San Francisco: Site Visits Day 1

Today was our second full day of the week and we definitely started off strong! We started the day by taking the shuttle over to Salesforce, which is headquartered right here in San Francisco. My first immediate impression was the architecture of the building! It's so modern with beautiful windows all around. We were so lucky to meet some great people including Loyola alum, Joe Poch. Salesforce is not only a profitable and growing company, but they also put a large emphasis on employee wellness and innovation. It was so refreshing to see how they support all their employees and their individual goals through ERGs and mentorship programs. 

 

After learning about all the great things Salesforce does as a company, we walked as a group over to Chipotle. We had a very nice debrief over lunch and dicsussed our favorite parts about the morning. We also talked about our excitement for the next visit at Frec. But in the meantime, a group of us decided to take a brisk walk around the area. We discovered the beautiful Salesforce Park and spent some time exploring and chatting.

 

After our nice walk, we visited Frec, which is a Fintech startup. Our host Ashley Rodabaugh (who is also a Loyola alum) gave us some great insight into the workday at a smaller startup. This visit was particularly interesting to me as a Finance major! It's so amazing to see how people that have studied what I am studying put their knowledge to incredible use. It was also amazing to see women representation in the Finance industry, as Ashley is the President of Frec.

 

Given such a busy day, we had to eat a nice, hearty meal! We all took a short drive over to Original Joe's for some Italian food. The shrimp scampi was absolutely delicious!

 

One of my biggest takeaways from today was how a business goes through multiple stages of life. Salesforce is such a huge company with thousands of brilliant employees. On the other hand, Frec is a company full of brilliant employees as well, but with a much smaller number. I sometimes forget that the business world is so much more than just the well-known Fortune 500 companies.

 

Today was such a great day with so much learning and exploration. I am so excited to visit Grant Thornton tomorrow and see what else this trip has in store for us!