Internship Spotlight: Sophia Li ’26, Danone
Sophia Li drew on lessons from Discovery Projects, an experiential course offered by the Yale Center for Customer Insights, while analyzing consumer data for a leading food products company.
Internship: Danone, New York City
Hometown: Hong Kong and Darien, Connecticut
Pronouns: she/her/hers
The SOM class you used on the job: YCCI Discovery Project
Go-to work lunch: Whatever new TikTok recipe I decided to try making the night before
After-work routine: Exploring new restaurants and workout classes with friends and making my way through the Top 50 World Bars list
Favorite thing about internship city: Being able to live close by to friends and family
Before coming to SOM, I built my career in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector at the health and hygiene conglomerate Reckitt, where I worked on iconic brands like Lysol, Air Wick, and Mucinex. I rotated through field sales and e-commerce roles, which gave me a holistic understanding of the business—from how products reach consumers to the levers that drive online and in-store growth. In my e-commerce role, I partnered with 21 different retailers across all of Reckitt’s brands, which gave me firsthand exposure to how brand strategies are tailored to different consumer bases and how campaigns adapt to serve different retailers. Seeing these approaches sharpened my strategic thinking and deepened my understanding of the CPG industry. Even with this broad exposure, I always knew my ultimate goal was brand management. That goal guided my decision to pursue an MBA in order to make a deliberate transition into a role where I could shape brands at their core, combining strategy, creativity, and consumer insight.
Discovery Projects, an experiential course offered by the Yale Center for Customer Insights (YCCI), allowed me to bridge my experience and goals by working on a real-world marketing project for a leading company. I found the program incredibly valuable because even after my time in CPG, it introduced a new way of thinking and challenged me to push beyond traditional approaches. For example, in CPG, insights are often derived from macro-level trends. At YCCI, we learned to dive deep into individual consumer feedback. Even if an idea came up only once or twice, we explored it and considered its potential rather than dismissing it for lack of scale. This taught me to value granular, consumer-level insights and spot opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked.
My Discovery Projects team worked with the Gatorade team at PepsiCo, analyzing data about two consumer categories: active women and parents of young children. We reviewed historical trends, designed surveys, and tested positioning strategies through A/B studies. We found that active women responded strongly to credibility cues and everyday fuel messaging, while parents were more influenced by framing Gatorade as part of the full sports journey for their kids. Working hands-on with survey design, A/B testing, and data interpretation gave me foundational analytical skills and strengthened my ability to speak confidently about consumer-led insights—a capability that’s both rare and highly valued in brand management.
This summer, I joined Danone’s convenient nutrition team as a brand management intern. My project focused on identifying new subcategories where Danone could grow using brands like Oikos, Stok Coffee, Activia, and Silk. The work combined consumer insights, data analysis, and creative ideation. I conducted deep dives into category and consumer trends, ran quantitative idea-screening studies, and collaborated with the creative team to develop digital product renderings. It was a hands-on experience that captured the full scope of brand management—both analytical and creative—and gave me a true taste of what it means to own a brand.
The skills and mindset I built at YCCI translated directly into this work. When designing idea-screening studies, for example, I could anticipate potential biases in survey wording or visuals and interpret results to build a strong, actionable recommendation. Being comfortable with both the analytical and storytelling aspects of this work allowed me to contribute meaningfully to strategy discussions and craft recommendations that resonated across the team.
The internship also brought me closer to my long-term career goals. Through my various pre-SOM roles, I gained a holistic view of the CPG industry. At Danone, I experienced another critical side of the business—innovation and product development. From foundational consumer research to creative briefings and hypothetical implementation, I got a well-rounded view of how new ideas become tangible products. The experience was both challenging and energizing, and reaffirmed my passion for brand management. I returned to SOM with fresh insights that I look forward to contributing in my electives and in my role as co-president of the General Management Club.
I am grateful to the team at Danone and to the recruiting partners who made this experience possible. A particularly meaningful moment was advocating for and securing additional funding to expand an idea-screening study, which reminded me of the value of championing yourself and asking for opportunities to learn more. Being on a fast-paced, growing team in a hot category with a brand-new product launch made the internship uniquely dynamic. It was a rewarding summer, and I am always happy to connect with anyone interested in brand management, CPG, YCCI, or Discovery Projects.
