Helena
Business Associate, Evanston Office
Education
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
B.S. in Industrial Engineering, 2005
Activities at Purdue: Institute of Industrial Engineers Treasurer; Phi Sigma Rho Sorority Standards Board
Memories of Purdue: Sophomore year, when I transferred to Purdue, I had to live in the campus apartments with two women I didn't know. At first, I was not excited about this idea. However, living there, I met the people that became my best friends throughout college. We made a lot of great memories!
Hometown
Bloomington, IN
ZS Career Path
Business Associate, 2005
On the work
"One large medical device company bought a divisionof another company, and asked us to re-align three sales forces. The first part of the project involved creating a unified account list by matching the accounts between the two companies. The second part of the project involved re-aligning three sales forces, and assisting in personnel placement as needed. I was the only BA on the project, so I did most of the alignment work, but in addition to that, I was able to participate significantly in the account matching process, which was a great learning experience. As a result of this integration project, we were able to offer our help in follow up work for the newly integrated teams down the road.
"A large pharmaceutical company asked us to do a multi-phase project for one of their sales forces. The first phase involved determining the optimal size of the sales force. The second part was to realign the sales force based on the optimal number of representatives. The last part was to go through a personnel placement process, which was the most unusual part of the project. During this part, our team created a tool to help facilitate meetings with the District Managers and HR at each of the company's Business Centers. I was able to lead the facilitation of two such meetings—one in Texas, and one in Florida. The client found our tool very useful in helping them make objective decisions about rep placement."
On life outside work
"Outside of work, I take a weekly dance class at a studio downtown. This is my favorite way to get a fun workout and take work off my mind. Also, during the summer, I played in a kickball league with my neighbors. It was a blast! Lastly, to keep up my Russian, I read in Russian every day on the train to work. I just finished a long book, and I'm still deciding on my next book!"
On the Evanston office
"Since Evanston is ZS's headquarters, you can always see ZS founding directors Andy and Prabha. As a matter of fact, since their offices are on my floor, I run into them in the kitchen or the elevator sometimes. In general, Evanston is a very scenic town. It is right by Lake Michigan and the Northwestern campus. It is also close enough to downtown Chicago that many people live in the city and work in Evanston."