Veronica Woodson

Sample of Work

Veronica Woodson – Domestic Trip Wrap-Up - 13 August 2018

Similar to my experience on the international trip, the domestic trip taught me things about myself. But in contrast to the international trip, I didn’t learn what I needed, I learned how to implement what I need and combine my needs with the needs of others. Working with others doesn’t mean being selfless and putting my needs below the needs of the group, but it means learning to integrate all of our needs into one solution. This is a new perspective for me, and it was greatly influenced by three of the visits: The Majority Group, Deloitte, and Nielsen.

The Majority Group

I really enjoyed the morning with The Majority Group. Rob and Dom were very relatable and funny. Rob highlighted both his failures and his successes, talking about how he wrote a crazy speech for his boss, assuming someone else would proofread it, and how he became the youngest Chief of Staff in Congressional history. Rob told the funny story of getting his foot in the door in Washington DC through his internships with John Bainer and Mike Summers. He told us one liners like “Please hire Rob Elsworth this summer – you owe me,” and “I think you’re probably not going to be okay, but I’ll try.” I really enjoyed the drama of his story, but I would love to learn more about how someone could get on the Hill, or start political movements in Washington DC without the connections that Rob had. Outside of Rob and Dom, I don’t have any connections, but now I have an interest in the political scene. How would someone like me go about getting their foot in the door in Washington DC?

Rob drew parallels to current issues in business, and issues that we covered in our Business Ethics class, like the inherent focus on the short term. For both businesses and politicians in today's landscape, the short term benefits and losses often outweigh the long term benefits for the fiscal health and longevity of said business or politician. We tend to chase headlines instead of trend lines, and that needs to change. Congressmen have a two year election cycle, so as soon as they are elected, they are out there the next day working on their fundraising for their next election. It's a cycle that seems to undo more policy than it creates, and makes for a very slow, laborious progress process.

Dom spoke some about gratitude. I loved his story, and how he spoke about vulnerability and the challenges he overcame. I specifically loved that both of the came from small towns, not wealthy local families, so they saw the LHP experience as an opportunity, and not an entitled experience. I fear that many students forget the gift that the financial and experiential parts of LHP provide. Dom said "How you treat people as human beings makes a difference." That seems like such common knowledge, but the fact is, people don't act like it. Treating people with the Golden Rule, or just well in general, seems to be a lost art form. I am so glad that he highlighted it because it is a cultural misunderstanding that ties back to the topics of our Business Ethics class as well. Culture is represented in our actions, and as potential business leaders, we need to act selflessly, and in the best interests of our employees, our company, the shareholders, and our community. Dom exemplified what I believe makes a great leader in a small comment he made, saying "Leading is about learning to motivate,” when he was talking about his roles in SAE. That is also the direct correlation that I see in successful leaders. Successful leaders know what their employees need, know what they want, and can connect the two to create an environment for each employee where good work leads to their personal goals. Alignment of the vision of the company and the vision of the employee makes for the highest employee satisfaction and retention rates.

I went into the visit with little understanding of what a lobbying firm is and what they do. Rob and Dom were phenomenal hosts, entertaining us and teaching all of us. I think we all walked away from the visit with more knowledge and a smile because we enjoyed learning from them, regardless of whether or not our political views aligned. They highlighted the importance of lobbying by saying “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” A lot of people dislike lobbyists because their understanding is that lobbyists cause trouble, and with my minimal amount of knowledge, I was one of those people. But now I understand, lobbying isn’t bad, it’s the campaign finance system that is causing the trouble.

Deloitte

Our second visit in New York was with Deloitte. Meeting with the Chief Marketing Officer was a phenomenal opportunity, especially since I am a marketing major and aspire to be like Diana one day. I really appreciated how down to earth she was because it is easy to relate C suite executives to superhuman heroes. Diana did not downplay her job, but she did make it seem like one day we could be in her shoes. I also enjoyed the fact that we had to engage with the visit prior to physically arriving at the building, through the Business Chemistry Assessment. I was slightly surprised by my own results, but even more interested to see other people’s results and read the more in depth review about ourselves. I believe it is important to continue learning about ourselves, most importantly the characteristics we did not know we have, which were shown through the results of the exam. I am taking the results from my Business Chemistry Assessment and will continue to learn more about myself, and more about those around me.

As a connection to class, I think it would be extremely useful for every company to use or develop some sort of personality assessment. As Deloitte employees mentioned, it is helpful for them to know interviewees personalities, bosses personalities, and anyone else they engage with. Knowing the personalities allows us to communicate with those individuals more effectively. I think it would be great for senior executives and C suite executives to take these assessments to evaluate their fitness for the job. As we saw in the class, the leaders during the scandals had morale issues and character flaws, and taking an assessment similar to the Business Chemistry Assessment may lower the rate of ineffective, or morally corrupt leaders that get in those senior positions.

Coming into the visit, I had no idea that Deloitte had such an interest in mental understanding and wellbeing. I chose to write about it because I need to be more aware of it myself. I need to pay attention to my personality, and how it may mesh easily with some, but not with others, but I only need to change the way that I communicate to make the relationship work. We are not all the same, and we shouldn’t be surprised that we don’t all interact the same way, but the assessment is a great reminder and a digestible way to receive challenging information about ourselves.

I came away from the visit at Deloitte feeling refreshed (partially due to the meditation) and excited that big firms are focusing on true health and wellbeing. We all feel the pressure to finish projects on time, and outperform our colleagues, so having the company invested in creating a healthy lifestyle with us, is inspiring. Hopefully all firms invest in developing their employees’ mental health, not just physical health.

Nielsen

Our visit to Nielsen was outstanding. I was surprised by many things, and learned more about myself and my teammates through the activity.

Two things that I would like to follow up on are the N-score capabilities and the analysis and presentation that we did. I had no idea that celebrities or businesspeople could buy data that correlated to their popularity in different categories. This is a great way to learn how others view yourself on a public scale and change your public persona. I would like to partake in the surveys that the thousands of Americans do to create the N-score data every week. The analysis and presentation was engaging, and slightly challenging given the time span, so we all broke up the work and planned the presentation order. We did not get a chance to practice or memorize our presentations, or double check anyone’s work, so it was a great trust exercise. I would love to have a similar activity in every company visit that we do, and even meetings at work and club meetings at UC. Doing an activity spawns my thinking for bigger ideas, and I would like to learn

I noticed Christie mentioned in the first presentation that Nielsen completed acquisitions to extend the original buy and watch coverage. This is similar to Valeant’s growth strategy, except that Valeant acquired companies that were all in one industry, while Nielsen’s growth strategy has been of acquiring companies in multiple data industries, such as sports data, or music data, as we learned in our presentations. Nielsen’s acquisition strategy is better than Valeant’s because it doesn’t have an impending downfall. Nielsen’s strategy does not involve industry consolidation so it does not come with the same threats. Hopefully we will see Nielsen continue to grow and succeed for many years to come.

I chose to write about Nielsen because it opened my eyes. It changed the way I think about business, because I thought Nielsen was an analytics company that bought and sold data to other companies. Now I understand that Nielsen digests the data for their customers and provides insights through their consulting firm. I was also surprised by the openness of Nielsen’s company culture. The open office layout, the company kitchen, and the warm paint colors all encourage collaboration and a positive environment. I was surprised to see this in what I thought was a data company, which I assumed would be mainly engineers and analytics employees working in separate offices who were “in the zone” as we walked by. Instead, we chit chatted with a few employees who sat in their offices, which were only separated based on the teams to which they belonged. To my surprise, Nielsen is actually a company where I could see myself working one day.

​Times Square and Capitol Hill

LHP Domestic Trip 2018

The LHP domestic trip is a 6 day trip where we visited two cities and 6 companies and 2 Senator’s offices. We started the trip on Sunday, flying into Washington DC and having a group dinner. Monday morning we visited Senator Brown’s office, we had lunch at the Capitol and a Capitol tour in the early afternoon, and finished the day off with a visit to Senator Portman’s office. I was surprised by how bipartisan Senator Browns’ personnel were. Their ideas were significantly more moderate than I had anticipated. Tuesday we visited a lobbying firm, The Majority Group, and met with an LHP alum, Dom Berardi, before heading to New York City on the train. The Majority Group was one of my favorite visits. Wednesday we met with Bloomberg and Deloitte. We met with six Bloomberg employees, including one LHP alum, Dan Billman. This visit hit many different areas, from technical operations to sales to recruiting and senior executives. We met with the Chief Marketing Officer of Deloitte and took the Business Chemistry Assessment. Thursday we visited a branding firm, CBX, with another LHP alum, Adam Hildebrand, and visited Nielsen in the afternoon. Before heading home Friday afternoon, we visited JP Morgan Chase and Co. where we met with the Chief Information Officer.

This trip was short and sweet, but packed full of self-growth and understanding. Meeting with so many C suite and senior executives confirmed my drive to be one myself, and give back to the program in the future. The sample of work below is our wrap-up essay, highlighting our top three visits, and aligning the visits with our Business Ethics class from this summer semester.