Susan McLeod (IMC14)

President, Conroy Media Ltd.

As a "mature” student, I found the IMC program actually helped me “stay in the game.” I was a 30-plus-year veteran in the Chicago advertising media community when I applied to the program. I realized I needed to step up my game, particularly with the migration to digital. The IMC program helped me to gain the confidence to ask the right questions and it provides a focus in a noisy marketing communications world.

The main skill, for me, is the confidence to ask the right questions. I think there is a perception that digital marketing -- particularly for us “analog” types -- is a daunting, complex black box. In all actuality, while the tactical execution might be complex, the strategic process framework is disciplined and data-driven. The IMC program enables us to cut through the noise and focus on the business problems that we're looking to solve.

Even though I have more than 30 years of business experience, I learned a ton from my classmates. And, I'd be remiss if I didn't rave about my experience in the on-campus Leadership Week course. It was great to spend in-class and social time with classmates, with whom I'd worked for two years and had not met in person. We also met faculty and went on a class field trip to Google and Publicis with instructors Candy Lee and Tom Collinger. It was a wonderful week!