The Best MBA Internships in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles metro is a rich ground for MBAs who are seeking to pivot their career paths, learn new skill sets, and widen their networks via an internship. A recent survey by the UCLA Anderson School of Management shows a breakdown of the school’s summer 2016 MBA internships, with the largest percentages falling into the categories of technology, healthcare, real estate and energy consulting. Plentiful opportunities await also for MBAs seeking careers in multi-platform entertainment and retail.

Joseph Perez — 2015 MBA graduate of the University of California Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business — worked as an intern in the North American Marketing Department of the Mattel Corporation.

He said, “I’m capitalizing on the many academic and professional opportunities because of the personal attention given to me by everyone [at Merage].”

Internships for MBAs can come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  Having already had full-time job experience, many candidates see their roles as interns as a way to acquire new skills or to expand their existing knowledge bases. Here are some of the companies seeking MBAs in the LA metro.

Internships in Los Angeles

Entertainment/Digital Media

Dreamworks is accepting resumes for MBA interns in their division of production strategy.

Warner Brothers offers summer internships in its Corporate Business Development & Strategy Department. Warner Brothers also is hiring MBA interns in their user research department.

Hulu’s Santa Monica office is hiring MBAs for their Distribution, Corporate Strategy, and Content Acquisition divisions.

Activision, also in Santa Monica, is in search of MBA candidates whose skills match the needs of their Production Management Group, which is involved in long-term vision, innovation, and business development.

Viacom seeks interns for their Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Home Research, and Studio Operations divisions.

Finance

Oaktree Capital Management is in search of a first year MBA who is willing to perform investment opportunity development, industry research and analysis, credit and shareholder agreement analysis, and negotiation/structuring of transactions.

Houlihan Lokey offers a 10 week internship this summer for an MBA seeking experience in Digital Marketing & Content Development.

Stage1 Financial, who specializes in “fully outsourced and operational finance and accounting services for fast growing brands”, is in need of a first year MBA candidate to provide financial planning, forecasting, market analysis, and long term growth planning.

Healthcare/Biotech

Medtronic is seeking an MBA for an internship in its Competitive Intelligence department, who will support the analysis, dissemination, and collection of market research for the company’s diabetes division.

Illumina, a leader in biotechnology and specifically, research on the human genome, is seeking summer MBA interns for their Finance leadership program.

Retail

Bolthouse Farms, a subsidiary of Campbell Fresh (which is itself a division of Campbell Soup Company) plans to hire an MBA-level summer marketing intern who will be responsible for product innovation, product positioning, and new item launch.

Vans is in search of a Supply Chain intern who is either in the first or second year of their MBA program. The internship will include a product development presentation to the executive team, who themselves have been known for “skating through the hallways”.

TOMS Shoes will hire a full-time intern who seeks to develop skills in Financial Planning & Analysis. The 10 week program is perfect for the MBA candidate with a specialty in social entrepreneurship, given the philanthropic mission of the TOMS company.