Summer Internship Spotlight: Max Wenzel (B’26), Restaurant Brands International

Each year, our students spend their summers in Washington, D.C., across the nation, and around the world working in corporate, nonprofit, and government organizations. Meet a few of our graduate and undergraduate students in our Summer Internship Spotlight series.

Following his long-term career interest in the food and beverage industry, Max Wenzel (B’26) spent the summer interning with Restaurant Brand International (RBI) at their office in Miami, Florida. Here, Wenzel shares insights into his day-to-day work, the impactful projects he worked on, and key takeaways from his internship experience. 

Tell us about your internship.

This summer, I worked at Restaurant Brands International (RBI), the parent company of Burger King, Popeyes, Firehouse Subs, and Tim Horton’s, as a leadership development program (LDP) intern on the Burger King Latin America Innovation team. As an LDP intern, we were each given ownership over a specific project within our respective teams. My project was focused on overseeing the end-to-end launch of a new product category within 32 Burger King Latin American markets in alignment with the global leadership teams’ strategic goal to drive revenue growth.

In my role, I acted as a product development and category manager for an upcoming product launch, which entailed everything from assessing the initial opportunity scope across markets, collecting and analyzing consumer insights data and trends, working with international suppliers to create custom developments, coordinating with packaging and distribution companies to navigate logistical constraints, collaborating with master franchisees across each market to understand their needs and priorities, performing financial analyses to forecast potential sales growth and pricing, designing and launching a $40K concept test to screen product concepts, working in a test kitchen to develop and validate the winning concepts in an official taste test, and developing the communication strategy upon launch after my departure. Each step of the process, from the initial exploration phase to the final launch stage, ultimately led up to two final presentations, where I shared my recommendations in a business case to the chief marketing officer for Burger King Latin America and the regional president for RBI Latin America.

How did your internship relate to your professional or personal interests? 

I have a career goal to either open up a fast-casual restaurant chain, create a consumer packaged goods (CPG) food brand, or work in the restaurant industry down the road, which made RBI an attractive place to intern. I was able to not only get direct industry experience, but I was also given the trust to drive and own a large-scale project. Building something from scratch and thinking about every step that goes into creating a successful product was exciting in that every day brought new challenges and gave me an early entrepreneurial taste of what it would be like to create something with the guardrails and “safety net” of working within a globally-renowned company. I was able to dive deep into understanding everything from how customers think and what their needs are to how we can deliver with limited resources to achieve a mutually beneficial goal. This internship gave me a glimpse of what I hope to do one day in some capacity, and I feel lucky to have learned and worked on the projects I did during my time there.

How did you find your internship? 

Last summer, I was going through the recruiting process for a consulting internship while also exploring opportunities in the food and beverage space. I came across this role on Handshake and immediately became interested as I learned how much ownership I would be given over projects as an intern – it was essentially a consulting position within the industry I wanted to work in. From there, I applied in September and went through the interview process, which closely mirrored the case interview process for consulting recruitment, and received the offer in December after four rounds of interviews. 

What is the most interesting or impactful thing you worked on during your internship?

The entire experience was incredibly rewarding and exciting from beginning to end. Going into the internship, I knew I wanted to work somewhere in product strategy or innovation, but I wasn’t sure if this was possible or which brand I would be placed in. Because I hardly knew how to speak Spanish, I was initially hesitant when I learned I was placed into the Burger King Latin American team, but this ended up being a blessing in disguise. I discovered how interesting it is to work on an international team. For example, Burger King is viewed in a brighter light internationally than in the United States, so there is room to experiment with innovative menu items. 

Being part of the Latin American team gave the ability to wear many hats due to the team’s smaller size and more entrepreneurial feel compared to the U.S. team. Not only was I able to develop a product recommendation, but it was also my responsibility to negotiate with the suppliers, develop the communications around the launch, run innovation sessions in the test kitchen, coordinate with the franchisees and area managers, build relationships across teams to get information I needed, and so on. As a result, I was able to interact with many parts of the business and dive deep into the operations and strategy piece – projects that I was hoping, but not expecting, to get out of my time at RBI. Additionally, I was able to build relationships quickly across global teams in order to build a cross-functional skill set and strengthen my business case. Because of all of this, I was able to learn quickly, understand the business from every angle, feel a sense of ownership, and leave a lasting mark on the team.

What did a typical day look like? 

I know it’s cliché, but no day looked the same. Some days I would spend hours in the test kitchen with my RBI apron on experimenting with new builds, tasting upcoming innovation menu offerings, or working alongside executive chefs to understand the technical side of culinary innovation and menu development. Other days I would be at my desk on calls with franchisees and suppliers, analyzing market and survey data in Excel, meeting with teams in RBI offices across the globe, giving project updates to my team, building out my final PowerPoint presentation, coffee chatting with people outside of my project scope to learn more about their careers, attending lunch and learns with brand leaders, celebrating a team birthday – the list goes on. One added perk was that the Tim Horton’s culinary innovation team sat directly behind us, so there were always extra unreleased drinks and pastries to try. 

Early on in the internship, I also did an in-restaurant day where I trained and worked in a store, learning the operational procedures and builds, meeting the employees, and fulfilling orders to truly understand the business from the ground up. Beyond work hours, I would often get dinners with the team and other interns, in addition to the many intern events the campus team hosted for us in the Miami area. There was no day that felt dull!

What advice do you have for other students when it comes to internships?

Don’t feel like you have to follow the beaten path of what everyone else does. If you have an interest in a specific industry or type of work, put yourself out there and don’t think twice about it. Ultimately, the experience you have and the impact you make – no matter what the role is – is entirely dependent on your ability to overcome constant learning obstacles with an open mindset. You can’t do that if you don’t actually enjoy the work you are doing. Comparison is the thief of joy, so while it may seem like you have to pursue a specific career path, know that you are on a unique path and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks – just focus on yourself! 

My other piece of advice is to be nice to yourself and be patient. Trust that you will end up where you are meant to be, so long as you always put your best foot forward, have a growth mindset, and follow genuine interests. Also, have enough confidence in your abilities that got you to where you are now – even if things don’t seem to go to plan at first – to help you overcome those moments of doubt or uncertainty.

In terms of working in an internship, my best piece of advice is to immerse yourself in the experience. Get to know everyone you work with on a professional and personal level because doing so will allow you to get comfortable actively contributing to discussions. Don’t “just be the intern” – be a curious and genuine thought partner who brings a new approach and perspective. What separates good interns from great ones are those who are seen as co-workers because they are able to ask the right questions, learn quickly, and apply it in a way that demonstrates ability. The added benefit is that you also learn more about yourself in a career context (i.e. what it’s like to work a full-time job, your ideal work style, effective communication, office culture, etc.) and it’s these things that I think are just as, if not more, important to know than the everyday subject matter itself as you enter your early career.