International Trade & Commerce Intern in Bangkok

I’m a rising junior studying global development at Cornell University.

I work for an organic rice company. Basically, we produce an organic superfood rice that has 40 times the amount of antioxidants as conventional brown rice, so it’s a really healthy alternative to the conventional brown and white rice. And there’s an emphasis on a social mission, right? So the company wants to, first, transform the environment through regenerative agriculture. Number two, transform the lives of farmers, so they pay the farmers a lot more than what conventional rice exporters tend to pay the farmers. And number three, transform the lives of consumers, right? So this is a really nutritionally dense rice that’s a really healthy substitute for the conventional rice that’s available.

I had a lot of different roles during my time at the company. In the beginning, one of my first tasks was basically to reach out to leads that we met at THAIFEX. THAIFEX is an international food show, one of the biggest ones in Southeast Asia, and so I was tasked with reaching out to various buyers, manufacturers, distributors that we met during the conference and, if they’re suitable, continue that relationship: emailing them, communication, etc. Another one of my roles was researching manufacturers. Basically the company is in the market for creating new products, and so I would have to research manufacturers overseas, [unclear] them suitable, and then create meetings with them and see if we could push the relationship further. Other than that, I was also involved in financing, so researching grants, different partnerships and investors that could be possible partners for the company. And then, yeah, I also went up north to the Chiang Rai area to meet the farmers that the company works with. That was a really great experience, to learn about this value chain, how the product comes from, you know, from the seed all the way to final markets in the retail stores internationally. So a lot of different roles, and a lot of smaller roles in between, like customer relations and sales, but it was a great time.

Yeah, so that was one of the things that really surprised me about the company. You know, you wouldn’t expect them to have such a clear team culture, but they have a very well laid out team culture. Every week there’s meetings that check in with everyone, both concerning professional issues and personal issues, and then during lunch we all eat together, so there’s a very deep sense of camaraderie, friendship and collectiveness.

My time in Thailand has been great. You know, Bangkok, mega city, 14 million people. It’s an experience that you can’t really get in a lot of places. I’ve had the opportunity to travel all around Thailand as well, in the north, to the southern islands. So it’s been really great. Food is great, I really love the culture and the people have been really accommodating, so I’m really grateful to be here.

These services have been great. To be honest, at the beginning I was really in doubt that they would be able to find a company that matched me really well, but then when I got the email about the company, I was really surprised how well they captured my interest and partnered me up with a company that really resonated with me, where the mission was aligned with my missions as well. And a big shout-out to [unclear] for helping me during this process. They’ve been a big help.

I think my first advice would be to be curious and ask a lot of questions. I think especially at the beginning it’s very difficult, because you’re, you know, thrown into a new environment that you’re not automatically familiar with. So whatever your interests are, ask a lot of questions about that, and that’s definitely going to help you advance that much quicker. And then my second advice would be maybe keep a journal as well, because you and me both know that we forget things very quickly. And so the experiences that you get here, you definitely want to record them and keep them for the future. It’s going to help you in the long run. So yeah, if you’re hesitating about doing this, I’m gonna tell you: just take the step forward, it’s 100% worth it. Thailand and Bangkok are a great place to be, both for work and for fun, so definitely look into it.

Transcript from YouTube’s automatic captions, lightly edited. Company name removed. [unclear] marks words the captions didn’t catch.