Considering my status as a development wealth management team intern, my internship at Morgan Stanley has been a satisfying experience.
Internship at Morgan Stanley
My entire internship time was rewarding due to the skills and expertise obtained, with my main tasks being cold-calling and prospecting for prospective customers with a net worth of at least $1 million. Personally, I had the chance to find prospective customers for the firm using LinkedIn and Zook data business directories, as well as make the first call with the intent of closing a deal. Morgan Stanley is a well-known financial institution in the United States of America due to its status as one of the world's largest investment banks. Wealth management is a core business for the bank due to the enormous portfolio of its clients and the need to ensure that the clients make a profit for the investment done on their behalf by the bank. Therefore, finding an internship in such a reputable financial institution is an honor an opportunity to learn and be mentored by wealth management experts.
Leadership
The head of the Wealth Management of the bank was the overall team leader and offered direction over the decisions and initiatives that were to be taken up in the department. Additionally, there was an immediate supervisor whose role was to ensure that I carried out my duties efficiently besides answering to some of the pressing questions that I had regarding my position or the bank. The leadership of the bank is friendly but firm. The close friendship that they establish with their staff is open to the management accepting criticisms and correction from some of their subjects.
The cold calling unit has one supervisor to monitor the quality of calls that one makes and note the corrections that one ought to make in the future calls. Some of the calls are recorded and analyzed by the immediate supervisor to ensure that the callers have etiquette and are professional in the calls that they make to the customers. The general manager of the wealth management unit offers overall leadership and is instrumental, through the weekly staff meeting in providing strategies through which new clients can be tapped. Additionally, the general manager provides update to the resolution of some issues that have been raised by the customers and escalated to the senior management of the bank. Finally, getting an opportunity to interact with the Chief Executive of the bank is a rewarding experience despite the shorter duration.
Ethics
Responsible leadership needs to have the ability to positively influence the decisions that are being met within an organization. Therefore, a competent leader can work together with his or her subjects with the intention of understanding their points of strengths and the support that they need to perform better in the tasks that they have been assigned within the company. A responsible leader is also driven by ethics, notably, business ethics. Ethics ought to be inculcated by a leader by first understanding the ethical principles or standards that ought to be entrenched in the company and setting him or herself as a standard example for the entrenchment of such norms within the organization.
My philosophy of management and business ethics has been shaped by my interaction with my leaders while taking the internship. Some of the values that were revered by my leader included honestly, self-accomplishment, equality, and teamwork. Morgan Stanley does not tolerate any form of segregation or use abusive language within the company. Additionally, the management offers mentorship for their staff, and most of the senior executives within the company are promoted in their line of preparation instead of recruiting new executives from a rival organization. Additionally, the management is honest with their clients when advising them on the investment portfolio.
Interpersonal relationships
My relationships with supervisors and colleagues became stronger during the internship. I often consulted by supervisors on a daily basis. Each evening, I would ask my supervisor to rate me for the work done and point some of the areas where I needed improvement. I am an outgoing professional with the ability to forge a positive relationship with my peers in the company. Such enabled me to have a good relationship with all whom I worked with. During lunch breaks, I could discuss with my fellow interns about my experience and encourage them to share their expertise on how we would improve our productivity in the bank.
Personal Experiences
The most challenging situation that I encountered during my internship was identifying a client whom I ought to contact and making the initial call in a bid to convince them to invest with the bank. Clients with a portfolio more than $1 million are often critical of the investment decisions that they ought to make and usually need an essential understanding of how they would make money from the proposed investment. What surprised me most out about the internship is how the management treats their interns. The interns are granted the same access to the management information system of the organization and are treated same as the staff. The stipends that are given with the organization were also a surprise since I did not expect it. What was different from my initial internship was being granted an opportunity for training. Being trained on cold calling is in tandem with my professional goals as discussed in the next paragraph. The grading of the interns on a daily basis and finding the average performance of each on a weekly basis was scary during the first month. However, in the subsequent months, the grading system was motivational as it enabled me to work harder. Often, during calls, I made an effort to introduce myself better and establish a rapport with the individual calling or whom I am calling before making the intention of selling a product to the customer. My supervisor was often impressed by my approach to interacting with the clients.
Professional goals
The internship is directly related to my professional objectives. In future, I intend to be a military pilot. As such, the internship opportunity granted me a chance to advance my communication skills. In piloting, one has to communicate with the passengers and the crew often informing them of the flight status and updating them on the progress of their journey. Additionally, being a pilot requires a high level of professionalism that has been granted through the internship opportunity issued by the bank. During undertaking the internship, I have learned effective leadership strategies that are fundamental to an organization’s growth, a factor that will enable me to be a relational and team player in the future careers that I intend to partake.
Summary
The management of the bank has a way of rewarding success through a result-oriented process. I won four focus Fridays for my excellence in interacting with the company’s clients through the cold-calling process, an opportunity that saw me have a meeting and sit in with the chief executive of the bank. Furthermore, my success while working at the bank can be seen by being able to average eight leads a day, a factor that ranked me third of the nine interns within the firm. All the interns in the bank had prior experience of about six months before me joining the bank. Hitting the ground running as at the time of joining the bank has been a fulfilling reward in the course of undertaking the internship.
Successfully convincing three clients to invest with the bank within my first month of the internship is a significant accomplishment that I made within the firm. Additionally, the employees of the bank are open and friendly in their interactions with the interns working in the bank. Therefore, I would recommend that more Loyola students seek internship opportunities with the banks. The on the job experience that one gets to receive while working for the bank is crucial in their business growth. The soft skills that one gets to learn through work and mentorship such as professional etiquette are critical in shaping up one for the professional world. The Loyola interns wishing to pursue a career in banking or wealth management need to pursue an internship in the bank owing to the career growth plans that the bank offers to its employees through training and seminars. Additionally, the management values promotion of its existent staff as opposed to the hiring of new staff for executive positions.
