The Specialization Diploma in Marketing Management offered by the Graduate School of Business at Universidad ORT Uruguay its tenth anniversary in 2019.
Five graduates of the diploma program shared their experiences. They spoke about their studies and their professional lives, how they apply what they’ve learned in their daily work, their fondest memories of the program, and what they’re passionate about in their jobs.
“The diploma gives you a way of thinking”
“I apply what I learned in the diploma program every day, all the time,” said Melissa Nogués, Marketing Support Coordinator at Coca-Cola FEMSA, adding that the program helped her organize her strategy and better define her goals and the path to achieving them.
“When I first started working in Coca-Cola’s marketing department, I took an orientation course, and I kept thinking, ‘I saw this in that class’ or ‘I learned this the other day.’”
“What I learned in the diploma program comes in handy every time I tackle a new project, a new initiative, a new campaign, or a new ‘what do we do now?’ moment,” said Boris Goldenberg, Head of Marketing and Communications at Crédito de la Casa, a financial services company within the Santander Group.
“I’ve had the great opportunity to develop projects from scratch, and that’s when you really get to put everything you’ve learned into practice. That said, marketing is something you’re always doing in your day-to-day work,” he added.
In this regard, Erika Martin, head of insurance at BBVA and a marketing professor at ORT, stated:“The diploma gives you a way of thinking that applies in all areas of life—not just professionally, but personally as well. We’re always doing marketing.”
He also said that the greatest satisfaction he gets from his work is that it allows him to perform tasks that add value to society and provide an important service to people: “The moment you have to use insurance, you realize that you really needed it.”
Fabiana Bracco, a member of the Alumni Advisory Board of the Graduate School and director of Bodega Bracco Bosca, said: “In 2016, I had to take over the winery. In just three years under my leadership, we have opened branches in more than 15 countries and developed a brand that is now recognized in the national and international wine world. Without a doubt, marketing has been the main tool for achieving this transformation.”
Over the past ten years, the graduate program has evolved in response to market needs. Gustavo Rubinsztejn, a professor and academic coordinator of the Marketing program, noted that it began by focusing on traditional marketing, then incorporated digital marketing. Currently, it is expanding its focus to include data marketing.
“I managed to balance my studies with my daily tasks”
Agustín Bensusán is the regional sales manager at Diageo. He joined the company in 2012, the same year he completed his graduate program. He said, “After completing the program, I had a more solid foundation of knowledge, as well as additional skills and tools.”
“Above all, the diploma gives you the ability to see different perspectives on the same situation,” added Erika Martin.
Both Martin and Bensusán earned an MBA in addition to the Diploma. Bensusán first completed the Diploma and then pursued the MBA as a further step in his professional development. Martin took the opposite path: he already had an MBA and earned the Diploma to gain specialized knowledge. In both cases, the Diploma served as a tool for professional growth.
“The Diploma in Marketing really opened my eyes. Because of my previous studies and my work experience, I was very focused on the field of communications. The Diploma gave me the opportunity to make that big leap from the agency side to the client side,” said Goldenberg, who noted that what he is most passionate about in his current job is interacting with different departments, working as part of a team, and evaluating the results of marketing initiatives.
“It was amazing how the coursework fit in with my day-to-day tasks. It also worked the other way around: I’d go to class and encounter topics that I was already applying at work, but I lacked the theoretical framework,” Nogués said, adding, “The diploma is a tool that provides a solid foundation in the concepts.”
“At ORT, teamwork is the cornerstone”
As part of the Graduate School, the diploma program allows graduates to participate in the school’s international programs, attend networking events and conferences, and become part of its alumni community.
The backgrounds of students entering the diploma program are diverse: they include graduates with degrees in Communication, Management, or International Studies, as well as economists, accountants, and other professionals. After graduation, some hold management positions in companies, some develop new brands, and others work as consultants.
“What you take away is a method for guiding basic marketing processes, understanding the consumer, and learning how product and brand innovation works,” said Rubinsztejn.
The coordinator added that the graduates help professionalize and transform companies. “There are companies that lack clear marketing processes and don’t really know what needs to be done. When the graduates of the diploma program join these companies, they contribute to their transformation.”
“There is a wide variety of professionals in the classroom. People with no marketing background who, within a year, completely change the direction of their careers. Those who already have some knowledge, meanwhile, build on it and take their careers to the next level,” he said.
Martin and Goldenberg agreed that interaction with faculty and classmates is one of the program’s greatest strengths. Bensusán noted that the faculty members have diverse teaching styles and areas of expertise.
For his part, Bracco said, “I’ve always admired how teamwork is the cornerstone at ORT. The faculty is very important, but so is the group of people—both personally and professionally—with whom you pursue your graduate studies, because you also learn from shared experiences.”
“That integration enriched every one of us in the program,” Nogués concluded. “It made me consider issues from perspectives I never would have imagined, and it allowed me to grasp the essence of it all: marketing applies to absolutely every industry.”