Another FITTskills grad scores an internship with the EDC’s Small Business Solutions team

Megan Malone received the good news that she was selected to be this year’s EDC–FITT intern while on a micro-enterprise development internship in Rwanda.

“I was so excited when I found out,” she said. “I think this is a really great starting position for my career, and I’m looking forward to building on my learning with this experience.”

The EDC-FITT internship is a position that’s offered annually to one student who has graduated from the FITTskills program and shown great accomplishment.

Megan was selected for a number of reasons.

“During her interview Megan displayed her maturity, her industry knowledge and her ability to articulate international business concepts clearly and confidently,” said Tom Prowse, one of the managers of EDC’s Small Business Solutions team for which Megan will be working.

I’m really looking forward to working with Megan. One thing I really like about graduates from the FITT program is that they’ve chosen to devote so many months of their lives to studying just international trade. They have focus, and they can very clearly articulate why they chose that path, and that they’re committed to it.

Before being chosen as the EDC-FITT intern, Megan excelled through all eight FITTskills courses at Algonquin College. And her hard work definitely didn’t go unnoticed.

“It has been my pleasure and privilege to have Megan as my student in the International Business Management Graduate Certificate Program,” commented Norman Lomow, CITP, professor and coordinator at Algonquin College. “Megan is one of the students who stands out amongst the thousands as knowing where she’s going and how to get there. I’m certain she’ll succeed at the very highest level in the international trade career she is striving for.”

Last year’s EDC-FITT intern, Stephanie Kam, is a prime example of how beneficial this internship opportunity can be for budding global business professionals. Since she began at EDC, Stephanie has worked her way up to a full-time account manager position, and she’ll soon be moving on to the organization’s Legal department. In fact, all past EDC-FITT interns have been offered full-time employment with EDC.

“Looking back, I am extremely grateful for the role the internship played in shaping my career,” she said. “My manager placed a lot of trust in me and I had the opportunity to lead presentations at banks, incubators and professional service firms. And I found myself drawing upon my knowledge gained from the FITT program during my client meetings with CEOs and CFOs of Canadian exporting companies.”

Her best advice for future EDC-FITT interns like Megan?

“Be proactive,” she suggested. “EDC is looking for outgoing people in this client-facing role who have a passion for international trade, so develop your written and oral communications skills.”

Megan will begin her internship in June with three months of training so she can get familiarized with the inner workings of EDC. She’ll then move on to assisting her Small Business Solutions team in helping Canadian companies with their exporting endeavours.

Megan says she’s really looking forward to starting at EDC, and to start applying everything she’s learned about international trade to real-life situations.

“Being chosen for this internship is so great,” she said, “and the internship has the added bonus of providing me with the one year of experience I need to apply for my Certified International Trade Professional (CITP) designation.”