MA Placement Report: American Chamber of Commerce Slovakia (AmCham)

Lea Körösová

S2929341

MA Placement Report: American Chamber of Commerce Slovakia (AmCham)

SUPERVISOR: S. MASCARELL ORDOVAS

Table of Contents

I. Introduction...2

II. Orientation and Application...2

III. Expectations and Preparation...4

IV. Placement Providing Institution: AmCham...5

V. Tasks and Activities...6

VI. Reflection and impression...9

VII. Link to MA International Political Economy...11

VIII. Living Conditions in Bratislava...11

IX. Advice for Future Applicants...12

X. Conclusion...13

I. Introduction

This report includes an overview of my internship experience at the American Chamber of Commerce in Bratislava, Slovakia which I took part in between the 25th of May 2020 and 24th of July 2020. The aim of this report is to describe the whole process related to my placement, from the preparation and orientation, through activities, to special focus on reflection and learning outcomes.

The first part of the report explains the process of orientation before my internship and the consequent application procedure. The following chapter describes my expectations prior to the placement and preparation for the internship. This chapter is followed by a brief description of the placement providing institution, the American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia –AmCham. The fifth chapter is dedicated to the overview of the activities and tasks I was responsible for during the placement. In this chapter I also briefly touch upon what I learnt from doing each activity/task. The following, most important part, includes my self- reflection regarding my abilities and limits which I either discovered or made myself more sure about during the placement. It also includes the overall impression I had after finishing the placement. The next chapter is dedicated to the link between my master’s programme International Political Economy (IPE) and the placement at AmCham. Further, I briefly describe the living conditions in Bratislava and finish up with a piece of advice for future applicants. The report finishes with a short conclusion.

II. Orientation and Application

During my studies I have always been interested in topics related to lobbying, power of

multinational corporations and their role in the political system. For this reason I decided to

look for an internship in either a multinational corporation (MNC)- to better understand its

functioning, or a chamber of commerce- to better understand the position of MNCs from

the public policy point of view. Another one of my interests included environmental issues

so I intended to include this in my searching process too. I sent various versions of my CV to

big companies, to various offices of Greenpeace as well as to embassies and chambers of commerce.

What I found the most difficult about the orientation and application process was the fact that for a student of international relations in general, or international political economy in particular, it is very hard if not almost impossible to find and offer for an internship.

Rather, I was forced to think about companies and organizations where I would like to work and contact them directly. This was tricky insofar as it is much harder to think of qualities these internship providers were looking for without having a job offer in front of you, where all these things are listed clearly. However, my supervisor provided me with valuable advice which definitely helped me a lot to get my internship.

As mentioned above, I did not find my internship opportunity listed on LinkedIn or Indeed. After a few weeks of searching for a company or organization where I would love to do my internship I was casually scrolling through the Euractiv website where I saw the American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia (AmCham) as a sponsor. I looked at their website and AmCham was an organization that was offering everything I was looking for:

lobbying, interest in environmental issues and multinational corporations as partners. Seeing all my interests come together made me act quickly and I contacted them even though there was no offer where the organization would be looking for interns. After explaining who I was and what I study I was lucky and got a quick reply with a request for my CV. Again, my supervisor gave me a valuable advice to also add a motivation letter even though they never asked for one, and it worked. A few days later I got a reply with an invitation for an interview which I successfully passed and got my dream internship.

When it comes to preparation for all of this, I definitely took my time to prepare my CV as

well as to prepare myself for the interview thoroughly. Due to the fact that AmCham did not

list any internship offer, I had to figure out who they are looking for and how I can be that

person. My internship supervisor advised me to study their website and think about who I

would be working with if they accepted me. AmCham has a policy team composed of three

people so I directly focused on those and studied their areas of interest and how I could

contribute to their work if I was their intern. One of the policy team members was

responsible for the rule of law which I know a lot about from my studies so I connected my

experience to that. Another point of connection was Energy Committee where I saw myself as helping with environmental topics. Overall, I highlighted how relevant my education is for the position of an intern in a chamber of commerce insofar as my studies are perfectly fitted for work which fuses politics and economy. I also added soft skills such as excellent communication skills, organizational skills, attention to detail or time-management, which I think were decisive for getting the internship.

Before the interview I also made sure that I know as much as possible about AmCham and to have a clear idea about how I can contribute with my knowledge and skills to what the organization does. I have to recognize that I partly failed one question during the interview where they asked me about three things I would change in the Slovak economic and political system if I could and I was too quick to tell them that I honestly do not know because I have been abroad for five years and lost track about the situation in Slovakia.

However, I was also quick to add that I see the internship at AmCham as an opportunity for me to get to know the Slovak system more to be able to think of what needs to be changed in order to make Slovakia a better place to live and do business. That was another advice from my coordinator applied in practice: always turn it into an opportunity to learn.

An important thing to note is that I was looking for the internship when the pandemic started and I was a little bit afraid whether I will be able to find anything in this unfortunate situation. However, I was surprised that many companies were offering remote internships and therefore it was not as hard as I thought it would be. In my case, they even offered me to start the internship a little later than initially planned so that I could enjoy more of the benefits of normal work, not just working from home, once they got back to the office.

III. Expectations and Preparation

When it comes to expectations I had prior to the internship, I was very excited to work for an

organization that has an ideology that I am 100% in line with and which is such an important

part of the system in Slovakia. Yet, I was a little afraid of not being challenged and doing

mostly administrative work because a friend of mine who worked for a chamber of

commerce in another country was very disappointed. I was also a little worried about me

working in my native language again because I am used to do everything in English now and it is sometimes hard for me to talk or write about things from my studies in Slovak. Overall, my expectations were high and I was looking forward to start the internship, while still having a lot of respect for becoming a part of such a high-level organization. My preparation for the job consisted of reading daily news from Slovakia so that I get more familiar with the whole political and economic situation.

IV. Placement Providing Institution: AmCham

AmCham Slovakia is a chamber of commerce located in the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, whose members are more than 300 small, medium and multinational enterprises.

AmCham’s goal is to create a more business-friendly environment in Slovakia and to increase competitiveness of the country through lobbying in the areas of education, healthcare, rule of law, tax and artificial intelligence. The policy team who carries out lobbying activities consists of three people who I was in close contact with during my internship. The team is responsible for contributing to transformation of the above mentioned areas in the Slovak system so that the country progresses and the member companies have a better place to do business. This team is supported by the event team consisting of two people who are responsible for organizing conferences, business cocktails and lately also webinars as a new feature added due to the pandemic. These events serve for networking between the member companies where they can share best practices, meet other people from their business sphere and make new useful contacts.

Apart from the above mentioned teams, AmCham is organized based on four pillars:

institutional capital, human capital, regional capital and innovation capital. Institutional capital focuses on the concept of the rule of law, tax, public procurement and civil code.

These areas are further managed by committees or task forces which consist of leaders of

member companies that are interested in the given area. Overall, the aim of this capital is to

ensure fair, stable and transparent business environment in Slovakia. The human capital or

capital of talents focuses on increasing competitiveness of Slovakia through education. More

specifically, the main task is to connect the needs of the job market with the skills of young

professionals. For this, AmCham co-created the so called Business Service Centre Forum and

Employment & Social Affairs Committee. The third, regional capital is the newest from the

four and has its headquarters in the east of Slovakia, in Košice. Under this concept, AmCham’s aim is to improve the business environment of eastern Slovakia which is underdeveloped compared to the west. And lastly, the innovation capital focuses on areas of artificial intelligence –where AmCham is a proud co-founder of the Slovak AI platform; digital transformation, energy, healthcare and R&D. Similarly as in the first pillar, these three pillars are also organized based on committees where leaders of member companies can form an important part and help guiding the transformation of the public system through lobbying.

V. Tasks and Activities

Due to the rare situation of the world pandemic that started in spring, I started my internship online and continued working from home for about a month. While this may sound unfortunate, I was actually very happy for being able to start my internship without any problems, even despite the pandemic. I enjoyed working from home because at the time I was starting my internship I was still finishing my MA thesis and remote work saved me almost 3 hours of travelling per day, which I used for writing the thesis.

A few of my first tasks included preparing material necessary for meetings with

various ministers and secretaries of state. Due to the fact that Slovakia elected a new

government in April 2020, I had to conduct a research and collect information about newly

appointed officials in order for my colleagues who were supposed to attend the meeting to

have a clear idea who these officials are, what their education is and what kind of

professional experience they have. More importantly, I had to collect information from the

newly elected government’s program statement relevant for the given ministries in order to

see the government’s priorities for the upcoming years. Furthermore, my task was to find

overlaps between the ministry’s priorities and the objectives of AmCham in the field in order

for my colleagues to be able to see which topics are relevant for discussion during the

meeting. During the first three weeks I prepared similar materials for meetings with Minister

of Finance, Minister of Education and the ministries’ state secretaries, Minister of

Investment and Informatization and for a meeting with the director of the Institute Value for

Money. This task helped me to gain more insight into the government’s priorities for the

upcoming years and it also helped me to get more familiar with the newly elected ministers and related public officials.

Another one of my tasks was to prepare a list of events which AmCham organized during 2019 for small and medium enterprises. This is an important document insofar as it shows the value the chamber created during 2019 for this kind of companies. Furthermore, I prepared a so called Legislative and Policy updated for May, June and July 2020 where I collected the most important news related to the four pillars around which AmCham works:

Rule of Law, Education, AI & Healthcare and Regional Capital. This is another service for the member companies which provides them with a quick and easy access to the most important news from Slovak business and political environment and which can be further used in the companies’ reports. The first task helped me to get more familiar with events AmCham organized last year, while the second task gave me an overview of the most important news every month and helped me to become better oriented in the field. From the third week onwards I also had the opportunity to attend online meetings with my colleagues where we discussed work progress of each of us and it also served to create informal ties between us.

At the end of June I was responsible for preparing an important document with

profiles of four candidates which aspired to become the new chairman of the Office for

Regulation of Electronic Communications and Postal Services. Consequently, at the

beginning of July, together with my colleague from the policy team –Michal Krčméry, I

attended the first ever public discussion related to the election process of the candidates

where the document was used as a quick guide for people from AmCham to be able to

quickly check some facts about the candidates. It was amazing for me to see Michal’s hard

work becoming the new reality for election processes in Slovak public institutions. While

introducing a public hearing when choosing a new head of a public institute may sound as a

small step, it is a big step for Slovakia where lack of transparency and political nominations

rule the system. This showed me how incredibly important this kind of job is and how much

one can change when he/she is passionate about it and works hard.

Apart from preparing the various documents mentioned above, an important part of my internship was attendance of webinars organized by AmCham. During the first five weeks I had the opportunity to attend 10 online webinars. The topics varied per each webinar but the most interesting were related to the financial recovery of the European Union after the COVID-19 pandemic, webinar about experience economy, webinar about Slovak science and economy transformation, webinar about emotional agility as a key to business success in the 21

century, and finally, a webinar about how the pandemics has changed the role of women in the economy.

Moreover, at the end of June I started an externship provided by one of the member companies –AT&T, where I had the opportunity to gain knowledge from areas such as retail, leadership, self-development and technology. This summer academy was composed of 80 hours of online courses taught by various important scientists, psychologists, managers and experts from various fields working with AT&T. Upon finishing these courses I received a badge through Credly which is a valuable addition to my current CV.

At the beginning of July, when I started to go to the office in person, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting with my colleague from the policy team –Petra Zappe, who focuses on AI and healthcare. Petra invited various professionals from healthcare field which are leaders of some of the member companies together with young professionals developing an app which would facilitate diagnosis of cardiac diseases, thus fusing AI with healthcare. While I was there only to observe, it gave me a valuable insight into how to negotiate between two sides of professionals who have a slightly different expectations and priorities and still get them to agree on steps they will take together to achieve a certain goal.

Another meeting I attended was organised by the executive director of AmCham, Ronald

Blaško, who invited some of the most important people from the business and public

environment in Slovakia to discuss how to use EU funds for a post-COVID-19 recovery in a

most effective way to transform Slovakia into a prosperous country with high potential. I had

the chance to witness people like vice-governor of the Slovak National Bank, CEO of O2

Slovakia, head of the national crisis economic group, head of Matador Group and head of

the Slovak Academy of Sciences and many other leaders of important multinational

corporations residing in Slovakia discussing the future of our country. Being a part of this incredibly important meeting gave me the feeling that AmCham is really doing a lot to change Slovakia for the better and ensuring that the plan is developed and supported by professionals from various fields to ensure a complex input. Once again, by observing and listening to the ideas of the professionals I have learnt a lot about communication, negotiation and teamwork to maximize the potential of the output.

Finally, my last task during the internship was a little different from everything I have done before. I was responsible for designing a new website for one of the AmCham’s concepts – Train the Trainer, which is a programme where teachers and professors from high schools and universities can learn about feedback, social skills, time management and other similar topics. This task is very creative and was a little more difficult than I expected insofar as I have never done anything like that before. However, it was a great opportunity to learn something new which I can surely use in the future.

VI. Reflection and impression

During my internship I had the opportunity to find out what I enjoy doing, what my abilities are but I also found out aspects which I need to improve when it comes to work.

I feel like I do have good communication skills and it showed during my internship too, either when communicating with my colleagues or with important people at meetings I attended. However, I think I could have been more proactive in some cases but because this was my first experience in such environment, I had a lot of respect and rather stayed in the background many times. I think I can improve this by time when I become more comfortable in this kind of environment. In general, I found myself being more introverted than I thought I am and I found out I really enjoy working alone which I had the chance to do when working from home. However, I also enjoyed the days spent at the office but these rather served me for networking and getting to know my colleagues more and building relationships with them.

When it comes to time-management, I do think I am very good at this insofar as I always

handed in everything on time or before the deadline. I also proved myself to be quite

flexible and sometimes worked after my working hours when necessary. Strangely, what I found a little hard during my internship was working in my native language because during the last five years I studied in English. But by the end of my internship I was much more comfortable working in Slovak so I think this is just a matter of time until I get used to it completely.

There is one thing I do believe I need to improve and that is creativity. My last task, designing a new website, where I was allowed to do whatever I wanted to, showed me that I am not as creative as I thought I am. I definitely need to work on my creativity more and this task helped me to begin.

With regards to the impression I had after my internship, I have to say I am really glad I had the opportunity to work for an organization that is truly changing Slovakia for the better.

Overall, the internship was challenging insofar as I had to do things I never did before and had to orientate in various fields and topics quickly. Moreover, I had the chance to meet people with amazing mindsets and get inspired by them. The combination of remote and normal way of working showed me the benefits and limitations of both and taught me how to be productive from home too.

However, there are two thing I missed during my internship. One of them were events which AmCham often organizes. But due to the pandemic, these were replaced by online webinars which were also amazing but I missed the networking part. However, my colleagues were kind enough to invite me to events which AmCham will be hosting in September so that I get a bit of this experience too. I also really liked that my colleagues offered me the summer learning academy which was a great bonus to my internship.

Overall, they were always there for me when I needed help or an explanation of something that was unclear to me, which made me feel safer and more confident about my work.

The second thing I missed was the connection to the environmental issues I expected.

When applying for the internship, I really liked the fact that AmCham has an Energy

Committee which focuses on environmental issues related to energy. However, this

committee is largely inactive right now and therefore I did not have the chance to gain

experience in this field. Yet, I have to say that I gained valuable insights into the fields of AI, healthcare, education and the rule of law. Right now, my goal for the future is to focus a little more on environmental issues and gain the knowledge from the field I expected to gain during the internship.

VII. Link to MA International Political Economy

When it comes to the connection between my internship at AmCham and my International Political Economy (IPE) studies, it fits perfectly.

As mentioned above, I have always been interested in how multinational corporations operate and what is their role in the public system. AmCham gave me a valuable insight into what these entities do and how they can influence public norms, rules and legislation.

Moreover, my internship was also related to my MA thesis where my goal was to learn more about whether and how ExxonMobil tried to influence the US decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. While writing my thesis and doing the research on the topic I found a lot of interesting information about multinationals lobbying in the Congress. However, I never completely understood how this works and how they can influence public policy. My internship at AmCham showed me one way how this works in Slovakia, and I feel like I finally better understand the whole process of lobbying, its potential and its limits.

Overall, this internship transformed a fair amount of theory I learnt during my MA IPE studies into practice or at least to a better understanding of how it works in practice.

VIII. Living Conditions in Bratislava

Regarding the living conditions in Bratislava, I cannot really say how much does it cost insofar as I lived with my parents in a small city 60km away from Bratislava.

However, for instance, I can say that compared to the Netherlands, travelling is very

cheap in Slovakia and in Bratislava in particular too. Every time I travelled from my city to

Bratislava by train it costed me between 2,78 euros and 3,70 euros. Moreover, the public

transport in Bratislava costed me 63 euro cents for one hour which is incredibly cheap. I

would recommend downloading an application called IDS BK through which it is very easy

and cheaper to buy public transport tickets than if bought from the vending machines on the streets. The application is in English so it is very easy to navigate for everyone. When it comes to safety in Bratislava, it is a fairly safe city. In general, Slovakia is a safe country. The only thing I would recommend is to be a bit more careful during the night but I find that as a normal thing to do anywhere I am. What I find the best about Bratislava is the variety of amazing food one can find right in the city centre. Almost all the restaurants offer a so-called daily menu which includes a soup and a main course and can cost anywhere between 5 and 10 euros, depending on a restaurant.

Overall, Bratislava is an amazing city for young people with a lot of culture and many interesting events which is not very expensive for living. I do think that if one decides to do his/her internship here, he/she will be very pleasantly surprised and will enjoy it a lot.

IX. Advice for Future Applicants

My main advice for future applicants is not to be afraid to contact companies/organizations directly even without an internship offer. If you like a certain company/organization, you are in line with their ideology and with what they do and you are passionate about at least some of their topic they work with, contact them. I was lucky to find my internship this way and I could have not done it better. It is much more important to do what you like and dedicate your time and effort to topics you really like than to work for a company you do not really like or just doing and internship for the sake of doing it. You will not be happy and you will not be eager to learn as much as in case you like what you do and you like where you work.

Do your research, be informed and don’t be afraid.

I would also highly recommend doing something outside your studies insofar as this is highly valued when accepting applicants for internship. And finally, highlight your soft skills.

During my studies I worked as a waitress for four years and I included that in my CV. What

did I learn there that can be valuable for internship in a chamber of commerce? Teamwork,

time-management and communication skills. Learn to use skills you gained in you summer

part-time job or some volunteering position for showing you are the right person for the

internship. Not only because you had high grades, but because you did something in practice and gained some skills by doing it. Even though it is not related to your studies at all.

Good luck!

X. Conclusion

My placement experience at AmCham was a great opportunity to learn new skills and become more self-confident. Most importantly, it gave me the practical experience I was missing after the years spent at university learning about all these concepts from international relations and international political economy theories. My internship at AmCham changed these abstract concepts into practical knowledge and filled me with eagerness to work with what I learnt during my studies and use it to change things in the public sphere for the better.

I certainly became more confident about my skills such as time-management or good

communication and it pushed me to get better at creativity and teamwork. Overall, I gained

a valuable insight into various fields in which AmCham operates and it showed me what I

would like to do in the future. Right now I am motivated to make change it the public sphere

where it is needed, and I am not afraid to dig into new topics such as AI because I know I am

able to orientate quickly and learn new things without any problem. To sum up, I believe

that internship as a mandatory last step for finishing a master’s degree is an amazing

opportunity for everyone insofar as it really transformed the abstract knowledge I gained

during the studies into a tangible experience.