#WBSinsights Term 2

Hello again! Many of you might know my 3rd-year journey and my academic choices in terms of future career plans. I plan on working in marketing/ PR at the end of my degree and one step that I took this year was to take an optional module from the business school: Marketing IB2090. Along with Global PR, Communication Modes, Professional Communication, Quantitative Research and the dissertation, my main goal was to specialise and acquire skills that could be of help in the fields that I wish to work in. Since Dr. Laura Chamberlain is my lecturer and the creator of the events, I was really curious to attend and to find out more about the nature of those events and if they could be helpful and resourceful toward my skill development.

The WBS Marketing insight series was launched and created by Dr Laura Chamberlain and Faye Neivens to bring an unprecedented suite of events ranging from top industry speakers to skills workshops and student challenges for Warwick students. This series has brought cutting-edge marketers and marketing to The University of Warwick. If you are interested in marketing and want to bridge the gap between academia and industry, there are still plenty of events left until the end of term 2 and I encourage you to sign up to each event. Any student from across the University is welcome and they have operated a loyalty scheme with unique opportunities for students who participate regularly. This series has been designed to give the students the tools they need to become the change makers and marketing leaders of the future.

I went to two of the events so far in term 2 and I had the change to broaden my network with people both my age as well as experienced entrepreneurs and managers. At the first event I have attended this term, three entrepreneurs were invited to share their upbringing, academic and professional background, as well as tips for job applications, orientation, skills and a q&a session, where we could ask anything about their journeys. Fin O’Kane, Jamelia Donaldson, and Mori Abdul reflected on their business success and achievements since graduating. I learned from Jamelia (founder) about Treasuretress, a monthly subscription box for women with curly hair, and her endless frustration with beauty products that would not suit her natural hair. She found this niche market that she wanted to help and eventually turned her passion/ part-time job into a full-time career. Then I gained knowledge about events planning from Mori, the founder of “EventsbyMori”, who initially worked for BlackRock asset management and financial services. Last but certainly not least, Fin talked about founding Wiser, a recruitment company based in London. Among Fin’s clients are Skybet, HM Treasury, WorldPay, Expedia, just eat, Fidelity, Whitbread and TalkTalk. He also shared his journey with us, from starting with a team of three: the CEO, CTO, and CFO, he now manages a team of over 50 people in their Central London office. They all talked about resilience, never giving up, believing in your passions and ideas and working toward achieveing all your goals.

The second event that I attended was with guest Dominic Simkus, Digital Innovation Manager, Lloyds Bank. Dominic Simkus has graduated from Aston University, Birmingham in 2015 with BSc degree in Marketing. As part of his degree programme, Dominic has completed industrial placements at Tesco.com head office in London and Aston Business School Marketing department and wrote his dissertation on applying Service Design & Customer Experience (CX) techniques to recruiting postgraduate students to higher education institutions. After his successful studies, Dominic has joined Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) as part of the first-ever digital leadership graduate scheme in UK banking sector. During the course of the two-year programme, Dominic has completed placements in Service Design & Research, E-commerce, and Digital Servicing teams. Moreover, Dominic is passionate about modern arts and technology and how it can be combined together at the workplace. He is a big advocate of culture change at LBG and is due to start his Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) postgraduate qualifications in Digital Marketing in 2018. From Dominic, I learned about digital disruption, innovation, Lloyds bank’s experiments with voice recognition for online banking, systems design and agile thinking, user experience design, project management, presentation and service design skills and his passion for organizational psychology and consumer behaviour, as well as his everyday tasks and projects at Lloyds.

I am truly grateful for the fact that these people have dedicated their time outside of work toward giving us advice, suggestions, ideas about our future careers, that might be similar to their current roles and goals. If any of you thought about attending a WBS insight series but were not quite sure about the format, the guests and what to expect from them I hope this was informative enough and interesting. I can not wait to learn even more from individuals as inspiring as them.