Today began our second phase of shadowing. Saavan and I are shadowing Pauline Ashcraft who works in Risk Management. The morning began with a quick tour of building T and an introduction to what Risk Management really is. Pauline talked to Saavan and I about the work she does which includes helping outside banks and insurance manage the risk they are taking on. She also works on the marketing side of risk and works to sell companies software that will help them manage their risk. She talked to us about her career journey and how she ended up in risk management. She graduated from NC State in 2016 and had worked at SAS as a summer intern in college. After the morning of introductions, it was time for lunch. At lunch, we met two of her colleagues, John and Tatiana. They also work on her team of people who work on the marketing side of risk management. They both told us about their career journey’s and how they ended up at SAS.
Since Saavan and I aren’t very sure what section of business we are most interested in yet, Pauline wanted us to get to know many different parts of a business. She brought in one of her friends, Nick Davis, who works in Sales at SAS, to talk to us about his experiences. Nick talked about how much he enjoys traveling the country to talk to customers and make sales. He noted that while Sales can be a stressful division of a business, it is fun because you get to travel a lot and interact with people across the country. After we talked to Nick, Pauline had a meeting with her team about their plans for the upcoming month. We sat through this meeting for some time before we got to learn more about marketing from another one of Pauline’s colleagues, Casey. She talked to us about the intersection of marketing and sales and different strategies that SAS uses to market their software. She also talked to us about how SAS manages their marketing by measuring its effectiveness. They make sure that they quantify how many new customers a specific kind of marketing brings, in order to better market their products in the future. Overall, it was a very informative day and I enjoyed getting to see a new side of the business.
