Gonzalo García-Calderón (IMC22)

Senior Knowledge Analyst, Marketing for CPG at Boston Consulting Group

Tell us about your career path. How did you get where you are today?

After being a marketing intern for the Instant Beverages division at Nestle, I started my professional career working in Advertising for BCP, Peru’s largest financial institution. There, I learned about spearheading Creative processes, offline and online advertising, account management and data analytics. After this experience, I was headhunted by Belcorp, a Latin American direct sales beauty company, to serve as a Category Lead for the Personal Care & Wellness division, working on end-to-end product launch processes and product management, consumer insights, and influencer marketing. Finally, I was hired by Alicorp, one of Latin America’s leading CPG companies, to serve as the brand manager for the Cereal, Granolas, and Cereal Bars division. There I learned about brand management, full-funnel marketing campaigns, trade marketing, and strategic partnerships.

With a combined 6+ years of experience in different marketing roles, I decided to go to Medill to get my Master’s in integrated marketing communications, focusing on the Brand Strategy and Media sequences. After an amazing experience working for the Partner Enablement Marketing team at Cisco during Immersion Quarter, I graduated in December 2022 and started my journey at BCG as a Senior Knowledge Analyst on Marketing for the CPG industry, based in the Chicago office.

What are your main responsibilities in your current role?

As a Senior Knowledge Analyst at BCG, my role is to work on client cases and provide expertise on marketing for consumer-packaged goods companies, specializing in digital marketing growth, marketing efficiency, marketing budget planning, lead generation, gen AI, and media performance. Additionally, another part of my responsibilities is developing intellectual property within the marketing topic, growing the firm’s expertise and resources for future client cases.

How did the Medill Integrated Marketing Communications Full-Time program prepare you for your career?

The Medill IMC Full-Time program allowed me to adapt the skills acquired from my past work experience into the demands and nuances of the U.S. market. It exposed me to an array of ways of thinking, backgrounds, and experiences all together, allowing me to gain a global perspective on marketing and international best practices from companies worldwide. Additionally, it enhanced my qualitative and quantitative skills by combining different aspects of my experience into a holistic degree that comprises the essence of art and science in the marketing field.

What did you do during Immersion Quarter?

During my Immersion Quarter, I worked for the Partner Enablement Marketing team at Cisco, working on a project that sought to improve the positioning of Cisco products, such as the Black Belt Academy and the CX Hub, within vendors and partners. The project demanded the team to conduct primary research, harnessing insights from expert interviews and third-party sources, as well as benchmarking key competitors and brainstorming for creative solutions. We presented the client with a revamped partner engagement plan to improve brand positioning and vendor sales, including a set of big, medium, and small bets to enhance the current state of Cisco’s partner enablement program.

What is a class or experience that stuck out in your mind and why?

The class that stuck out the most for me was Shopper Marketing with Prof. Elizabeth Harris and Prof. Laura Moser. The combination of theorical and practical examples truly helped broaden the scope for me as a CPG marketer who was not familiar with the US retail landscape and enabled me to learn about the best practices on trade terms, store distribution, and point-of-purchase strategy. To this day, the concepts and materials shared on that class remain relevant to my work, allowing me to be ahead of the curve within the topic and among my peers.

How has Medill Career Services helped you?

Medill Career Services helped me adapt my resume to apply for jobs in the US market. Curriculum Vitae’s standards vary worldwide, and having a team dedicated to helping me adjust it to my professional aspirations truly helped me in the job hunt process. Additionally, Career Services organized several employer visits to campus through the Best Meets Best sessions, connecting the students with hiring companies in real time.

How can your industry be more inclusive and representative of society

The consulting industry is known for being very inclusive and diverse as they know that brilliant minds come from every corner of the world. Companies as BCG take advantage of this fact and actively seek to hire international students from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and beliefs, creating a pull of professionals that are well-versed and complimentary to each other. That said, Consulting recruiting is usually associated with B-Schools worldwide, prioritizing hiring students from MBAs or similar programs. Nevertheless, the Consulting industry could definitively benefit from accepting a more diverse pool of professional candidates, with an emphasis on specialty roles that may require niche profiles (ethnography, Semiotics, Design, Sociology, among others).

How have your identities influenced the way you navigate your professional career?

Being from Latin America has not only influenced my professional career but also shaped several of its outcomes. Upon graduation, “not having U.S. experience” was always a fear me and my international classmates shared during the job hunt process. But in retrospect, being international was truly our superpower, allowing us to bring different and new perspectives to our prospective employers. I’ve always being proud of “the way we do things in South America” and having a global perspective of marketing processes and campaigns has allowed me to succeed not only at BCG, but throughout my career. Additionally, having Spanish as my first language opened several doors for me as bilingual professionals are increasingly sought after in the Consulting space.

What advice would you give to someone considering the Medill Integrated Marketing Communications Full-Time program?

Take this time to learn something new. Whether you are a seasoned professional coming into the program to get a master’s, or a straight-out-of-undergrad student that is seeking to gain knowledge on the marketing topic, use your time at Medill to acquire a new skill and broaden your expertise. If you are not a data person, take the risk and take the Data Foundations class. If you have never worked in public relations or internal comms., take a chance with strategic communications. Use Medill as a way of complimenting your professional profile, become a more holistic marketer, and increase the potential job outcomes after graduation.