Sabilla Mazaya

Your time at Imperial College Business School

Why did you choose to study your programme and why specifically at Imperial College Business School?  

An alumnus of the same programme recommended that I apply for it as it covered the skillset that I was looking for and wanting to equip myself with. Coming from a design and advertising background, I did not have enough business knowledge to deliver better insights in the work environment. After I did a deep research of the MSc Strategic Marketing programme at Imperial College Business School, I made it into my top priority to apply. The course combined technology-based practical knowledge, creative thinking and business insights, making it really close to the career world situation that we are facing nowadays.

What was the most important learning point you took with you from the Business School?

I improved my analytical thinking and business skills significantly along with the marketing communication knowledge that I already had from my undergraduate study, as well as my work experience. The programme balanced creative and business insights in order to educate its students on how to achieve an optimum result through many lenses.

"The programme balanced creative and business insights in order to educate its students on how to achieve an optimum result through many lenses."

What advice would you give to a prospective student considering studying the same programme as you?

Think of the future and what you could contribute to the world, marketing is wider than it seems. Never stop learning and open your eyes, opportunities are always there for you.

What was the most surprising thing about the programme?

The programme taught us more than what the ‘marketing’ world is perceived as in general. I was lucky to be able to join many informative lectures from external speakers such as neuro-marketing and artificial intelligence, which opened my eyes to the fact that marketing extends beyond the business scope, and much into the science world and technology!

Tell us about your current job

How has your programme contributed to your career success? 

In my new role as a Country Digital Marketing for IDP Connect, I have to maximize my knowledge in both general business knowledge and marketing strategy. Other than implementing marketing communication initiatives, I need to juggle the work between market research and achieving the KPI through the marketing efforts created. The analytics and strategic marketing skills I got from the programme have been very resourceful for me to balance out my tasks. As I am the key person responsible for the Indonesian market and have to integrate the strategy with the international team in London, the multicultural exposure I received from the Business School is extremely useful to understand perspectives from different colleagues from around the world.

How do you plan to use the skills and knowledge you gained during the programme within your career going forward?

I am looking forward to building a game-changing marketing initiative which also brings real result into the company’s KPI through the creative and business insights combination!

What do you enjoy most about your current work and what are the main challenges that you face?

I really enjoy working in a very multicultural and open environment where people have mutual respect, as well as their amazing willingness to share their best practices and knowledge. The main challenge is to stay creative to consistently produce high quality content in order to achieve the KPI.

"I really enjoy working in a very multicultural and open environment where people have mutual respect, as well as their amazing willingness to share their best practices and knowledge."

What is your proudest achievement in the job so far?

I managed to reach the digital marketing target way above the KPI within my first few months working in IDP Connect through the new digital marketing strategy I created, despite working part-time for the first few months when I was still a student at Imperial College Business School.

Alumni community

In what way is remaining connected to your alumni network important to you?

There might be 1,000 opportunities from one person that you know. You might not know it now, but maybe later, you could work out a business partnership, knowledge sharing or other great collaborations with one of the alumni. Thus, being active in the alumni network is a key to grow your overall networking reach.

It is important for me to contribute to the Business School as an alumnus as I would like to maintain my relationship with the university and to be able to share my knowledge with the current students based on my experience, as it might prove fruitful for them to pursue in their next career move. I believe that people learn from each other, thus I could also learn from the younger generations on how they see things that might be very different to mine.