PSEG Personal Contribution
Throughout my time working with the corporate responsibility team of PSEG I was assigned an individual project analyzing the utility’s corporate giving budget. PSEG sponsors scholarships, walks and marathons, golf outings, dinners, galas, and various other events. The goal of the project was to assist the manager in seeing how much of each year’s budget accounted for different event types. I went through 2019, 2020, and 2021 YTD (through June 30th) and separated all giving applications into four categories, dinners and events, golf outings, walks or marathons, and other sponsorship/ support. The other sponsorship/ support ended up being mainly items that did not fit into the other categories. I made my recommendations for the hundreds of applications and went through them with my manager to make the final decisions. I then compared all of the data into pivot tables, as well as pie charts and conceptual bar graphs to present the data to the entire corporate responsibility team, as well as my takeaways and recommendations for the budget going forward. My manager put a lot of trust in me to execute this project carefully, as it is data that the team needs to know in order to plan and change the budget for the coming years. Additionally, my manager exhibited great leadership qualities, especially when he proposed me individually presenting to the entire team, as he believes “if you do the work, you deserve the recognition and to see it through”.
I believe that my insights about leadership contributed to this budget analysis because I was able to recognize that my manager was being transformational in that he wanted me to learn and then be held accountable through a presentation. I also believe that the trust he instilled in me caused me to remember that even if it is mundane work, it will make a difference in the overall picture of the corporation. I saw this after I presented the data with the thoughtful questions, as well as the fact that the entire team was so appreciative and seemed to know where to go from there. While what I did was largely foundational, I believe that I was able to provide insight into where they should go, and it seemed like they really considered my ideas. Being able to step back and look at the larger picture gave me purpose and greater appreciation while completing this project.