SAEM Degree Sets Up Alumna for Successful Marketing Career with Comcast Alumni Profile

How did you land a marketing position with Comcast Technology Solutions in Colorado?

It’s a bit of a long-winded story. When I graduated college, I went to work for Apple for a few years. It was a great opportunity to break into another industry that really interested me while staying true to my goal of working in the entertainment industry. From there I got some real-life experience in sales, operations and marketing all while understanding how the overall tech industry works. In addition, I was also working part time with iHeartRadio.

After a while, I started looking at larger corporations that offered a balance of entertainment and technology with a focus in marketing, which led me to my position as a content specialist in advanced media at Comcast Spotlight. This position was an operational role inside of Comcast’s advertising arm. In this role, I processed commercials for digital platforms, created overlays, embedded commercials with a digital watermark and designed In-Guide banners for the Xfinity platform. While these were my day-to-day tasks, I explored other opportunities to develop new skills such as creating a reporting tool for our team. This took a lot of self teaching on reporting, analytics and understanding data.

I learned a lot about the business and the inner workings of the company. My managers did a great job of providing development opportunities to learn. Through those conversations, I was able to discuss the upward mobility I wanted to achieve in my career and it was recommended that I consider a marketing position to provide me with the right tools.

Within our internal network, I discovered a marketing specialist position open with Comcast Technology Solutions. After discussing my career path with my current manager, speaking to the recruiter and having my first interview with Becca, my current manager, it confirmed that this position was the right fit for me. It provided me flexibility to learn and allowed me to thrive in skills I learned from college. I went through four back-to-back interviews with our product marketing manager, branding manager and executive director before landing the position.

Tell us about the work you do.

In my role, I have my hands in a lot of buckets. I directly report under the product marketing team, which handles supporting the sales and product management to build campaigns and strategy to advertise products in market. This requires quite a bit of project management since we have several media buys, events, sales enablement tools and retention campaigns month to month.

In addition, to keep projects moving, I handle logistics for events. This requires me to talk to a multitude of vendors, our internal network and the actual conference. I am often coordinating sponsorship packages, day-of-event materials and speaking engagements. 

Throughout the month, we obtain several potential clients (or leads) through our marketing efforts. This requires our team to convert those leads into opportunities and provide that information to our sales team. At the end of the month, I focus primarily on reporting and analytics from the prior month and present that to the business. We leverage tools such as Salesforce and Smartsheets to keep track of projects throughout the month and utilize them for analytics. 

Why did you choose Point Park University?

I specifically chose Point Park University because of the sports, arts, and entertainment management major. I looked at a lot of universities with entertainment-specific majors such as music producing, music management, etc. Point Park was the only school that offered entertainment concentrated electives with a solid business foundation and the opportunity to become well-rounded in the entertainment industry.

If I had gone to one of those other schools, I don’t believe I would have ended up with a real passion for marketing. I also was able to experience other areas of the entertainment industry, not just music. The SAEM program really set me up for success in my career.

What are your favorite Point Park memories?

One of my favorite Point Park memories was when I was able to take the International Media course, an SAEM/communications joint class. We spent all semester learning about international marketing, advertising, venues and more. Then we actually were able to go to Paris and London to talk to these different communication outlets in person. We also went to Wembley Stadium to tour the facility and Disneyland Paris to speaking to their public relations department. This will definitely be a memory that will last me a lifetime. 

What career advice do you have for our SAEM students?

My career advice is don’t ever be afraid to ask questions. I have always done this through college and into my adult life. You will never know the opportunities that can unfold for you if you don’t ask questions. 

While I was in college, I was very focused on learning and understanding logistics for major festivals. I ran into several roadblocks when applying for a volunteer position with Lollapalooza. I ended up contacting the festival and explaining what I went to school for, my focus, and if they would be able to make an exception. They ended up creating a specific volunteer opportunity for me, which led me to an amazing experience.

In turn, I started with Comcast where I knew very little about the marketplace, the products and some of the processes. I asked a lot of questions such as "Why is this our process?" and "How does this fit into what the business is doing?" and really got to the root of the big picture. As a result, I learned a lot. 

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