Alumni Spotlight

Lydia Lee

Class of 2021

Five Questions with Lydia Lee...

1. Tell us about your Smeal management major experience and what you are doing now?
I studied Management with a concentration in Human Capital Management. My student experience includes ASCEND, Nittany Consulting Group, Smeal Human Capital Student Consultants, working at the Smeal Business Career center as a Career Services Intern, and being an ambassador for the Management department.

While I was a student, I did a 7-month supply chain co-op at Johnson & Johnson working for their Amazon e-Commerce team during the height of the pandemic in 2020. I did a supply chain co-op because I had an interest in it. I thought the best way for me to figure out if I wanted to pursue a career in Supply Chain or HR was to get job experience. After that co-op, I was sure I wanted to stay in the field of HR. For my post-graduation job, I wanted to do an HR rotational program to see which part of HR interested me the most. I was accepted in the GSK HR Rotational program where I rotated for 2 years throughout the HR department. My first rotation was as a HR Business Partner in Supply Chain, where I got in person experience at our manufacturing sites and their specific challenges. My second rotation was in Total Reward, specifically in Global Compensation. My third rotation was in Global Employment Law Workforce Analytics team working on HR Data Analytics. My current role, which I offboarded into, is on the People and Organizational Effectiveness team as a Program Manager. I help manage the global projects we work on, like our Directors Leadership Development program.

2. What do you enjoy most about your current role and organization?
After going through my three rotations, I knew that I wanted to work in a specialist and global role within HR. I enjoy the large scope of global work, and the challenges associated. In a center of excellence role, there are more opportunities for research and to work on companywide programs. I also enjoy the external market scope of the role. I’m usually doing research on what are the current HR trends/research, what are our competitors doing, and how are we going to react to current events. From my rotations, I learned I felt most motivated from my work when my work has a companywide impact, which is why I picked the center of excellence to offboard into.


3. How did your management major coursework prepare you for your role at GSK?
My management coursework prepared me because it gave me the foundations to apply to my work at GSK. In my current role, I do research on current HR trends and the courses I took with Dr. O prepared me from the research papers we had to do. In addition, I was able to take the principles I learned in school and apply them in the real world. In my first rotation, I was tasked with revamping the Onboarding program and process at one of our manufacturing sites. As this was one of the first projects I did as a recent graduate, I relied on my education and what I learned from my extracurricular activities to be able to successfully implement the new design and process.


4. What advice do you have for students majoring in management?
My advice is to get involved in Smeal and school. The involvement you have at the clubs will greatly prepare you for after graduation and help you secure your first job. I
recommend the clubs associated with Smeal but try out the organizations that are not directly associated with what you want to do in the future. If you have a slight interest in it, I suggest trying it out to see if you enjoy it. I joined Nittany Lion Consulting Group to see if I would be interested in management consulting. I learned that it wasn’t the career path for me which helped me hone in on HR.

5. What is your best Penn State or Smeal memory?
My best Penn State memory was going to my first home football game, it was Penn State vs. Rutgers. I watched Saquon Barkley jump over a player to make a touchdown!

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