Filip Lempa '11 - I spent a significant part of my summer interning with PZU Życie SA, a life insurance division of the PZU Group. The PZU Group is the leader of the insurance market and one of the largest financial institutions in Poland. It is also one of the top insurance firms in Central and Eastern Europe.

I had the pleasure of working with three regional sales managers in Katowice, Poland, which has the largest network of PZU local branches in the whole country. The experience of working with my three mentors in the sales and client relation division was extremely rewarding. I learned a lot about how an insurance company operates and familiarized myself with different insurance and financial products. I had the opportunity to travel to eight local branches where my mentors and I instructed the employees about different sale-increasing strategies. I also prepared a very interesting analysis of the performance of the PZU structured product and designed a brochure that informed property insurance clients about PZU life insurance and financial products.

I have to admit that the PZU culture was a great fit for me. Everybody I worked with wanted to make sure that I learned a lot and make the most out of my internship. Moreover, I was very surprised to learn that almost all of the employees right away wanted me to call them by their first name. I found myself going back to the Katowice PZU office even when my internship came to an end. My mentors still wanted to share useful knowledge with me and I even got invited to participate in a high-level PZU recruiting process upon expressing interest in learning more about HR explaining that I work as a Peer Career Advisor on the Wabash Campus. I’m sure that I will keep in touch with all these great people in many years to come.

Interning with the PZU Group was recommended to me by Bastian Wonschik’00, my career mentor. I’m very happy that I followed Bastian’s recommendation and I encourage every student to consult our alumni as well as the Schroeder Center for Career Development about their future careers.