Intern Insight: Mansi Santosh Tikam

Over the summer, Mansi Santosh Tikam took everything she’s learned thus far in her M.B.A. – marketing courses and applied it to real-world scenarios as a brand and experiential marketing intern for health insurance company MetroPlusHealth in New York City.

“The chance to do creative and campaign work in a regulated healthcare setting was a compelling way to put my M.B.A. into practice,” Tikam says. “It was exciting to contribute to live campaigns and learn how a marketing team operates day to day inside a large organization.”

During her two months with the company, Tikam supported marketing campaigns from concept through launch. This included coordinating creative development, running review rounds, consolidating stakeholder feedback, and routing consumer-facing assets through brand and compliance approval.

She also designed assets for in-house commercials and office screens, a poster series, and a logo for an American Cancer Society initiative. Rounding out her hands-on experience, Tikam conducted research on competitors, audiences, and category trends to inform the company’s campaign positioning.

Such deep involvement in marketing processes gave Tikam much more than a behind-the-scenes look at corporate-level creative services—she developed her own set of skills to support her future as a professional in the field.

“I learned how to anticipate what compliance would flag, so I would build those concerns into the first draft,” she explains. “I also strengthened my design expertise; learned how to turn competitive research into clear, usable recommendations; and developed the ability to keep several projects moving at once without losing quality.”

With Tikam’s spring 2027 graduation approaching, her internship was invaluable in preparing her for all that lies ahead. As she hopes to secure a role where she owns campaigns from end to end and shapes how a brand shows up for its audience, her work with MetroPlusHealth built the foundation she was looking for.

Developing creative assets, coordinating across teams, working within brand and compliance guidelines, and turning research into recommendations confirmed to Tikam that she enjoys the mix of creative work and the process that gets it out the door—the very essence of a brand marketing career.

“I did not expect how much creative work in a regulated industry is about process and approvals rather than just ideas,” she reflects. “But seeing an idea go from concept to something on the office screens was really rewarding.”