Tell us about yourself and take us along your journey to Chicago Booth.
I’m originally from the Bronx, New York. I attended Providence College in Rhode Island for undergrad where I studied marketing and finance. After graduation, I moved back home to New York and worked in finance for two years at a bond research company called CreditSights. I realized finance was not a space I was extremely passionate about, so I pivoted towards marketing and worked for an out-of-home advertising agency called Intersection Media. We focused specifically on transit ads in major markets throughout the United States. After a year, I received a job promotion that moved me to Chicago to become a sports account executive. This promotion allotted me the opportunity to work with big sports companies throughout Chicago like the Chicago Bulls, Chicago Black Hawks, USA Soccer, Chicago White Sox, and more.
While I loved the work, I realized I was only touching one aspect of marketing—the promotional ‘P’ and I wanted to focus on all of the P’s of Marketing. My desire to have a more holistic marketing strategy motivated me to attend business school. I applied for Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), which helped expand my horizon in terms of schools I considered. Being in Chicago, I started to look more closely at Booth. After receiving my acceptance, I saw how Booth could assist me in developing skills I needed to be a successful marketing leader. I knew my soft skills were a signature strength of mine from my experience working in sales and client services. I wanted to develop other useful skills like data analysis to put myself in the position to become the kind of marketing leader I aspired to be. I also received the opportunity to become a Kilts Marketing Fellow, which confirmed that Chicago Booth was the place where I needed to be.
Can you tell us how your involvement within the Kilts Center for Marketing added to your MBA experience?
I loved being a Kilts Marketing Fellow. Choosing Booth was a very intentional decision for me. While Chicago Booth has a reputation for being strictly a finance school, which is not true by the way, Booth also has a phenomenal marketing program. I decided on Booth because I preferred to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond than a small fish in a bigger pond. I knew coming to Booth would connect me to a tight-knit community of bright marketers; seeing my peers at different recruiting and social events allowed me to form those quality relationships I was looking for.
Having the opportunity to become a Kilts Marketing Fellow in particular was truly amazing. They read my essays—I wrote about wanting to work at Gatorade—and my marketing mentor was the Director of Marketing for Gatorade. The pairing was perfect because I was very steadfast about my career aspirations. Not only did I get to know someone who would be a future colleague, I also met someone who I could ask questions from a marketing perspective. Being able to develop that relationship early on in my Booth career and throughout my two years in the program was truly phenomenal. My mentor helped shape my viewpoint on what kind of leader I wanted to be, how I wanted to approach my internships, as well as how I operate in my full-time career now at PepsiCo. This all came to life because of the Kilts Center.
