Career Pathways

Common Pathways

Level: MBA
Industry: Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
Brand managers develop and execute strategies and messaging that exploit market opportunities to deliver sales and profit projections. Critical skills include profit and loss (P&L) management, analytical thinking, creative problem solving, cross-functional team leadership, and business acumen. There is a moderate to high availability of opportunity for brand manager roles.

Level: MBA
Industry: Healthcare, Technology
Product managers lead industry or therapeutic-focused team members to design and execute marketing strategies to meet performance targets. Critical skills for product management include analytical thinking, industry or therapeutics area knowledge and/or work experience, cross-functional team leadership, and creative problem solving. There is a moderate to high availability of opportunity for product manager roles.

Level: Bachelor's, Specialty Master's (e.g., MiM, MSF), MBA
Industries: Financial Services, Hospitality & Tourism, Manufacturing & Transportation, Technology, Retail, Not-for-Profit/Social Impact, Media / Entertainment
Marketing strategists and analysts identify evolving customer preferences and develop products, services and communications that satisfy the need. Critical skills include relationship management, creative problem solving, knowledge of industry trends, and project management. There is moderate availability of opportunity for marketing strategist and analyst roles.

Level: Bachelor's, Specialty Master's (e.g., MiM, MSF), MBA
Industries: Financial Services, Hospitality & Tourism, Retail, Not-for-Profit/Social Impact, CPG
Consumer insights marketers or analysts collect and analyze consumer marketing data in order to provide practical recommendations, determine strategy and decision-making on brands/products/services and promote innovation. A consumer insights analyst position blends elements of psychology, marketing and data analytics/statistics. Critical skills include data management, knowledge of consumer trends and behavior, and project management. There is low to moderate availability of opportunity for these roles.

Level: Bachelor's, Specialty Master's (e.g., MiM, MSF), MBA
Marketing communication professionals coordinate the communication output for an organization. They create content for media vehicles, including email and social media campaigns, websites, brochures, press releases, etc. Key competencies include strong written and verbal communication skills, knowledge of industry trends, project management, and organizational skills. There is a low degree of availability for MBA level marketing communication opportunities.

Sales, Business Development (BD) or Customer Success Managers (CSMs)

Level: Bachelor's, MBA
Industries: Retail, Technology, and Healthcare - primarily Pharmaceutical
Sales positions deal directly with selling products and/or services to clients. Business Development sometimes focuses on market research and identifying new companies to pursue in sales. Other times it can be synonymous with Sales. Many companies distinguish between Sales Executives (client focused) and Technical Account Managers or Technical Sales (solution and client focused)
Customer Success Managers are responsible for the delivery of a solution (education, rollout, usage and achieving ROI), and promoting customer satisfaction, so that the client renews or expands their contracts.

Industries: Healthcare, Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail, Financial Services
Leadership development and rotational programs are available within the marketing function in various industries. Employers use these programs to prime post-grads within a structured training environment, provide new hires with in-depth experiences and ongoing mentorship, and to recruit and develop leaders for their organization. Employers that recently offered these programs include Amazon, Cigna, Estee Lauder, Johnson & Johnson, Kenvue, and Microsoft.

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