Compliance and Creativity: My Experience as a Marketing Intern
My name is Ryan Sassi, a soon-to-be senior advertising major at Temple University. I spent this summer at Vigilant Compliance, LLC as a marketing intern. Vigilant is located close to my hometown in Chadds Ford, PA. The company has around 50 employees, with about half working in the office and the other half remote in various parts of the country. I was in the office five days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (except for Friday when we get out at 3 p.m.). I’m sure most people don’t have a great understanding of “compliance.” To be fair, I didn’t either before I started this experience.
The compliance industry focuses on helping clients in a specific industry abide by certain rules and regulations put in place by the government or whichever entity governs that sector. In Vigilant’s case, they provide compliance services to investment advisers, broker-dealers, hedge funds, mutual funds, ETFs, and more. The services they provide to this consumer base range from a wide variety of things: advertising and marketing review, outsourced chief compliance officer, outsourced principal financial officer, and principal underwriting to name a few.
My role within this business was to work with the marketing and business development team to support Vigilant’s goals. I worked on marketing/advertising reviews, email reviews, template creation, and multiple other projects. I began my first large-scale project during my first week. It required me to do state-by-state research on a new SEC marketing rule for investment advisers. This required me to look through each state’s laws regarding investment advisers. It took about two weeks for me to get through the research portion of the project as I had to resort to calling some state governments to get their stance on the rule.
Once I compiled all of the research I had done for each state I began making a visually appealing document that would be easy to navigate. I also created a map image of the United States for the cover page and color-coded it with Vigilant’s colors to show which states had adopted the rule and which ones hadn’t. In the end, it turned out fantastic. It was originally meant to be sent to an individual client for their reference, but my supervisor had told me that they were going to use it as a resource on their website. It felt great to know that my work was going to be used by the company significantly.
I also do a lot of work with potential clients who make inquiries about our services through our website. I gather all of their company’s information through public disclosure websites. Once done I give it to my supervisor and the president of Vigilant to look through. I’ve also been given the opportunity to go in the conference room with them during the introductory meetings with potential clients which has been awesome.
Overall, this experience was very fun and I learned a great deal of things. One important thing I learned was how to properly communicate within a business. I went to two client board meetings and it was awesome to see how the professionals at these meetings handled themselves and communicated with each other.
Another thing I learned was how to balance my time. It was challenging at times to get work done for multiple people at the same time. I had to use my time wisely and efficiently to make sure I was getting everything that was requested of me completed on time. I enjoyed having to manage my time though as it made me focus and absorb more knowledge.
I learned a great deal from my superiors in the company as well, as they are all great at what they do and even better people. What also made this internship was the people at Vigilant. There is a great culture at the company where everyone has a personal relationship with one another and people are not treated like numbers. We’ll eat lunch together and have conversations throughout the day that are not work-related. We also had a company Phillies game tailgate and went into the game after.
In mid-July I was offered to continue working part-time in the company throughout the school year. On top of this, they offered me a full-time position once I graduate. I was ecstatic when I received this offer and it made me feel very proud of the work I had done during my time with them. My role moving forward with Vigilant will be in a marketing, sales, and business development role. I’m really excited about this as the role revolves around interacting with potential clients and a lot of other aspects of the business. On top of this, there will be opportunities to travel to clients and industry conferences/events to which I greatly look forward.
My advice to anyone starting their first internship would be to try to make relationships with as many people as you can within your company. You never know how much it may help you grow as a professional and person. It may also help in the long run to form these relationships as the people you meet may be able to help you down the road. Another thing I recommend is to make yourself as available as possible. If you aren’t being given things to do, take initiative. People really appreciate and admire when others offer assistance or are trying to be as helpful as possible.
