Khurram Ghayur: CPP Program ’14

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State Farm Projects:

I completed a diverse group of work including project/ strategic initiatives, employee development, and operational work in the financial shared services sector of the financial operations department. Regarding project/ strategic initiative, I performed reconciliation between the master list of agreement activities and the finance activities agreement from department leadership for the sale of State Farm Canadian businesses to Desjardin. In addition, I updated the list of master agreement activities by looking at responses from finance departments’ directors and managers regarding the State Farm and Desjardin transaction. My work was reviewed by the Canada Migration Program (CMP) leadership. Also, I created a project funding excel workbook with the estimations of cost for upcoming finance projects to aid in the prioritization process. Regarding employee development, I created a revised version of the power point slides for the 2014 Fundamentals of Accounting Class by using the 2013 slides, textbook, and the 2013 State Farm annual report. Regarding operational work, I completed employee compensation on-cycle check count verification, W-2 reissues, and wage verifications on a regular basis. I had the opportunity to create an employee count report that listed the managers and directors of each department within financial operations and showed percentages to total employee count. Lastly, I completed a self-audit for master funding. In this audit, I verified the procedures for master funding duties performed by treasury services related to Bank of America, JP Morgan, US Bank, and Wells Fargo in order to ensure transactions are adequately calculated, executed, maintained and protected. Through my internship in financial operations, I had the unique opportunity to have four mentoring sessions and one on one meetings with several assistant vice presidents and the vice president of financial operations.

YMCA Projects: 

At the YMCA, I searched and applied for the grants for their New Generation Youth Soccer League to help get equipment to sustain this growing free of charge league for our community. In addition, I completed an analysis of United Way’s McLean County’s Community Assessment in order to show ways the YMCA’s services can fulfill community needs. I created an excel workbook with a contact list for all the youth travel basketball leagues in McLean County and a workbook with a list of around 25 potential grant opportunities for youth sports and community gardens. Also, I had the opportunity to harvest vegetables at a community garden and help out, from setting up the fields to working with the kids, at the New Generation Youth Soccer League.

Khurram’s Grant: 

The YMCA will collaborate with AsiaNet (State Farm’s Employee Resource Group), McLean County’s Indian Association (MCIA), Illinois Wesleyan University’s South Asian Student Group (SASA), Illinois Wesleyan University’s Athletic Department, Illinois State University’s Global Diversity Group, Puran Indian Restaurant, and the lead singer, Vonid Nambair, of the local Indian band “Exit 167” to offer a South Asian cultural event for the Bloomington-Normal community. The cultural event, “Desi Day”, will give the community the opportunity to learn more about the South Asian culture, as well as allow South Asians to connect within our community. The $500 grant will be used to fund the event expenses.

A Note From Khurram: 

First, thank you to State Farm for your support of the community partnership program. Thank you to the YMCA for taking an intern this summer. Thank you to Amy Davis, my supervisor at State Farm, for giving me a full internship experience within financial operations (only in 3 days per week) and for being extraordinarily helpful. Lastly, thank you to Illinois Wesleyan University’s Action Research Center, Deborah Halperin, Matt LaLonde, and my fellow CPP and financial operations interns for making this summer unforgettable. I feel truly blessed to have been a part of this unique and meaningful program.