I grew up in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island and study marketing at UBC Sauder. In a group project I'm the one who starts the group chat, sends the When2Meet, splits up the tasks and books the extra meeting to rehearse. Structure is never the exciting part. It is usually the difference.
I was on track for a UBC Engineering degree and working towards it properly. Physics and chemistry nerd, fully committed. Something about it never felt exactly right, though I could not have told you what.
A week before UBC applications closed, an ad for the Sauder School of Business came up on my phone. I looked into it, switched my application completely, and got in. That was the whole decision, and the rest was history.
I tell people I chose marketing because it was the only class where I never had to pay attention to paying attention. As a child, my dream jobs were matchmaker and mind reader, and this is the closest thing I have found to it.
What I like is the 4Ps version of marketing, the actual discipline rather than just the advertising, because it keeps reminding you that the business exists to serve the consumer and everything should be pointed at that. A good marketer is a matchmaker. Someone has something, someone else wants something, and the job is putting the two together.
I'm looking for roles across marketing, brand, business strategy, go-to-market and sales, in any industry. What weighs more with me than the industry is whether a company will keep me learning, keep the work mentally stimulating, and take genuine care of the people inside it.
University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Graduating May 2028.
Mentorship with senior brand managers. Also the reason I take mentoring other people seriously.
JDC West twice, the National Strategy Consulting Competition, and YWiB Simplifying Sustainability.
The stand-up is a watching habit rather than a performing one, and I still think it is the most useful thing on this list. Five minutes in front of a room that has not decided whether to like you yet is the same problem as the first slide of a pitch, and comedians are better at solving it than most marketers.
The form on the home page reaches me fastest.
I read everything that comes in and reply to what I can. Recruiters, collaborators, students with case competition questions, and anyone who wants to debate advertising. I meet regularly with junior Sauder students, the way senior students did for me when I was starting out.