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Sports Sundays @ Anderson: Student Profile – Sheldon Fields

Interested in leveraging an MBA degree to break into the Sports industry? There’s no uniform way to recruit for sports, but UCLA Anderson offers the resources and tools to help you reach your goal of landing a dream sports business job.  With our Sports Business AssociationCenter for Media, Entertainment & Sports (MEMES), lecturers who are sports industry executives, and robust alumni network working in the sports industry, you’re sure to knock it out of the park on your interviews and hit a home run by getting internship and job offersIn honor of #SportsSundays, here’s an article about our MVPUCLA Anderson MBA recent Class of 2016 grad Sheldon Fields and how he leveraged his degree to enter a Corporate Finance career at Nike. 

The below is an excerpt from the full profile which originally appeared on the UCLA Anderson Parker Career Management Center’s blog. Read the full profile here

Name: Sheldon Fields ’16

Hometown: West Orange, NJ

College/Major: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Economics/Management

Pre-Business School: Sales & Trading at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Investment Banking at Royal Bank of Scotland

Summer Internship: Corporate Finance at Nike, Inc.

Post-Anderson: Manager, Global Business Planning @ Nike, Inc.


PRE-ANDERSON

Why business school? I wanted to transition from a career in Investment Banking to a career in sports and thought business school would be the best way for me to revamp my career.

Why Anderson? Anderson was particularly appealing to me because of the MEMES CenterSports Business Association, and alumni working in the sports industry. Since recruiting for sports is a fairly unique career path in business school in general, I knew at Anderson I would be surrounded by peers with similar goals and have the appropriate academic/alumni resources to get my “foot in the door.”


ANDERSON

Favorite class and why? Sports Management with Jeff Moorad. Jeff is a legendary agent in the sports business, so it was pretty awesome to hear his perspective on the sports industry. Besides bringing Alex Rodriguez as our first guest speaker, we were also able to present a strategy plan to the senior managers of the Anaheim Ducks. Overall, the class gave me great insight to the numerous opportunities in the sports business.

Favorite Anderson event/trip? Why? Last year the Sports Business Association did a DOJ (Day on the Job) to Portland to visit Nike and Adidas. On those visits, I had the opportunity to meet Lance Johnson ’12 who helped orchestrate the DOJ. Lance eventually served as an unofficial mentor during my internship and was instrumental in me landing the full-time offer at Nike!


RECRUITING

How did you utilize Parker Career Management Center in your job search and interview prep? My career adviser Jessica Christopher was very instrumental in my job search and interview prep! She not only kept me calm during the nerve-wrecking interview process, but helped me figure out the best ways to approach tough interview questions. To me, Anderson is like a family. In fact, I told Parker about my offer before my parents!

Did you participate in any internships during the school year? I was a Corporate Strategy Intern at NBCUniversal during the Winter and Spring quarters. As I was looking to transition careers, it was great to gain a real understanding of a work culture outside of the finance world.

Describe your summer internship. Duringthe summer, I worked in the Finance department at Nike. My main project was assessing the appropriateness of using a 12% hurdle rate as the minimum rate of return for capital budgeting on global projects.

How did you land your internship? Since Nike did not recruit on campus at the time, I submitted my resume on their website. Luckily, I received a phone call from HR a few weeks later to invite me to a first round interview, which took place the following day. I immediately reached out to the Anderson alumni at Nike who I had met at the DOJ in Portland to see if they had some time to chat before my interview. All of them responded within 15 minutes and I was able to get great insight on what working life at Nike is all about. In fact, Lance Johnson ’12 worked quite closely with the hiring manager and was able to put in a good word for me….talk about the power of the Anderson alumni network!

Sheldon standing in Nike courtyard
Sheldon taking full advantage of the Nike Employee discount during the internship!

Stay in Touch: Introduce Yourself
Questions? Contact us at: mba.admissions@anderson.ucla.edu

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