Jessica Usenbor addresses TBB attendees.
On November 7, 2017, the School of Business at the College of Staten Island held the latest event in its ongoing Tuesday Business Briefs series. Jessica Usenbor, Associate Director for Media Platforms and Operations at the performance marketing agency Merkle, spoke about advertising and the digital marketing landscape, and some of the ways in which this relatively new field is rapidly transforming many traditional business disciplines. The standing room-only crowd learned about the choices that have allowed Jessica to reach this point in her career, and how her college experiences have influenced the decisions that she made along the way.
Jessica attended Baruch College (also a CUNY institution) where she studied marketing and advertising.
Usenbor was introduced to the School by Jonathan Saquisili, a recent graduate of the Marketing program at the College. Saquisili felt that giving students an opportunity to learn about Advertising Operations would be a great experience. Having Usenbor speak to students would be a way to expose them to the growing and dynamic world of digital marketing.
School of Buisness Professor Thomas Tellefsen, Jonathan Saquisili, Jessica Usenbor, and Founding Dean Susan Holak
Susan Holak, the Founding Dean of the School of Business, said that this event was “a wonderful opportunity for our students to not only learn from a professional in this fast-moving sector, but to have the unique experience of hearing from both the manager and the employee involved in a hiring situation.”
Saquisili had himself been a presenter at a Tuesday Business Briefs (TBB) event in 2015 where he spoke about his experiences as an intern at several companies. When we asked him why he came back to speak to students he replied “I did the TBB because I wanted to share my experience with students … I was able to land an internship and experience the real world. I also wanted students to know [about] the possibilities post-CSI.”
Daniel Gagliardi, who had been one of Jonathan’s instructors at CSI, also attended the session. Professor Gagliardi said that the presentation was “very informative, [and gave] great insight into HBO and social media.”
The Business Briefs series is a series targeted toward presentations that help students develop and contextualize their co-curricular skills and experiences. Presenters range from faculty to alumni to outside professionals from a wide variety of fields. Announcements about upcoming presentations are posted throughout the 2N and 3N buildings, and are sent to Business students’ email accounts.
