Ashley Friedow

Major: Apparel, Merchandising, and Design
Minor/option/emphasis: AMD-Merchandising
Company/Organization: Centric Brands
Company/Organization website: http://www.centricbrands.com
Destination: New York, New York
Timeframe: Summer
Advisor/Coordinator Email: annthye@iastate.edu

Responsibilities

Assisted with small errands, conduct trend research, market research, comp shopping, develop color palettes, keep showrooms looking nice, look for material swatch cards to review for sourcing, conduct cost analysis and comparisons and work with cross-functional teams. Also, interns were put into groups to work on a program long project that was presented to the CEO and company employees.

Accomplishments

For our intern group project, we showcased some issues our handbag brands were having and showed solutions and ways to improve brand awareness. After this was presented to the CEO, he asked us to present again and this time the whole department of the brand we worked on came down. The man who oversees the brand as a whole was impressed and asked us to send him our ideas from our presentation so he could pitch some of the ideas to Kohl's in their next meeting.

What advice would you give?

Practice prioritizing tasks, staying organized and don't be afraid to communicate with your team. That's how you make great connections and that could lead to great opportunities in the future.

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