, which I continue to own today. When I read the job description of my current HBS role, my thought was simply, “that sounds like fun.” – nearly ten years later that remains the case! [...]

It’s crazy how time flies, so much has happened since my last post and I am less than two weeks away from the end of my internship! [...]

Join HBS Career & Professional Development (CPD) as we follow three students throughout their summer internships, and learn best practices for creating a successful summer program. [...]

Tell us about where you’re working this summer. I am at Shire, in their Business Development group located in Lexington, MA (soon moving to Kendall Square). Shire is considered “Big Pharma” which basically means it is one of the larger biopharmaceutical companies in the industry, and they focus on multiple therapeutic areas with several pipeline candidates in each of those areas. The Business Development group at Shire is focused on inorganic growth opportunities (acquisitions, licensing, collaborations) that span all therapeutic focus areas at the company, which now has its sights on becoming the world-wide leader in rare diseases. An interesting spin to the summer comes with the closing of the $32B merger with Baxalta the day before I started work, so we are in the midst of integrating them into Shire as we continue day-to-day activities. [...]

It was my first day of work and I was nervous, so much so that my legs were wobbly. I tilted forward, then backward. I finally steadied myself by grabbing onto a cubicle wall and was able to move forward evenly. However, I soon found myself grabbing for the cubicle wall again. “That’s enough”, I said to my coworker, and with that I stepped off the hover board. “Hopefully, you can learn it by the end of the summer” he replied while laughing. I gave him a firm handshake and returned to my desk. [...]