Intern Spotlight: Lauren Laven

By: Laura Nielsen

Lauren Laven first attended the University of Iowa planning to major in music. However, like many first-year college students, she decided that wasn’t for her and found herself enrolling in business classes. Now majoring in Marketing with a minor in Music, the 2017 graduate of Spirit Lake High School is the Marketing Intern at Bank Midwest of Spirit Lake.

Last summer, Laven worked as a teller at Bank Midwest’s Okoboji branch where she thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere as well as the people who work there. She reached out again this summer with hopes of equally enjoying an internship position. “I wanted to still be able to experience the company and people but more in my area of interest, so this summer has been nice because it’s more of what I do.” Although she still doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do with her marketing major, her goal this summer was, “To narrow down what I want to do a little more and feel like I’m on the right path with my Marketing major.”

Laven has had an eventful summer as part of the Bank Midwest Internship Program. She has attended trainings with other interns where they learn how to better communicate with others, and “I also got to attend the Iowa Bankers Association in Des Moines where we got to meet people from all over the state in banking careers and it was a really great networking opportunity. I’ll go back two more times this summer.”

Among attending these various events, Laven also gets to sit in on meetings and work with the two main facets of marketing: print and digital. “Before, I didn’t really like the digital side of things, but my supervisor here is actually the head of digital marketing, so I’m starting to grow more interest in it.” She has been also doing some data analytics of Bank Midwest’s Community Giving Fund, which is a fund used to donate to projects in the community that will have a lasting impact. “I have been analyzing our past giving efforts and sharing it out.” Overall, Laven is staying busy in her position at Bank Midwest, and she was happy to find a perfect learning opportunity and experience right here in Northwest Iowa.