COB standouts build skills during summer internships

A smiling man wearing a dark suit jacket, light blue shirt, and Burberry-style plaid tie poses in front of a white background. — From Left, Roz Burgess, Martina Muzzolon, Emma Gebel, and Craig Geter

A woman with long wavy brown hair wearing a royal blue blouse stands in an indoor space with natural light and blurred plants in the background. She looks confidently at the camera. — From Left, Roz Burgess, Martina Muzzolon, Emma Gebel, and Craig Geter

Not content to relax by the pool, many students in the College of Business use the summer to build new skills, gain valuable work experience and make career connections by participating in internships. Below are four who have challenged themselves in roles with nationally recognized companies.

Roz Burgess – CAPTRUST

During the summer of 2024, Roz Burgess had completed his senior year at Wakefield High School in Raleigh and was preparing to begin his freshman year at East Carolina University as a Brinkley-Lane Scholar. Fast forward one year, and Burgess has one year of college under his belt and is taking advantage of an opportunity to intern with the marketing team at CAPTRUST, a Raleigh-based financial advisory firm.

Burgess first became familiar with CAPTRUST through Fielding Miller, founder and CEO of the company and the namesake behind the Miller School of Entrepreneurship at the ECU College of Business.

“I was drawn to the firm because of its strong reputation in financial advising and the opportunity to learn from top tier professionals,” Burgess said. “The connection with Mr. Miller inspired me to dig deeper, apply early and do my research.”

Burgess had a busy summer, gaining experience in several areas that link marketing and sales.

“I’ve been supporting initiatives that bridge marketing and sales, working on brand awareness, sales enablement and client acquisition,” he said. “I’ve also had the chance to contribute to M&A (mergers and acquisitions) integration efforts and lead a project around internal productivity. Even though my role is in marketing, I’ve made it a point to meet with financial advisors to better understand how they sell, communicate, value and build client relationships since sales is a major area of interest for me.”

As a freshman, Burgess was a member of ECU’s Pirate Sales Club and was one of eight competitors to win the Winner’s Circle award at the University of South Florida’s Selling with the Bulls sales competition in February. He also finished as the runner-up at ECU’s inaugural Pirate Sales Challenge and feels that the skills he’s learned as an intern will help him perform better in future competitions.

“A large part of what I do supports sales enablement, whether it’s creating sales sheets, inputting in Seismic, working on a cross-functional project or handling backend tasks that help keep things running efficiently. It’s helped me better understand how marketing supports the sales cycle, and I’ve picked up several strategies around positioning, messaging and value communication that I know I can apply in upcoming competitions.”

Martina Muzzolon – Ernst & Young

Martina Muzzolon began her undergraduate experience at ECU during the fall of 2021 never having seen campus prior to arriving from Padua, Italy as a member of the women’s tennis team. Muzzolon had a strong four-year run on the tennis court and in the classroom, finishing with a 3.9 GPA and earning an International Student Award before graduating in May.

Before she begins pursuit of a Master of Science in accounting from the Arthur Graduate School in August, she’s spending her summer in Boston as an intern at EY (previously known as Ernst & Young). The seeds of this opportunity were planted several years in advance.

“During my sophomore and junior years, I began looking for internship opportunities,” Muzzolon said. “At one of these events, I met recruiters from Ernst & Young’s Raleigh office who encouraged me to apply for internships in summer 2024 or 2025.”

Muzzolon said although she had an internship lined up for 2024, she knew she wanted to experience interning for a “Big Four” accounting firm this summer.

“After two virtual interviews, I was thrilled to receive an offer for an internship in Audit – FSO Assurance at the Boston office,” she said. “I was assigned to the Banking and Capital Markets (BCM) sector and worked on two audit engagements alongside a team of five to six people.”

Muzzlon began her internship in mid-June with several days of onboarding, getting to know the company and practical advice on how to make the most of her experience. A week of training followed as EY employees disseminated helpful tools, guidance and expectations.

Although going from visiting with family and friends in Italy following graduation to being alone in a new city was a tough adjustment, Muzzolon found a group of coworkers who shared common goals and created a support system together. She feels that her summer in Boston allowed for both personal and professional growth.

“Turning down an offer at a previous internship and stepping into something completely unknown in Boston wasn’t easy, but I believe this decision is helping me grow. Being in a new environment surrounded by professionals and constantly learning is exactly the kind of challenge I was looking for. I want to make the most of this experience and I’m excited to return to ECU and share what I’ve learned with the professors, advisors and everyone who helped get me here.”

Emma Gebel – IBM Power

Emma Gebel ’24 always had an interest in working for a multinational corporation. While working on her undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Science in business administration with a concentration in international business, she started networking in search of internships, an effort she continued during her time in the Immersive MBA program.

“I wanted to begin my career at a large, global company where I could gain exposure to a variety of functions and perspectives, and IBM offered exactly that,” she said. “With offices in more than 170 countries, IBM stood out as a place where I could be part of a team driving innovation and growth on a global scale.”

Her internship is focused on forecasting and analyzing projected revenue metrics, giving her a chance to gain hands-on experience in financial planning and analysis.

“I’ve also always been drawn to projects that are bigger than myself,” Gebel said. “In finance, I have the opportunity to analyze and interpret financial data that directly supports critical business decisions. Being part of that process is both impactful and fascinating to me.”

Through the COB’s Cunanan Center for Professional Success, she connected with Michael Howard ’99, a chief financial officer with IBM who spoke at the COB’s Finance Conference in December, to get some insight on the internship before applying and completing the interview process.

“IBM has a very team-oriented and collaborative culture, and being able to work with others to solve real-world problems is both exciting and rewarding. It pushes me to think critically and step outside my comfort zone. I love those “Ah-ha!” moments when something finally clicks,” Gebel said.

She credits the foundations established in her coursework for helping her thrive in her role.

“While the workplace is very different from the classroom, the interpersonal and communication skills I developed through my professors and team projects at ECU have been especially valuable,” she said. “Those skills have helped me adapt quickly and contribute meaningfully in a professional environment.”

Craig Geter – Varonis

Craig Geter ’24, a student in the IMBA program, found his internship opportunity on Handshake, the job and internship database used by ECU Career Services, but he also had a chance to network with Varonis representatives through ECU’s Association for Information Systems chapter.

“Having those early conversations gave me a better sense of the company and allowed me to bring a more personal connection to the application process,” he said.

That networking helped him land a summer internship with the data security and analytics company in Morrisville.

“I help triage real-time security alerts and work within a SIEM (security information and event management) dashboard to identify suspicious behavior,” Geter said. “I also assist with tuning detection rules and contribute to internal documentation that sharpens our response process.”

He said the experience has been both challenging and rewarding, each day presenting a chance to learn something new. Working with mentor Ricky Price ’23 has stood out as a rewarding part of the internship, he added.

“From day one, he has made it a priority to ensure I’m not just completing tasks, but actually learning and getting the most out of every assignment as I prepare to transition from student to professional,” Geter said.

He said he also regularly draws on the critical thinking and problem-solving skills he learned at ECU.

“When I’m digging into an alert or investigating a potential issue, I often find myself pulling from what I’ve learned — whether it’s analyzing IP address behavior, understanding how network segmentation works, or even evaluating how new tools like large language models play into security strategy,” he said.

After the internship, Geter hopes to move into a governance, risk and compliance role where he can combine his technical knowledge with a strong understanding of privacy, policy and organizational risk.