Summer Internship Spotlight: Ankita Kochhar (MBA'19), Inspiring Capital

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. This month, we’re featuring Full-time MBA students with particularly interesting summer internships.

Ankita Kochhar (MBA’19)

MBA Consulting Fellow, Inspiring Capital
New York, New York

Inspiring Capital’s MBA Social Impact Fellowship is a competitive 10-week paid fellowship, pairing top MBA students with large social enterprises and mission-driven corporations to work on consulting projects to drive sustainable change. One cohort of fellows is located in New York, and the other is located in Durham, North Carolina.

What are you doing this summer?

I am spending my summer at Inspiring Capital, a B Corporation. (B Corp is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee). My fellowship project focuses on researching behavior change (the concept of nudge) to increase employee engagement. The first half of my project has been spent interviewing employees across all levels at American Express, helping curate content for a workshop in late July for a 300-person team. The second half is focused on researching new partnership opportunities and potential revenue streams for Inspiring Capital, then delivering recommendations.

How does Inspiring Capital relate to your professional or personal interests?

Before business school, I worked in VC, analytics, and social impact. I wanted to work in the intersection of my passion and experience. Working at a company that is so immersed in the concept of conscious capitalism sounded perfect.

I love everyone I work with, and I’m enjoying working out of a co-shared working space. I have a lot of autonomy and support and get to be hands-on involved in every client meeting. Having whiteboard walls at work is pretty cool — I get to brainstorm-doodle all over the place.

How did you find the internship?

I first came across the posting for Inspiring Capital on McDonough CareerView, our internal job posting website, and the career coaches at Georgetown encouraged me to apply. Throughout the interview process (five rounds!), this company felt right. The questions and exercises were thoughtful and pushed me (just the right amount) out of my comfort zone.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve done this summer?

Every Monday, we have a training day, where we get to interact with the best companies: from Cornerstone Research and DKNY to Chobani and the Robinhood Foundation. We get to spend one day a week in their offices, learning a new skill, talking about sustainability and purpose, and delivering a 10-minute presentation on something that personally matters to us. Just like at Georgetown McDonough, I have a “study team”: we provide support to each other on our projects and hold each other accountable. It is hard to believe, but in just a few short weeks, I feel like I have a whole set of new close friends.

Before my internship began, I spent three weeks traveling through France, Spain, and Portugal. I met my five-month-old goddaughter for the first time and spent a lot of time cramped in the back of a van with my sister and our 6’5″ tall 18-year-old cousin. It has been an incredible summer so far, and I can already see how much I’ve learned in one year as I (re)think through business models, customer research, and navigating data.