Business Development Intern Review

The internship as a whole was a great experience. The Amex culture is extremely welcoming and fosters collaboration, whilst the business model means it has a very broad range of business lines, so I learnt a lot and enjoyed it at the same time. The office atmosphere is also very relaxed for a corporate company.

There was not a single instance when I felt belittled by my colleagues. The hierarchy is very flat in a social sense, and I frequently found myself interacting with senior business leaders. Moreover, I was given meaningful projects that will contribute to the direction of the business going forward, and people were more than obliging when it came to putting aside time to help me out. Although you go in with zero knowledge, Amex treats you as any other employee and values you for your enthusiasm and effort.

I had 2 managers during my time at the company, and both were always available to provide help or guidance. I was never intimidated, and they made a conscious effort to check in on me and ensure I was happy in a pastoral sense as well as in a more professional, working capacity. I also had a 'buddy', who I spoke to at frequent intervals, and my Director and Vice Presidents even set aside time to check in on me.

I was balancing two projects at the same time, and I was always able to work on one of them. In the few cases when I had free time, people were excellent in facilitating further learning by letting me do job shadowing, call listening, client visits etc. The only time when I was less busy was on Fridays - the majority of people in my department work from home, so I had fewer meetings.

I was given enough guidance to know in which direction I should be heading with my projects, but my managers never did any of the work for me, and encouraged me to work independently. Part of my role involved speaking to external partners and other clients, and they were more than happy for me to be 'the face of Amex' despite only having been there a few weeks. This was exciting.

Having inside knowledge of how a company of this scale works is helpful in itself, but beyond that Amex provided a good amount of training to further my skill set. Alongside learning about the business model and the world of merchant acquisition, I participated in several presentation workshops, an Excel workshop, and the Speaker Series amongst other things.

The atmosphere was always jovial and I rarely felt under pressure. It's a relaxed place where people are also productive, and everyone makes an effort to get to know one another, which makes you feel valued - I was invited to many after-works events etc. The only negative aspect in this regard is that sometimes the office was a bit quiet, because in a client-facing team a lot of people are often out on client visits or working from home.

The structure was made clear from the outset, and all the intern engagement events were extremely well planned by HR. My department were also very good at organising social events. The assessment aspect of the internship was quite clearly outlined at the start of the process, and I always felt like I knew what stage I was at. One negative was that I found it difficult to gain an understanding of the structure of the company because of its vastness, and I think this could have been better explained.

As mentioned above, there was ample opportunity to participate not only in intern training days and events, but also specific training days put on for my department. It is clear to me that training and development opportunities are open to all employees, and very much encouraged in the workplace. They also have different employee-led committees to rate the department on how it is doing in terms of training and development and provide suggestions for the future, which in my mind demonstrates a real commitment to supporting employees as they develop their careers.

The organisation is absolutely enormous in terms of breadth, and all managers actively encourage their employees to gain as much exposure as possible to learn as much as possible. Therefore, I think working at Amex long-term is attractive because you'd never get bored. I've enjoyed the role I've been doing, but should I be offered a permanent position I'm sure I'd see other areas I'd like to experience too, and Amex would help to facilitate these kind of moves.

We had a group of interns that got on really well, and we had lunch together most days. People were from diverse backgrounds but were certainly like-minded, and several times we went for drinks and organised to do other activities outside work. We'll certainly be keeping in touch in the future, and the network we've built amongst ourselves will be valuable later on.

It's Central London. Accommodation is extremely expensive and socialising is equally pricey. Transport is also very expensive. At the same time, it's one of the best cities to live in because it's so fast-moving and exciting, and Amex also pay you easily enough to afford the accommodation/food/transport, and have some left over.

There are lots of bars but not so many clubs. Victoria (where the Amex office is) is a good place to go for a drink after work, but if you're looking for a longer Friday night adventure then you'll have to jump on the tube and head elsewhere. In general, though, there was a good variety of bars and a good atmosphere around the place.

We had a department offsite for 2 days when I joined, where we went to Centerparcs. It was great for team bonding (although not so much for getting work done..!). We also had a community day, and plenty of opportunities to go for team lunch etc. However, all of these were within work time - it was a bit lacking in terms of opportunities that were strictly outside work - a lot of the team live quite far away and don't meet up on the weekends, and I was disappointed that it wasn't very easy to get involved in 5-a-side football or something similar.