PepsiCo Internship Gives Maeci Dristas Hands-On Sales Management Experience.  

“A business is like a vessel that has a singular goal. Everyone must complete their task and work together to reach the destination.” Maeci Dristas (Agribusiness/Agri-Marketing Marketing; Indianapolis, IN) learned how important the idea of team is during her internship with Pepsi Co this past summer. As a sales management intern, she oversaw 10 small format Pepsi accounts in Fort Wayne, IN where her project objective was to increase revenue and volume in the stores she was overseeing, with a specific focus on cold drink (single bottle) sales.  

Maeci Dristas

Last fall Maeci decided to look for a summer internship to gain professional experiences that could help guide her towards what industry and role she would be interested in pursuing post-graduation. She had a different approach to looking for a summer internship than most…she decided that she would attend multiple career fairs outside of just the one hosted by the College of Agriculture. “What brought me to this opportunity was the Krannert Career Fair. I know it is atypical for a student of Agriculture to attend an outside fair, but I honestly recommend students attending all career fairs to stay open-minded.” By being open-minded in this way, Maeci was able to find a summer internship in a company that she may not have been able to otherwise.  

Maeci mentioned, “What sparked my interest about this internship is that I would have the autonomy to come up with my own solutions and strategies to problems and be able to have metrics to show my performance at the end of my internship.” She was given just that opportunity by having an internship that was so hands on where she was going out to every store and making personal relationships with customers. This taught her that before you can manage a business and its employees, you must know the ins and outs of it, as well as respect every role because you cannot succeed without the whole team.  

Now that she has this field experience, Maeci would like to further explore the corporate side of a business in either consulting or marketing strategy by diving into a certain expertise in industry.