MBA Internship Final Presentation Template

Internship Final Presentation: [Project title, employer, date]

A template for the end-of-internship presentation that MBA summer interns give to their team and senior leadership: the storyline, an executive summary, the analysis with computed exhibits, the recommendation, an implementation plan, and preparation for questions. A complete worked example uses a fictional company (Corvane Robotics, a warehouse-robotics firm) and shows every number with its Excel formula. It is for MBA interns, and for students preparing field-project or consulting-club presentations. Source basis: answer-first and pyramid structure (Minto 2009), net present value (Fisher 1930) and standard corporate finance practice, written in our own words. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example. This is a communication aid, not financial advice.

Document control

Approvals

Contents

1. Purpose and audience
2. Building the presentation: process
3. Storyline
4. Executive summary
5. Analysis and exhibits (worked example)
6. Recommendation
7. Implementation plan
8. Risks and what would change the answer
9. Q&A preparation
10. Delivery and dry runs
11. After the presentation
12. Quality checklist
13. Common mistakes

1. Purpose and audience

The final presentation has two purposes. For the business, it should lead to a decision or a clear next step on the problem you worked on. For you, it is often the one time senior people see your thinking directly, and their impression feeds the full-time offer decision. Both purposes are served by the same thing: a clear recommendation, supported by evidence the audience trusts, delivered in the time allowed, with honest answers to hard questions.

Start by writing down who is in the room and what each of them cares about. A chief financial officer will look at the assumptions behind the numbers, a sales leader at what customers will accept, an operations leader at whether the plan can be run. You built a stakeholder map in the internship plan (mba/mba-internship-plan); reuse it here.

2. Building the presentation: process

Build the deck in the order shown. The storyline and the executive summary come before any slide, because they decide which exhibits you need. Each exhibit is then tested against its headline: if the data do not prove the sentence, change the sentence or drop the exhibit. Pre-wiring and dry runs come last but take real time; plan at least a week for them.

3. Storyline

A good business presentation puts the answer first. Minto's pyramid principle (Minto 2009) organises a document around one governing thought (the recommendation), supported by a small number of key messages, each supported in turn by evidence. The key messages should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive for the question asked, and they should be either a logical chain (deductive) or a set of parallel reasons (inductive). The slide headlines, read in order, carry the storyline; the body of each slide is evidence for its headline.

A useful opening is situation, complication, resolution: what the audience already accepts, what has changed or is wrong, and what you propose. Keep the situation to two sentences; senior audiences know their business.

Slide headline list (the "ghost deck"). Write the headlines before the slides:

4. Executive summary

Write the summary in full sentences. Lead with the recommendation, then the two or three reasons, then the ask.

Template

• Recommendation: [what, how much, by when].
• Why: [reason 1 with its key number], [reason 2 with its key number], [reason 3].
• Risk and mitigation: [the main thing that could make this wrong and how the plan handles it].
• Decision requested today: [specific decision].

Worked example (Example)

We recommend that Corvane reprice robots-as-a-service to USD 1,525 per robot per month for new mid-size warehouse contracts and test the price with three pilot customers over three months. Customers want RaaS: 11 of the 18 warehouses we interviewed (61.1%) prefer it to buying, mainly to avoid capital spending and to transfer maintenance risk. At the current USD 1,100 a month, however, a RaaS robot is worth USD 9,506 to Corvane in present-value terms over five years, against USD 27,012 for an outright sale with a service contract. At USD 1,525, RaaS is worth USD 27,890 to Corvane, slightly more than a sale, and still costs the customer USD 1,373 less in present value than buying. The band in which both sides gain is narrow (about USD 1,505 to USD 1,555), so the pilot should test acceptance before a full price change. We ask the leadership team to approve the pilot and name a commercial owner today.

5. Analysis and exhibits (worked example)

5.1 Assumptions (Example)

All figures are per robot, over a five-year horizon, with annual cash flows at year end. They are fictional and for illustration only.

5.2 Exhibit 1: customer preference (Example)

Excel: share =B2/$B$5. Source: 18 structured interviews, weeks 2 to 5 (Example). Note on the slide that this is a small, non-random sample: it shows direction and reasons, not market share.

5.3 Exhibit 2: value to Corvane, sale versus RaaS at today's price (Example)

Cash flows per robot to Corvane (USD):

Net present value at 12%, using the definition

where $CF_t$ is the cash flow in year $t$, $r$ the discount rate and $T$ the horizon (5 years).

Remember that Excel's NPV discounts its first value by one period, so the year-0 flow is added outside the function. The 12% annuity factor for five years is 3.6048 (=PV(12%,5,-1)).

Headline: today's RaaS price earns about a third of the value of a sale (9,506 / 27,012 = 0.35). The IRR of 23.05% is above the hurdle rate, which is why the price looked acceptable; the comparison that matters is against the sale the customer would otherwise make.

5.4 Exhibit 3: the price band where both sides gain (Example)

Two break-even prices define the band:

• Corvane break-even: the monthly price $m$ at which RaaS NPV equals sale NPV. Solving $-30{,}000 + (12m - 3{,}500)\times 3.6048 + 8{,}000/1.12^5 = 27{,}012$ gives $m \approx$ USD 1,504.70. Excel: Goal Seek on the RaaS NPV cell, or =(27012+30000-8000/1.12^5+3500*PV(12%,5,-1))/(12*PV(12%,5,-1)).
• Customer break-even: the price at which the present value of RaaS fees equals the present value of buying (USD 48,000 plus USD 6,000 a year at 10%, which is USD 70,745). With a 10% annuity factor of 3.7908, $m = 70{,}745 / (12 \times 3.7908) \approx$ USD 1,555.19. Excel: =(48000+6000*PV(10%,5,-1))/(12*PV(10%,5,-1)).

Reference lines: sale NPV to Corvane USD 27,012; customer PV of buying USD 70,745. At USD 1,525 Corvane gains USD 878 per robot against a sale and the customer saves USD 1,373 against buying. RaaS at USD 1,525 has an IRR of 43.00% and pays back during year 3 (cumulative USD -400 at the end of year 2).

5.5 Exhibit 4: sensitivity at the recommended price (Example)

The recommendation depends on two assumptions the audience will question: the residual value of returned robots and the discount rate. Say so on the slide. That honesty is what makes the rest of the analysis credible, and it leads directly to the pilot design: the pilot should measure refurbishment cost and resale value.

5.6 Exhibit register

6. Recommendation

Excel: cohort value =40*H3 where H3 is the per-robot NPV. Note that the cohort figure assumes every robot is placed at the given price, which the pilot will test.

7. Implementation plan

8. Risks and what would change the answer

For R-01, the threshold is the residual value $V$ that makes the two NPVs equal: $27{,}890 - (8{,}000 - V)/1.12^5 = 27{,}012$, so $V = 8{,}000 - 878 \times 1.12^5 \approx$ USD 6,452 (with unrounded NPVs). Excel: Goal Seek the RaaS NPV cell to equal the sale NPV by changing the residual cell. Replace the threshold with the value from your own model.

For R-04, the customer side is checked the same way. If an owned robot is worth $V_c$ to the buyer at the end of year 5, the customer break-even becomes $m = (70{,}745 - V_c/1.10^5)/(12 \times 3.7908)$, which equals USD 1,504.70 at $V_c \approx$ USD 3,699. With $V_c = 0$, the customer break-even equals USD 1,504.70 when the customer's discount rate is about 8.1% (at 8% it is USD 1,501.83). Excel: Goal Seek on the customer break-even cell. The band is narrow on both sides, which is a further reason to pilot before a full price change.

9. Q&A preparation

Most of the impression you leave is formed in Q&A. Prepare by asking your manager and one sceptical stakeholder what they would ask. Answer in three parts: the direct answer, the evidence, and what it means for the recommendation. If you do not know, say so and say when you will follow up; never guess a number.

Types of question to prepare for: the data (sample, source, period), the method (why NPV, why this horizon), the assumptions (the two that drive the answer), alternatives you rejected, implementation (who, cost, time), the politics (who loses if this happens) and the personal one ("What did you learn this summer?").

10. Delivery and dry runs

• Time the talk at 70% of the slot; questions start early in senior meetings.
• Open with the recommendation, not with your summer story.
• Speak to the headline, then point to the evidence on the slide; do not read the slide.
• Keep a printed one-page summary for anyone who joins late.
• Pre-wire: show the key exhibits privately to the two or three people most likely to object, a few days before.
• For video presentations, test screen sharing, send the deck in advance, and name a colleague to watch the chat.

11. After the presentation

Within one working day, send a short note to the decision makers and your manager: thank them, restate the decision taken (or the open question), list any follow-ups you promised with dates, and attach the final deck and handover pack. Then complete the handover listed in mba/mba-internship-plan and record the feedback you received in your learning log. If an offer conversation follows, use mba/mba-offer-negotiation.

12. Quality checklist

• The headlines alone tell the full argument.
• The recommendation is on the first content slide, with a number and a decision requested.
• The executive summary fits on one page and has been read by the manager.
• Every figure traces to a model cell in the exhibit register and has been checked by the data owner.
• Units, time period and source are on every exhibit.
• Assumptions that drive the answer are shown with thresholds.
• The implementation plan names owners and dates.
• Ten hard questions have prepared answers and backup slides.
• Confidential data cleared for this audience.
• Talk fits 70% of the time slot.
• Follow-up note drafted in advance.

13. Common mistakes

1. Chronological storytelling. "First I did interviews, then I built a model" buries the answer. Lead with the recommendation.
2. Topic headlines. "Pricing analysis" says nothing; "Today's price earns a third of the value of a sale" makes a claim.
3. Too many exhibits. One exhibit per message; move the rest to an appendix.
4. Numbers that do not tie. A figure on slide 3 that differs from slide 7 by rounding destroys trust; use the exhibit register.
5. Hiding the weak assumption. Senior people will find it; showing it first with a threshold earns credibility.
6. No decision requested. Without an ask, the meeting ends with "interesting, thanks".
7. Comparing against the wrong alternative. In the example, the RaaS IRR of 23% beats the hurdle rate, but the right comparison is against the sale.
8. Excel NPV used on the whole range. =NPV(r, B2:G2) discounts year 0 by one period; add year 0 outside the function.
9. Surprising stakeholders. Disagreement in the room that could have been found in a pre-wire meeting looks like poor stakeholder management.
10. Guessing in Q&A. "I will check and come back to you by Thursday" is a strong answer.
11. Over-running. Senior meetings start late and end on time; a 20-minute slot often becomes 12.
12. Forgetting the handover. The deck without the model and assumptions log cannot be acted on after you leave.

Sources and further reading

• Minto, B. (2009). The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking (3rd ed.). FT Prentice Hall. Answer-first structure, governing thought and key messages.
• Fisher, I. (1930). The Theory of Interest. Macmillan. The foundation of discounting future cash flows used in net present value.
• Duarte, N. (2010). Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. Wiley. Story structure for presentations.
• Tufte, E. R. (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2nd ed.). Graphics Press. Clear exhibits.
• Brealey, R. A., Myers, S. C. and Allen, F. Principles of Corporate Finance (current edition). McGraw Hill. NPV, IRR and sensitivity analysis.
• Related templates: mba/mba-npv-irr-card, mba/mba-pricing-card, mba/mba-business-communication-card, mba/mba-internship-plan, business/executive-summary, finance/investment-appraisal.

Revision history

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with the answer-first pyramid principle (Minto 2009) and standard discounted cash flow practice (Fisher 1930; corporate finance textbooks). The text, the Corvane Robotics example and all calculations are original, and the company, people and figures are fictional. The template is not affiliated with or endorsed by any business school, employer or consulting firm. Check your employer's presentation and confidentiality standards before you use it. Template licence: MIT.