After graduating with a master’s degree in business analytics from the Wisconsin School of Business in May 2024, Rohith Madduru received a crash course on Wisconsin local government by partnering with Chippewa County through UniverCity Alliance to evaluate its information technology department.
Madduru was tasked with comprehensively evaluating Chippewa County’s IT operations with the goal of identifying staff improvements, workload distribution, and process efficiency.
“Chippewa County’s IT department was working with multiple departments, like the police department and the parks and recreation department,” Madduru said. “In a way, the staff in the Chippewa County IT department were feeling that they were catering to seven to eight companies at the same time. They were feeling that they were understaffed, and there was a backlog of tickets.”
During his graduate degree studies, Madduru also completed a practicum project analyzing restaurant brand survey data for a marketing research company. Now, Madduru works in Houston, Texas as a business analyst for Citigroup and credits his experiences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and with UniverCity Alliance for helping land the role.
Learn more about Maduuru’s experiences in this Q&A.
What did you learn by partnering with Chippewa County and what professional skills did you gain from the experience?
UniverCity Alliance gave me the whole aspect of being accountable for my work and also leading my own project. I was able to plan everything from my end and also communicate it with the Chippewa County IT director, and this was a new experience for me.
I had to create my own simulations, which I learned from my courses at UW–Madison. I provided Chippewa County with this big document, which included all the trends in the business. How can they implement these trends in the context of Chippewa County, and do they need additional staff or not? I gave the solution based on their backlog in tickets, and I also analyzed the job description, the roles they already have, and what timeline they can hire people. This experience was really helpful for me in my current work where I am owning my own work that I’m doing.
What was it like for you to learn about a Wisconsin local government?
My father back in India works for the government there. I was always fascinated by that, and I wanted to work for the government. But in time, my goals changed. Then I got this opportunity where I could learn about local government. UniverCity Alliance and Chippewa County staff helped me understand the scope of things when you’re working with a single county. It can be hard to do a comparative analysis. UniverCity Alliance organized a training session with Ehlers (an industry-leading municipal advisory firm) on local government finance. That was really helpful and very insightful for me.
What are you doing now?
I’m currently working as a business analyst at Citigroup. My work here is primarily focused on commodities. I am in the IT department, and my role includes a lot of processing documents and creating business requirements. This aligns with my experience from both Chippewa County and UW–Madison where I was able to be an individual contributor and an owner of my own project.
How did the experience at UniverCity Alliance support your career goals?
During a job interview, I’m able to share that I was part of a team and was a project leader. In the case of my experience in Chippewa County, I am able to stress the fact that from the inception of thai project to the deliverable, I can take ownership of things. This experience helped me land this job.
This Q&A was edited for brevity and clarity.
—Abigail Becker