For those who don’t know me I am Michael Nguyen, and I was an intern for the the diiVe Summer 2021 cohort. Since graduating from the University of Richmond, I have starting working as a an analyst at a boutique life sciences strategy consulting firm, Asymmetry Group, where our priority is catalyzing innovation in healthcare.
Our firm buckets our projects into two categories, corporate and commercial strategy, and complex strategic initiative management. Within the former, we partner with life science companies to develop go-to-market strategy and portfolio and brand strategy, as well as assist with corporate advisory. In the latter bucket, we manage product launches, provide operational support, and act as cross-functional project management.
More specifically, my first project is partnering with our client and acting as the project management office with my team to coordinate a product launch. Even though this is my first post-grad project, I feel like I was exceptionally prepared for it because of my experience with diiVe. Learning about the industry, all the functions, and how a product launches certainly was like drinking from a fire hose, but diiVe prepared me with the essential consulting toolkit to navigate through this successfully. Right out of the gate, I had a firm understanding of the foundational consulting skills. These range from understanding the narrative in slide creation and presentations, to the soft skills I need to interact with the clients daily. Most importantly, diiVe fosters a supportive and collaborative community, which immensely boosted my professional confidence and development.
A direct connection between my internship experience and what I’m doing now is using a Gantt chart. We utilized one in my internship project to map out our timeline and deliverables. Now, every day, I’m submerged in a sheet that translates into a Gantt chart to track progress of the launch, and my team directs the client to me as the owner of all things related. I never thought in my first year post-grad that I would own such a large part of a project, with the client team members directly reaching out to me for support or guidance.
diiVe has strongly impacted my professional journey by giving me real-world, client-facing, and international, consulting experience, preparing me with confidence and the foundational consulting skillsets, and the entire network has supported me since day one.
Michael Nguyen was part of the diiVe Summer 2021 cohort. He studied at the University of Richmond and is now working as an analyst for Asymmetry Group, a boutique life sciences strategy consulting firm in Boston Massachusetts.
