Katharina Delion

Studying MSc Strategic Marketing at Imperial

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

My decision to study at Imperial College Business School started with my desire to study abroad, outside of my home country, Germany. I had studied Communications and Media Management and wanted to get a deeper understanding of the marketing world and particularly marketing strategy and analytics. I chose Imperial as it offered the unique opportunity for me to develop core skillsets I found were of fundamental importance to make a serious start into my career.

In particular, working with students from around the world in the classroom as well as group settings was a new challenge I wanted to take on. Experience in understanding and managing cultural differences in a work environment is vital in today’s globalised business world and the combination of group work and classroom settings provided a great base layer to developing this skill.

Additionally, the combination of classroom lectures, case studies as well as the third term consulting project provided a variety different settings to learn and grow as an individual throughout a carefully curated selection of topics absolutely vital in today’s marketing world.

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

Studying at Imperial taught me so many things:

1. Really get to know the people around you. At Imperial we are presented with the unique opportunity to interact with many students from around the world and get to know them, what they have to say, what makes them tick and most and for all, learn from them. This taught me to go a level deeper with my peers at work, my managers, and clients and overall enabled me to have very effective working relationship. This is the best training ground to learn how to navigate these kinds of challenges and manage these relationships.

2. No matter how big a task seems or how much you have to do, it can be done. During my time at Imperial I had to manage a number of competing priorities: exams, papers, networking, finding a job, having fun with my fellow students, and many more. This course taught me a great deal about how to prioritise and that you don’t have to take it all on at once, focusing on the right thing, sometimes is more important than focusing on all the things.

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

The class is hard work, and you can learn a lot, but also make sure you create your moments to just have fun and make friends.

What was the most surprising thing about the programme?

How fast it went by. When you start a year seems like a lifetime, but looking back at my time at imperial it flew by.

Tell us about your current job

How has your programme contributed to your career success?

The MSc Strategic Marketing gave me the fundamentals and tools that enabled me to make a start to my career in marketing. Often, I think back to the models, mental frameworks and tools we learned about in my day to day and am able to make good, fast decisions that yield good results because of this.

How do you plan to use the skills and knowledge you gained during the programme within your career going forward? I believe studying provides you with two benefits (1) knowledge and (2) training how to use it. The knowledge I got from Imperial is the basis of what I currently do, it is my fall back when in doubt about a problem, but it would not work without being able to transfer it to the ever-changing environment and you always need to train your brain for the new. 

What do you enjoy most about your current work and what are the main challenges that you face? Working at Amazon is amazing because you just have endless opportunities and ways to test and explore. That is what I love most about my job, I never stop learning.

Alumni community

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

The alumni network, whether these are just friends or formal meetings, gives me the opportunity to network with peers. Even people you don’t know become friends easily just by being connected through Imperial.

Have you volunteered at the Business School since you graduated?

Yes, I am a regular speaker at the MSc Induction week, I think it is important because I want to be able to give the students the advice I wish I had before starting at Imperial so they can make the best out of their time.