Spring 2024 MU ITC Graduate Spotlight: Lucas Hayes

With strong interests in all things international, Spring 2024 graduate Lucas Hayes interned with the MU International Trade Center during the spring of 2023. He honed his global market research skills, completing analysis and sharing recommendations with a small Missouri-based craft distiller interested in guiding the strategic growth of their business.

Hayes also took the opportunity to say yes to forming an undergraduate team to participate in the 2024 NASBITE International Student Case Competition, where all three team members were successfully able to leverage their MU ITC internship learning and database mastery to win the undergraduate section of that national event.

Hayes graduated from Mizzou with a bachelor’s degrees in business administration, economics and international studies with an emphasis in Portuguese and minors in Luso-Brazilian area studies and leadership and public service.

Hayes will attend the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University starting in the fall of 2024. This summer, as part of the 2024 SEO (Sponsors for Educational Opportunity) Law Fellows program, he has joined Kirkland & Ellis as a summer associate in their Salt Lake City, Utah, office.

"I learned a lot of technical skills about market research through a variety of data platforms the university provided us. From this, I learned how to utilize that data and analyze it regarding our overall objective," Hayes said. "I was able to take a systematic and strategic view on how to use data to form a thesis or an insight on the matter. During the internship, the data allowed me to construct a data-driven analysis on which markets would be best to enter."