At SPS Arianna...
- Created the ultimate elevator speech
- Learned the art of strategic storytelling
- Discovered the dynamics of persuasion
- Improved her pitching and presentation skills
- Developed a connection that led to a new job…
You were a liberal arts major who worked at Dow and is now at NBC. How did you get your foot in the door?
I always tried to stay close to writing; it’s my strength. I was an English major who minored in Journalism, and I interned at a full-service, lifestyle PR agency. On a rainy day, the summer before I graduated, I googled ‘graduate program communications Columbia University.’ I was totally sold, and didn’t look anywhere else. It was a contact I made while at Columbia that led to my first big break—a job with the Communications team at Dow Jones.
How did the program prepare you for your career?
SPS truly gets students ready to hit the ground running. But once you get in, you need to prove yourself. Each and every class just resonated with me, from The Dynamics of Persuasion to The Strategic Storyteller. Even classes with content that I didn’t anticipate using much turned out to be some of the most helpful.
You could say your career took off after you left the program.
Yes. When I finished, I landed a marketing role at ABC for Katie Couric’s daytime talk show…’Katie.’ Working for the creative director was a fantastic experience. Six months later, a former professor, Tracy David, who was now the Chief Marketing Office at Dow Jones, made an introduction for me. I would never have gotten that job if it weren’t for my connection at Columbia.
What are some of the highlights of your job at Dow Jones?
We were a small team that had the freedom to create a program from scratch. We developed a ‘voice’ for all of our communications that was both clever and concise. Then we launched a new email system, intranet and digital magazine, all within six months. For our efforts, we won the 2014 PRWeek award for Internal Communications Campaign of the Year. Next to getting admitted to Columbia, it was one of the proudest days of my life.
