By Henrique Lyra Bahr T'16
Henrique is a second-year student at Tuck. Prior to school, he worked in investment management as a buy-side equity analyst in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Throughout his life, Henrique spent time in Germany (where part of his family is from) and Minnesota both studying and working. He majored in economics at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio. On campus, Henrique is an MBA Fellow at the Center for Global Business and Government, aspires to be a Tripod Hockey captain this fall, and is known to DJ school parties. He loves sports, music, and traveling. Post Tuck, he plans to work in general management.
Over the summer I was fortunate enough to have worked for Cargill, America’s largest private company with revenues of around 150bn and 153,000 employees. Truly a multinational, it helps feed the world with operations in 67 countries. Its strategy and business development group was exactly where I wanted to be when I started at Tuck (true story, it is even in my admissions essay) and the experience definitely exceeded my already high expectations. Working as an equity analyst, I had developed a passion for both the agribusiness and infrastructure sectors. Adding to the fact that I spent time growing up on a farm in Minnesota, Cargill was a natural fit for me.
While networking and going to different company briefings in the fall, one thing that struck me about Cargill and its people was the fact that an associate referred me to someone who had interned there and did NOT accept the offer to come back so I could hear both sides of the story. This truly spoke to their principles and care for their employees.
SBD is a program that prepares you to be a general manager at Cargill. It allows you to learn about the company and connect with leaders through either strategy or M&A projects. Coming in with a finance background, it was interesting to work in two important platform wide strategy projects. The first one looked at their food ingredients business and how consumer trends are shifting the nature of the industry while the second one touched on potential disruptive scenarios that could impact their agriculture supply chain strategy. The work I did at Cargill was both relevant and challenging and I was always incentivized to speak up and drive discussions.
Because of the size and breadth of the organization, Cargill has a deep understanding of almost any market and geography. It was amazing to talk to (either due to project work or personal interest) and learn from senior executives across the globe.
Finally, it was great being back in Minneapolis. I managed to go to my 10-year high school reunion and partook in many fun activities with fellow T’16s who lived in the same building as I did. The Tuck community is very strong in the area and I was able to connect not only with alumni but also a T’17.
For people looking to go into a general management role, I highly recommend looking at Cargill and networking with people there. Feel free to reach out to me about the internship and life in the Twin Cities as well!