Trust, Support and Passionate Culture

My name is Lucy Kingma and I just wrapped up my summer internship with Kalypso. I am a rising senior at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, even though I am originally from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I found out about Kalypso through networking and my personal interest in working with small/mid-sized companies. I was also looking for a challenging and exciting hands-on experience in the consulting world. I had an amazing 8-week internship throughout which I learned so much more than I thought would be possible in that timespan. I worked on projects within the Industrial High-Tech Industry as well as a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementation.

One of my favorite things about my internship experience was coming in with a blank slate and having no significant background knowledge on the industry and navigating my way through the project. My team was extremely helpful in guiding me when I needed it. I particularly liked starting off with smaller tasks and deliverables on the Project Management workstream, so I could familiarize myself with the structure of the project and how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Once I gained more knowledge, I was able to put this to work on the Organizational Change Management workstream where I was responsible for my own deliverable. This was one of the most rewarding parts of my internship as I owned my own puzzle piece that was necessary to complete the puzzle even after I left. The project team was extremely supportive in letting me take responsibility and contribute in a way that I had not experienced before, and I really saw the “leaders behind the leaders” mentality in action.

I also was able to get involved in the company outside of my project as I have a deep interest in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry and I wanted to learn more. Reaching out to various individuals allowed me to join community sector calls and I was also given the opportunity to author my own viewpoint article, which is now published on the Kalypso website. This shows how in just a summer I was able to experience the supportive company culture and to start building the house I want to live in.

Overall, all my expectations were exceeded during my internship. The trust, support, and passionate culture showed me what a great internship experience should look like. Having a completely remote experience was new for me and I really enjoyed being a part of the team, and I look forward to joining Kalypso after I graduate.