How Product Manager MBA Intern, Catie Bass, is Empowering People to Create

This year, Adobe is proud to welcome more than 700 interns across the globe for our first ever virtual internship program. It’s been a blast welcoming our interns to their #AdobeLife, and seeing the incredible impact they’re making. To give you a peak into their internship, we’ll be featuring our Adobe Interns from across the business and across the world.

Read on to learn how Product Manager MBA Intern, Catie Bass, plans to enable graphic designers to do more motion design with After Effects.

Which University are you currently enrolled in and what is your internship title?

I’m currently an incoming second year MBA student at the University of Washington Michael G. Foster School of Business. My title this summer is Product Manager MBA Intern for Motion Design.

What attracted you to join Adobe?

I grew up in a number of public television and radio stations and my dad moonlights as a clarinetist in a local symphony, so art and creativity have always been very important to me. Additionally, I spent six years before business school working at a large tech company, where I developed a passion for product management. Because Adobe provided the opportunity to combine my passions for product management and creative pursuits, applying was a natural choice for me. I’m so thrilled to be spending my summer helping empower people to create.

Tell me about your main project this summer—what are you working on and how have you been making an impact?

This summer I’m focusing on identifying and proposing solutions for graphic designers’ pain points in After Effects. I’ve spent my time at Adobe so far developing and refining assumptions about the graphic designer segment–I first met with DVA team members to learn about how our team understands graphic designer use cases. I then used those assumptions to design and conduct virtual user interviews with external graphic designers. My next step is to design a quantitative survey in order to pressure test our assumptions. I’ll then use the survey responses to identify solutions that enable graphic designers to do more motion design.

How has it been like being a virtual intern, especially in comparison to any part internships you’ve done? What have you enjoyed most about the experience so far?

I definitely had a little trepidation about remote work, but it’s been a fantastic experience so far–I have felt welcomed from day one and haven’t felt removed from my team at all. I’ve especially enjoyed the virtual MBAs@Adobe events, particularly the MBAs@Adobe speaker series. The MBA Intern Summit was also a fantastic way to get to know fellow MBAs; I really appreciated the breakout rooms as an opportunity to get to know my peers. I’ve made some fantastic friends despite being thousands of miles apart.

Learn more about our Adobe Interns’ experiences by dropping by the University blog page.