Mara Bey (IMC19)

Senior marketing manager at Adobe

Mara Bey (IMC19) says that the program helped her to become more comfortable with data, which has benefitted her as a campaign marketing manager at Adobe. While she doesn't have to analyze data directly in the way that a data scientist would, her degree helps her to ask the right questions and therefore make fully informed decisions.

Tell us briefly about your career journey and what you do now.

Prior to the Integrated Marketing Communications master’s program, I worked in advertising doing social strategy in Chicago—the two agencies I had worked for were BBDO and R/GA. I decided to pursue my master’s degree at Northwestern University Medill School because I recognized a need to learn more about data and turning data into actionable insights. I also wanted to pivot to working brand-side and knew I needed more data skills and business/marketing strategy knowledge. Now, I am a senior marketing manager at Adobe at Adobe.

How did your Northwestern University Medill degree help advance your career?

This may sound cheesy, but I don’t feel like I would be able to do my job half as well without my Integrated Marketing Communications master’s degree. Since I didn’t work brand-side before, there is so much terminology used on a day-to-day basis that I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been in the Integrated Marketing Communications master’s program. This made my transition into my new role a lot more seamless. I also find this degree to be unique and valuable because of the customer centric approach we learn. This approach is considered cutting edge in industry and everyone wants to hire more customer-centric thinkers.

What skills did you gain at Medill or what experiences did you have that were particularly beneficial?

Learning to work cross functionally with a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets was really beneficial in the IMC program. I also think being more comfortable with data benefitted me. Even though I’m not a data scientist I am able to ask the data experts the right questions to get to the answers and insights that I need to make informed marketing decisions.

What did you do during your Immersion Quarter and what did you gain from that experience?

I did an independent Immersion Quarter at Adobe, which was the most valuable experience I had because I got to apply all my classroom skills to a real business setting. It also ultimately led to my full time offer, which was a huge plus!

How has the Medill alumni network helped you?

At Adobe there are other Medill alumni who work in the San Francisco office and I connect with them on a regular basis. It’s great to have a built-in network of alumni in the work place, especially since we are all in different departments.

How was Medill’s Career Services helpful as a resource?

Career Services was a really helpful resource for salary negotiation. Akeya from Career Services provided me valuable resources for how to make sure my salary was competitive and coached me through how to negotiate.