7:00 Wake up and shower
7:15 Read Book of Mormon and Bible
8:20 Get dropped off at the people mover (free metro rail in downtown miami, kinda like those shuttles at disney world that are perched up about 10 feet above the ground)
8:50 Arrive at work and check my email
9:00 Notice that Citi's post-market stock price is at a ridiculously low 3.95 and make the decision not to watch it the rest of the day for fear of crying in front of my co-workers
9:03 Continue working on the "Country Decks" that we are making for conference calls that we have set up with the following district managers: Peru, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Caribbean, Central America, Ecuador, Venezuela
The country decks are basically presentations that we are preparing for our boss Carlos, who is the manager of all of the Cash Management department in Latin America. Cash Management consists of all of the solutions Citi offers to a companies treasury department that involves the inflows (Receivables), outflows (Payments), and reserves (liquidiy and investments) of cash.
So these "decks" include the following about the cash department in each of these countries:
Income Statement
Monthly Receivables Report
Monthly Payments Report
Intitiatives (Goals) for the upcoming year-strategies to increase revenue / decrease costs
New deals that were won / lost / in the making with existing or future clients
9:45 Leo (my supervisor who is on Carlos' team with me) calls me and asks me to let Jose continue working on the Decks and start working on a web site that we are preparing for Banco de Chile
The website that I am preparing for BdC is a word document, prepared in english, that contains the different cash management solutions Citi offers in Chile. I basically go to Citi's Global Transaction Services website, copy and paste different descriptions of these products, find slipsheets and case studies to go along with these descriptions, and pass all of this along to the Chile manager so she can do a review of the details and then send it off to be translated.
10:45 Finish BdC website and resume working on the Country Decks.
12:30 Leo calls me and asks me to analyze the Time Deposits of the companies we have in Jamaica from one database and compare them to the same data we have in our database. The reason being the Jamaica manager claims that we are not accounting for all of their Time Deposits in our weekly report
Time Deposits are a fancy way of saying Certificates of Deposits (it took me about 2 weeks to finally figure this piece of information out)
Turns out that the numbers don't add up and one database contains more TDs than the other
12:45 I call Renatto, the go-to-guy for the NY databse and fill him in on the situation
1:00 Renatto sends about 13 different emails to a number of people in NY trying to get the above situation resolved while simulatenously flooding my inbox and ruining our friendship
1:15 Eat lunch
2:10 Sneak another peak at Citi stock. . . 2.90. I have managed to lose about half the money I had gained after a month long bull market
3:00 Receive an email from Martin Guelman, one of the managers in Argentina, sending me some updated addresses for different Argentinian companies, all of which I asked for about a month ago.
4:00 Finish the Country Decks and begin working on the Weekly Liability Presenation
The Weekly Liability Presentation includes the previous two week's International Payment Account balances (Direct Deposit Account, Overnight Sweep Account, Time Deposit) of all of the companies in the Latin American region, as well as the local balances of these countries (IPA is an account held in US$ in NY, whereas local is basically the savings and investment accounts within each respective country)
6:00 Carlos comes in right before we leave to fill us in on his concern with one of the companies and tells us that tomorrow we will need to do an in depth analysis on why this company has been doing so poorly compared to the other companies in that country
Monday, April 20, 2009
Carrie Prejean is my hero
So before I get into my travelogue that I made of my day at work, I just wanted to make a quick comment about my opinion on what Carrie Prejean (Miss California) said yeserday during the Miss America Pageant.
Prejean was asked by one of the judges if she thought that gay marriage should be legalized in all 50 states. Miss California then responded politely that in no way did she mean to offend anybody, but that she felt that a marriage was between a man and a woman. Now it turns out that the judge who had asked her this question happened to be a gay man, and decided to vote against the contestant. Unfortunately for Ms. Pajean, she came in second place as a result of it. And not only that, after the show that same judge who asked her the question went on air in a curiously-brazen outburst and exclaimed, "She did not win the pageant because of what she said, but because she is a dumb (female dog)."
I think both sides of the argument can respect the courage shown by this girl. She could have easily answered the question differently, thus appeasing the judges and consequently won the pageant. But instead, she stood firm in her conviction and told the world her true beliefs on the subject, despite the inevitable impact that it had on the results. It is unfortunate that politics has to get involved in these sort of events, and hopefully the world can see the negative influence taking place and do something to correct it.
Prejean was asked by one of the judges if she thought that gay marriage should be legalized in all 50 states. Miss California then responded politely that in no way did she mean to offend anybody, but that she felt that a marriage was between a man and a woman. Now it turns out that the judge who had asked her this question happened to be a gay man, and decided to vote against the contestant. Unfortunately for Ms. Pajean, she came in second place as a result of it. And not only that, after the show that same judge who asked her the question went on air in a curiously-brazen outburst and exclaimed, "She did not win the pageant because of what she said, but because she is a dumb (female dog)."
I think both sides of the argument can respect the courage shown by this girl. She could have easily answered the question differently, thus appeasing the judges and consequently won the pageant. But instead, she stood firm in her conviction and told the world her true beliefs on the subject, despite the inevitable impact that it had on the results. It is unfortunate that politics has to get involved in these sort of events, and hopefully the world can see the negative influence taking place and do something to correct it.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
April Fooooooooo (BOOM!) - Bart Simpson
So today I was going to play a joke on my supervisor, Carlos, by sending him our usual daily tracking report of the current investments we are managing, except this time I was going to subtract around $500 million from our current balance. I figured that his response could range anywhere between praising me for the good joke to firing me on the spot with a couple of spanish curse works mixed in. So I elected not to do the joke afterall.
Work today was pretty slow; in the morning I was able to prepare a couple of spreadsheets monitoring all of the Latin American Time Deposit accounts, but once that was over I ran out of things to do. So I spent a lot of the day reading up on current events. The topic that I spent most of my time investigating was the new bill that is trying to be passed that will allow congress to decide how much salary is paid to employees of any company that has received more than $5 bil. of TARP money.
When I first learned of this bill I experienced the following thought process, "Hey, this might be a good idea. Now the big shots on wall street can't pocket anymore of the taxpayer's money." But after I thought more about it, the idea of transferring more market power over to the government started to scare me.
When I was a kid, I used to think that as long as the government was in charge, the people's best interest would always prevail: The government is run by the brightest and most upstanding citizens in the country. Now that I am older and wiser then I was back then, I remember that this is not the case.
Work today was pretty slow; in the morning I was able to prepare a couple of spreadsheets monitoring all of the Latin American Time Deposit accounts, but once that was over I ran out of things to do. So I spent a lot of the day reading up on current events. The topic that I spent most of my time investigating was the new bill that is trying to be passed that will allow congress to decide how much salary is paid to employees of any company that has received more than $5 bil. of TARP money.
When I first learned of this bill I experienced the following thought process, "Hey, this might be a good idea. Now the big shots on wall street can't pocket anymore of the taxpayer's money." But after I thought more about it, the idea of transferring more market power over to the government started to scare me.
When I was a kid, I used to think that as long as the government was in charge, the people's best interest would always prevail: The government is run by the brightest and most upstanding citizens in the country. Now that I am older and wiser then I was back then, I remember that this is not the case.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Networking is Key
This past week I have realized that an internship is not the same as a full-time position. While the work we do is necessary, the number of assignments we do each day is soley dependant on the number our boss chooses to give us. So this past week I was anxious to do more work, and on my own time.
I knew that Leo wanted to contact each of the countries about possible cross referencing opportunities (clients with 1/3 and 2/3 of our products), so I approached him and asked if I could head up that project and contact the countries on my own while keeping him informed along the way. To my surprise he said that I could - I only wish I had asked him earlier, but I think he now knows that I am anxious to be more productive than what he is allowing me to be.
So this past week I felt very productive in the sense that I was acting as my own boss. I prepared the spreadsheets with the data of all of the clients in each country and sent them out the managers. I then called each of them to discuss our findings and set goals on how many new products they were going to sell.
During my time at home in the evenings I have been reading a couple of investing books. Lately I have become more and more interested in fund management. I then contacted a couple of BYU alumni that are currently in the industry. Out of the three that I emailed, one of them didn't respond, another was the wrong email address, and the third one asked me to call him the following day.
His name was Dave, and he had actually just been laid off after 4 weeks of fund management with wells fargo. He told me that it was an exciting but extremely nerve-wracking business. He said that on any given day if you were to "screw up big time" you could be fired on the spot. However he did say that it was an extremely rewarding job and that I should definitely contact more people to hear more up-beat stories.
This experience definitely reminds me of how important networking is. I did this same thing with the industry of venture capitalism two weeks ago and came across another alumni. Both of them will no doubt serve as valuable contacts in case I have any more questions about either industry.
I also spoke with the my friend's father who is the CFO of a large health insurance company in DC. He told me to stay in contact with him until I graduate and we will definitely help me find a job.
I knew that Leo wanted to contact each of the countries about possible cross referencing opportunities (clients with 1/3 and 2/3 of our products), so I approached him and asked if I could head up that project and contact the countries on my own while keeping him informed along the way. To my surprise he said that I could - I only wish I had asked him earlier, but I think he now knows that I am anxious to be more productive than what he is allowing me to be.
So this past week I felt very productive in the sense that I was acting as my own boss. I prepared the spreadsheets with the data of all of the clients in each country and sent them out the managers. I then called each of them to discuss our findings and set goals on how many new products they were going to sell.
During my time at home in the evenings I have been reading a couple of investing books. Lately I have become more and more interested in fund management. I then contacted a couple of BYU alumni that are currently in the industry. Out of the three that I emailed, one of them didn't respond, another was the wrong email address, and the third one asked me to call him the following day.
His name was Dave, and he had actually just been laid off after 4 weeks of fund management with wells fargo. He told me that it was an exciting but extremely nerve-wracking business. He said that on any given day if you were to "screw up big time" you could be fired on the spot. However he did say that it was an extremely rewarding job and that I should definitely contact more people to hear more up-beat stories.
This experience definitely reminds me of how important networking is. I did this same thing with the industry of venture capitalism two weeks ago and came across another alumni. Both of them will no doubt serve as valuable contacts in case I have any more questions about either industry.
I also spoke with the my friend's father who is the CFO of a large health insurance company in DC. He told me to stay in contact with him until I graduate and we will definitely help me find a job.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
New Projects for the Interns
This week we have only worked two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) because Monday was President's day. However, so far this week we have been very busy with new projects given to us from different people. In the GTS office we have been concentrating a lot on the local and international liabilities: these are two terms that describe the different local and international accounts our clients keep their money. Yesterday and today, however, we have been doing research on large logistics / freight transportation companies for an analyst that works with product design. She has come up with a new design that will allow a large logistics company to use one of our existing products (worldlink-->basically an easy to use cross border money transfer from one account to another) to allow their own clients to have access to it, and in the mean time eliminate the smaller banks that act as middlemen. Our job is to find the biggest companies we can find, figure out where their headquarters is located, and investigate each of their market reaches.
Aside from the company research project, I worked on the Monthly Liability Report that is essentialy the same thing as the weekly liabilities report, exceot that the monthly report includes local liabilites, and we get the information from a main spreadsheet that is sent to us each month with updated numbers in stead of on citi's website.
Aside from the company research project, I worked on the Monthly Liability Report that is essentialy the same thing as the weekly liabilities report, exceot that the monthly report includes local liabilites, and we get the information from a main spreadsheet that is sent to us each month with updated numbers in stead of on citi's website.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Internship in Miami
Well this entry certainly has been in the making for a very long time. Just to give you a quick update of what has happened since october, here are a few key events:
- I was accepted for an internship in Miami with Citigroup in the Global Transaction Services division focusing primarily on Latin America
- I work side by side with another intern from Monterrey Tech, named Jose Antonio, who is finishing up his masters in Marketing
- The first day of work was held in Ft. Lauderdale Fl, where we were trained in proper business etiquette (I felt I was in eighth grade catillion (sp?) all over again)
- The man who hired me, Carlos Castro, is extremely busy and therefore asked his right hand man, Leo Gazzo, to make sure Jose Antonio and I have enough work to do
- The first couple of days in Miami Leo had a hard time finding anything for us
- After about 3 days on the job, we finally were introduced to the weekly international liabilities report that we would end up doing each of the following weeks
-We have also engaged in a marketing project where we investigate the top 100 importers of each Latin American country and analyze which of our projects, if any, these companies have and where we can improve on
- I was accepted for an internship in Miami with Citigroup in the Global Transaction Services division focusing primarily on Latin America
- I work side by side with another intern from Monterrey Tech, named Jose Antonio, who is finishing up his masters in Marketing
- The first day of work was held in Ft. Lauderdale Fl, where we were trained in proper business etiquette (I felt I was in eighth grade catillion (sp?) all over again)
- The man who hired me, Carlos Castro, is extremely busy and therefore asked his right hand man, Leo Gazzo, to make sure Jose Antonio and I have enough work to do
- The first couple of days in Miami Leo had a hard time finding anything for us
- After about 3 days on the job, we finally were introduced to the weekly international liabilities report that we would end up doing each of the following weeks
-We have also engaged in a marketing project where we investigate the top 100 importers of each Latin American country and analyze which of our projects, if any, these companies have and where we can improve on
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Day
So today is election day, and everyone is anxious to find out who the new president is gonna be. Most people are pretty confident that Barack Obama will replace George W. Bush as the president, maybe because all of the polls show him ahead by a ton.
I am a conservative, but my views are based on a couple of key principles. Some of these principles include the true definition of marriage, baby's rights (anti-abortion), and adequately sized government that gets involved in necessary issues, and stays out of areas where they need not be.
Now when I say that I am for the true definition of marriage, that does not mean that I have anything against gay people, or have any desires to take away their right to choose their own life-style. I am just saying that I do not wish for any one group of people to redefine marriage for everybody else. We all know what the definition is, and I think it is important to raise future generations to understand that definition as well. I do not believe that it is right to teach young children in schools about gay couples. I repeat, this is not because I am against gay people, this is because I don't want my children getting confused about the definition of marriage.
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