Success story: Fox News internship goes to Matt Gillis

Marketing Success Stories | May 01, 2013 | Nicole Gesualdo

Matthew Gillis (GSB ’14) has been watching Fox News for about a decade. This summer, he’s also going to be working there.

Matt has accepted an internship in the business development unit of Fox News, where he’ll investigate new mobile and digital marketing strategies for the network.

The internship is a perfect fit for Matt from a professional standpoint. But it’s impossible to deny the added perks of working at one of your favorite TV networks.

“I can honestly say that I am excited to meet and work with all of the Fox anchors and reporters I have admired for years,” Matt said. “Fox stressed to me that though I will be helping with business development, I will still be exposed to the media and television aspects of Fox, and will be able to work alongside some of the biggest names in news.”

As an intern, Matt will help to shape Fox News’s digital strategy. That will involve researching trends in digital media, looking at user feedback and other metrics, evaluating competitors’ products to see where Fox may be able to exploit a weakness, and coming up with ideas for new products and marketing methods. He will be challenged to develop and present a plan to improve one aspect of Fox News Digital’s existing business lines.

It’s a fabulous opportunity for an aspiring marketer — an an interesting choice for Matt, who hadn’t always envisioned himself in marketing.

Matt originally thought finance might be the route for him, and he pursued a wealth-management internship at UBS. It was the sophomore-year integrated business core project that made him reconsider. He and his team represented TJX Companies, the parent company of retailer TJ Maxx. To resolve the problem of TJX’s underfunded pension plan, his team worked on ways to enter new markets in Europe, thereby increasing sales and shoring up the company’s financial security.

“Using our market analytic skills to reformulate the TJX European strategy was a fun and interesting time,” he said. Matt is still a business administration major with a concentration in finance, but he has since added a concentration in marketing, too.

“I definitely want to expand my portfolio of marketing experience,” he said. “Specifically, I would like to work at an advertising/branding agency that focuses on helping clients sell products. I think this would be a different angle of marketing that would prove beneficial.”

The Fox News internship is an excellent place to start. Congratulations, Matt, and good luck this summer!