The Sustainability Consortium Member Summit

This week, I have been traveling with my internship through Kellogg's as a Sustainability Intern and am attending the Inaugural Sustainability Consortium Member Summit and Corporate Advisory Council (CAC) Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. Yesterday was the CAC Meeting and we got a glimpse into how some retailers are implementing Sustainability plans using the TSC Tools (Dossiers, Category Sustainability Profiles, and Key Performance Indicators). We heard in detail from Walmart and Tesco on their programs and progress. Today we are having break out sessions during the Member Summit on a range of different topics from social responsibility, innovation, geographic dimensions of sustainability, and technology. I've already learned so much about the Sustainability Consortium and the value of collaboration on such an important issue that impacts the whole world. To learn more about TSC and their work, visit their website here: http://www.sustainabilityconsortium.org/.

As for me, I'm loving the Valley of the Sun, and I am excited that I will get to return again next week for the MBA Women International Leadership Conference and Career Fair. Ciao for now!

- Tammy :o)

Where in the world were Walton MBAs this summer?

Our class was asked by our MBA Program Director to put together a display case to represent our class. We decided to showcase our summer internship and study abroad experiences by compiling objects and tokens that represent the companies and countries we dedicated our time to. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out and think that it looks great!

Below is a list of the summer internships and study abroad programs our class participated in:

Countries:

Belize

Cambodia

China

Germany

Ghana

India

South Africa

Sri Lanka

Thailand

United Kingdom

Companies:

ACCA

Cameron

City of Fayetteville

City of Houston

Conoco Phillips

Dannon

Elkhart Products Corporation

Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce

FedEx

Grassroots India

Henkel

Kellogg Company

Kraft Foods

Land O'Lakes

Massmart

Mr. Price Group

Northwestern Mutual

P&G

Reckitt Benckiser

Retail Solutions

Room to Read

Saatchi & Saatchi X

The Schwan Food Company

The Sustainability Consortium

Tracfone

Tyson Foods

Walmart

Where do you want to spend your summer?

- Tammy :o)

MBA Poster Competition

As a part of our summer internship credit in the full-time MBA program, students build and design posters supporting their presentations. Then after the presentation competition, employers attending the career fair last week were invited to join the full-time MBA students at a networking event where we displayed our posters and woo'ed the employers with our elevator pitches about our internship experiences. During the competition, each guest was given two bells that they could allocate however they like to the thirty or so of us seeking the honor of "Best Poster." Employers from Conoco, Unilever, Dillard's, Walmart, ConAgra, Nielsen, Cameron, J.B. Hunt, Tyson, and many more showed up to listen to us singing for a our supper. I had a really great time, and I was really impressed with all of my classmates. I am pleased to share that I tied with Adam Floyd for first place by earning 22 bells. Below is a picture of me and my poster at the competition and then a copy of my poster. I'm pretty proud of it. :o)

- Tammy :o)

School's Back in Session!

I can't believe we are already two weeks into class. Time sure does fly when you are having fun!

This semester, all of the full-time MBA students are taking Accounting, Management & Leadership, and Ethics as core classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Then the class has a choice of their concentration and elective courses in Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, and Entrepreneurship. For example, I have opted for the Marketing Track so I am in the "Shopper & Consumer Behavior" and "Marketing Research" courses offered on Tuesday and Thursday morning.

This schedule gives me the flexibility to continue my internship with Kellogg in the afternoons on Monday-Thursday and all day on Friday. As a part of our internships, the Career Center has organized a Presentation and Poster Competition allowing all of us an opportunity to hone our presentation skills and get some exposure to local employers. The first round was Friday and even though I wasn't selected to move on, I am grateful to have had the chance to participate and practice selling my internship experiences.

Yesterday, we received the Professional Development schedule for the semester and there are some exciting opportunities for the fall. The GSB will be offering Advanced Powerpoint, Advanced Excel - Macros & Programming, Six Sigma, and Negotiation. I plan on attending each of these since they will be immensely beneficial to the things that make MBAs valuable job candidates.

Well, I'm off to finish my reading for the coming week!

- Tammy :o)

Summer so far...

Wow! I simply cannot believe that it is almost August. We start classes back on the 20th of the upcoming month, and while I'm definitely excited to get started again, I can't help but start to reflect on my summer so far. If you've been following my blog, you've seen that I was able to travel to China for two weeks with the Walton College MBA program on a tour of the retail landscape. Visiting with Goodmark-Asia, Li & Fung, Walmart-China, P&G, Unilever, a Yantian Port Terminal, and ARC China, provided our tour group with a comprehensive retail tour from product conception and planning to manufacturing to store. I learned so much and gained invaluable insight in the retail industry and international business.

In addition to my study abroad, I've also been able to continue my graduate assistantship with Kellogg as a full-time Sales Analyst intern with the Ready-to-Eat-Cereal team supporting Walmart. Transitioning from part-time during the school year to full-time during the summer has really given me the opportunity to maximize my time and learning experiences at Kellogg. In addition to my responsibilities tracking sell-through of our merchandising events and other forms of consumption, I've been able to take on some special projects measuring incrementality, gauging non-compliance, evaluating attribution characteristics, and planning sustainability scorecards. For the snacks side's Cheez-It Friday launch of the "Shake-It to Make-It" mix, Kellogg even had Kirk Herbstreit come into the office and talk college football with the whole team and sign autographs. He even hinted that College Gameday *might* even make a stop in Fayetteville this year. :o)

As a part of our internship credit with the MBA program, students develop posters and presentations about our summer experiences and learning outcomes. All of the students compete before a panel of judges to summarize their internship and answer questions from the judges. Then all students will again share their posters at the networking competition held at the Alumni House. The winners of both the presentation competition and the poster networking session will then be announced and awarded trophies.

Unfortunately, our trip to the Heifer International Global Village through their Passport Program in Perryville, AR has been cancelled, but there is some hope that we will still get to participate with Heifer over Spring Break next spring. I have been able to do some traveling, however, with MBA Women International through my role as National Student Director. This past weekend, I was in Dallas with the organization at the Professional Chapter's Executive Board Leadership Retreat. I was able to learn so much about MBAWI and the way that the professional chapters operate. I took away a lot that I think we will be able to apply this year to the student chapters nationally, and even with our own chapter at the U of A. I'm so excited about the year ahead!

How is your summer going?

- Tammy :o)

Reflections on My Trip to China

After returning home, I had several assignments to complete reflecting on my time in China and the lessons I learned. I was tasked with writing five different reflection pieces, each on a different topic: 1) Major Reading Assignment and Report: 'Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory” by Peter Hessler, 2) Observations from My First Trip to China, 3) Overview of ARC China Visit, 4) Overview of Walmart China Visits, and 5) Overview of GoodMark-Asia and Li & Fung Visits. 

Some of the key lessons that I took away from our retail tour through China included the cultural and regional differences in China that impact the retail market, the supply chain shortcomings throughout China, the financial and consumer opportunities, and the macro retail trends in China and beyond.

Here is an excerpt of my favorite parts from Essay #4: Overview of Walmart China Visits on our time with Walmart China SVP & CFO Mario-Jose Medina: How to be Successful in International Business:

"Mr. Medina provided our group with a different approach to our learning experience at Walmart China and shared with us how to be a successful business person – especially in an increasingly global marketplace and at a multinational company. The first piece of advice that Mr. Medina offered us was to be tridimensional – a combination of head, heart, and gut. He described for us that life’s decisions are a journey of time, mistakes, and personal dilemmas, and even offered a formula for making mistakes: fail fast, often, and cheap.

The CFO also shared a new concept with us of the ‘VUCA’ world. The world is one of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. In order to succeed in this kind of world, we need to be professionals with Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility. Finally, Mr. Medina recommended that we strive to be a combination of IQ (intelligence), EQ (emotional), and CQ (cultural) – in order to accomplish this, we must be open-minded and should attempt to work abroad and stretch ourselves by experiencing ‘culture shocks’ as often as possible. He closed with his adaptation to the popular Charlie ‘Tremendous’ Jones quote, 'You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet, the books you read, and the places you go.'"

As a part of our coursework, we were also assigned an online photo album with detailed explanations of the photos that depict some of the key lessons from our trip. Here is the link to my album: http://photobucket.com/uachina2012_tammy. I should probably warn you that there are more than 500 photos here, but for a smaller album of just the highlights with the 25 key lesson descriptions can be found via this link: http://s1076.photobucket.com/home/uachina2012/tag/Photo Essay Assignment. And if that is still too much for you, haha - here are only a few: 

- Tammy :o)

Home Sweet Home

I've finally made it home from my adventures abroad in China and started to get settled back into my summer internship at Kellogg and Director roles with MBA Women International. I had such an amazing time in China with my fellow travel mates from the UofA - it's definitely been hard to get adjusted back to daily life. I'm still absorbing all of the incredible lessons that I will forever take away from my brief visit to a very different far-away land, but I do know for sure that I want to seek out opportunities to live abroad as a young professional to further develop myself and career. In the meantime, I'm also still learning so much in my time at Kellogg. From developing my skills in Excel, Retail Link, and Access to beginning to really understand the tactical and strategic relationship of Kellogg as vendor and Walmart as buyer, every day I legitimately take away something new. During my spare time (haha), I'm also working with an incredibly talented group of ladies from MBA Women International. We have been drafting a membership and leadership survey to go out next week to further develop and support our initiatives for the year to bring new and improved benefits to our general membership and chapter affiliates. I'm really excited to see what we can accomplish as a team, and I will be sure to keep you updated on our progress as well. Until next time, I leave you with the link to meet my fellow National Student Leadership Team members and a few more photos from China. Enjoy!

http://www.mbawomen.org/national-student-leadership-team

- Tammy :o)