I headed into Corporate & Finance fully stocked with great experience and geared to work on some of Edelman’s bigger accounts. But this was somewhat a bewildering transition for the last of my graduate placements. Nothing to do with the anxiety that I was on the final leg or the people or the department; but it felt like a deck of cards were flung into the air and I was waiting to see what happened.

The same day that my Papa passed away, the tragedy in Japan struck. Perhaps I should say it the other way around, but that is they way it happened for me. Fortunately I was able to take a day of compassionate leave to grieve with my family (mainly me in an utterly incoherent state on the phone) and was stunned to know that I couldn’t make it back home in time for the funeral.

I think the whole world was stunned that week and the one after – not knowing what was going on or how to respond given the scale of the events. I spent a good deal of it combing breaking stories early in the morning for news that concerned a client of ours. It was a relief to me to work on a crisis since there wasn’t much I could do about my own at the time. The crisis training that I had taken part in before really came in handy much sooner than I thought!

Besides a few early rises monitoring, there was plenty more to keep me occupied. I was conducting media sell-ins, compiling coverage and researching on a daily basis.

Some of the coverage featured Edelman work for such clients as UPS and Rolls Royce. It was great seeing campaigns being featured in the big national papers and outlets! UPS seems like such a versatile client to work for, with their love of logistics featuring in their campaigns and the fact that they are an official sponsor of the upcoming Olympics in London.

The Corporate & Finance team is one of the largest departments and I was rather surprised to have worked with so many members of the team in such a short time. Such a friendly group who really know how to get a job done, I really picked up some good practices over there. I’d love to go into more detail, but thought I’d share some of the other accounts I had the chance to work on: General Electric, Visit London, Shell, Starbucks, and Manchester FC to name but a few.

My placement there went by before I knew it and the wait to know what would happen next settled in, which was in fact a relief.