Hey y’all! My name is Aimee Adler, and I am a rising junior at Tulane University majoring in Finance and Management. This summer, I will be working as an intern at Giella Custom Blend Cosmetics in New York City. I will directly work with the founder and CEO and learn about the cosmetic industry as well as gain insight in being a woman entrepreneur.
This internship directly relates to NCI’s mission to educate undergraduate women for leadership in the 21st century. I will be working in a small company that competes everyday with major corporations. By working side by side with the owner, Giella, and understanding how she envisions and implements growth strategies, manages her employees, operations, manufacturing, advertising and more, I will gain an invaluable and enlightening experience. I cannot imagine a better way to personally grow and develop as a leader in the 21st century than to work with one on a daily basis.
I am extremely excited about this internship for many reasons. I have known about this company since I was eight years old and have idolized Giella since I went to her make up counter to create my own custom lip gloss. Being able to learn from Giella is a dream come true. Additionally, I love learning about all aspects of business. One of the reasons I am a finance and management major is because by major in two different aspects of business I am able to gain a better understanding on how to run my own business since a business cannot be successful without understanding the numbers and strong management. This internship will allow me to have a hands-on experience learning about all aspects of business from budgets to meeting with clients. I plan to open my own business one day so learning from a strong female entrepreneur will also help me have a better understanding of the traits and skills needed to be a successful female in the business world.
To make this summer as meaningful and beneficial as possible I have developed 5 learning objectives during my internship:
- To learn the necessary traits needed to be a successful entrepreneur from a woman as my role model.
- To see how Giella was able to carve out a business that is dominated by Fortune 500 companies in a multi-billion-dollar industry and make a profit in an environment as expensive as New York City.
- To gain more personal independence living in New York City where I know no one and have no idea how to get around.
- To connect lessons from my business classes in real world applications.
- To see how a small player can compete in an incredibly crowded marketplace.
I have been preparing for this internship by researching how to maneuver the subway system as well as looking at Giella’s website and social media accounts so that I can be very familiar with the products and mission of the company. Thank you NCI for this opportunity.
I will update y’all throughout the internship!