Left to right: Victoria Wieben, Martha Kiarie, Christine Katembo, and Prof David Sperling at Chevron headquarters

“When I learnt about the internship program, I was eager to learn more about the application process, which I did through previous attendees of the program from Strathmore University - Ken Kobia and Erick Kiambati,” said Christine.

“The application is online and it is grueling. It includes writing three essays, a cover letter, a resume and academic transcripts with a GPA of 3.0 and above. It is the only international internship program that the corporation has. It takes 30 interns each summer, so the competition for the positions is pretty tight,” Christine added.

“The 30 international interns in our program came from as diverse places as Kazakstan, Britain, Nigeria, and China. The program coordinator, Victoria Wieben made our transition to the US very easy. The company provided us with the appropriate letters to enable us to get visas to the US. It also paid for our flight and organised for our boarding at a neighbouring hotel,” Martha added.

Chevron Corporation, global energy company with multi-functional units from drilling, refining, marketing and selling oil is a fortune 500 company. So what did Christine and Martha do at Chevron?

“I worked under the Global Marketing Finance Team. Some of my projects included preparing the 2008-2010 budgets, preparing the Global marketing and office of the president scorecards for May and June and reviewing and updating the current Travel, Meeting & Entertainment Stewardship (TEMS) process. These projects were very challenging but I knew that what I did was actually making a contribution to the company because the projects were not simulations but real on goings in the company,” Martha revealed.

“My internship was with the Global Marketing Solutions, specifically the Franchise Development Center of Focus. My work involved planning and coordinating the 2007 North America Marketing Convention i.e. to provide awareness of the franchise to prospective and eligible franchisees and outline the progress of the new franchise store,” Christine said

“The other element of my work within the franchise team included collecting feedback from the managers, employees and business consultants of gas stations and convenient stores to develop appropriate tactics for deployment,” Christine added.

Christine and Martha were the first ladies from Africa to be accepted in the program. They are glad and proud to have been the first ladies to represent Strathmore University as well.

“It was a great experience. We were exposed to different cultures and it was great to interact with people form all over the world,” Christine and Martha enthused.