Best MBA Internships in Atlanta
Home to peach trees as far as the eye can see, ATliens who often hide in plain sight, an international airport that boasts the world’s busiest passenger traffic, and a thriving entertainment mecca Black Filmmaker Foundation President Warrington Hudlin compared to a “black Hollywood” in a recent New York Times article, Hotlanta’s cultural and industrial narrative is rapidly changing from the simpler days as fizzy Coca-Cola country.
The Atlanta metro area currently hosts 24 Fortune 1000 corporations, including Delta Air Lines, UPS, Turner Broadcasting and Cox Communications, among others. There’s also a booming tech sector, likely thanks to the proximity of Georgia Tech and Emory, with startups like Mailchimp playing a major role in shaping Atlanta’s economy.
Atlanta offers a range of opportunities for MBA students in a diverse array of fields, from tech to finance to media. Here are a few internship programs available in the Atlanta metro area specifically geared to MBAs.
(In)famous for its quick-service airport cuisine and the controversial politics of its Founder and President Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A offers MBA internships at its Atlanta corporate office that involve “students in real work projects while also allowing time to experience many aspects of the Chick-fil-A corporate culture,” including a presidential tour, a team-building activity at WinShape WildernessSM and a “Lunch and Learn” discussions with senior executives. Internships are available in the following business divisions: Accounting, Business Analysis, Corporate Communications, Design & Construction, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Marketing, Menu Innovation, Operations, Strategic Events, Supply Chain and Training & Development.
If the fact that there’s a museum dedicated to the soft drink titan didn’t give it away, the Coca-Cola Company is Atlanta’s big kahuna—Coke permeates nearly every aspect of the city’s cultural ecology, as well as its economy. Coca-Cola offers seasonal MBA internships that allow graduate students to contribute to “big, complex projects…through innovative ideas and value creation gained both in school and through previous work experience.” According to Coke, interns who demonstrate success during their internships “may have the opportunity to become full-time Coca-Cola employees.”
AT&T, the global telecommunications behemoth that enables teenagers to loudly stream Youtube clips on public transportation, offers 12-week paid summer internships to MBAs as part of its Financial and Leadership Development Program, which is available at the communications conglomerate’s Atlanta office, among other locations. The internship is “open to first-year MBA students with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5. Applicants should have more than three years of work experience and be majoring in finance, accounting, economics or business administration.”
Initially founded as “Wandering Wifi” in 2003 by Georgia Tech alum John Marshall, AirWatch is a subsidiary of cloud services company VMware that specializes in “award-winning mobility device management software solutions…for content, applications and email.” AirWatch offers unpaid Product Management internships where interns garner experience “managing the full lifecycle of AirWatch products.” MBAs with technical undergraduate backgrounds are preferred.
Turner Broadcasting System, home to CNN, TBS, TNT, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network and round-the-clock reruns of The Shawshawk Redemption, offers paid 11-month post-graduate internship opportunities year round “across our News, Entertainment, Sports, and Corporate divisions and include hands-on learning experience in a variety of functions including: Editorial, Production, Design, PR, Marketing, Digital, Finance, Accounting and Technology.”
Delta Air Lines, the oldest airline still operating in the United States and certainly one of the busiest with more than 5,400 daily flights, offers summer MBA internship opportunities in “finance, supply chain, flight operations and cargo.”
The Blackstone Group, the world’s largest real estate private equity and alternative asset management firm that famously dropped $7.5 billion to buy up 1,400 Atlanta homes in a single day to take advantage of the housing crisis, offers 10-week paid summer associate internships at its Atlanta office “open to rising second-year MBA students with prior investment banking experience and a basic knowledge of accounting and finance.”
SunTrust operates nearly 1,500 bank branches and more than 2,200 ATMs throughout the Southeastern United States. In a legendary 1919 deal, the bank underwrote Coca-Cola’s IPO for a paltry $110,000; it’s now worth $2 billion and pays $59 million each year in dividends. SunTrust offers a 10-week Investment Banking Summer Associate program at its Atlanta Headquarters for MBA students who have just completed their first year of a program, preferably with a concentration in finance. The Investment Banking Associate plays “a meaningful role in financial analysis, pitch preparation, transaction execution and client presentations.”
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
