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Success story: May graduate to work at event marketing firm

Success Stories | May 07, 2015 |
Marielle Rivera

Marielle Rivera

For Marielle Rivera, persistence paid off.

Graduating from the Gabelli School of Business this May with a degree in marketing and a concentration in communications and media management, Rivera began hunting in earnest for a job in January, monitoring job boards and applying to three or four different companies at a time.

By the end of April, the native New Yorker had three job offers. She chose Agency Coulter, an event marketing agency focusing on luxury clients. She will be an account coordinator with the firm, helping to stage experiential marketing events for high-end clients.

“I definitely preferred them over the other agencies, just because they work with some top tier clients, and I really do miss working in the luxury industry,” said Rivera, 22. “It’s just more fun and more fulfilling for me to work with a brand that has a heritage and so much prestige to it.”

Rivera, who had interned at Gucci and Calvin Klein, also liked Agency Coulter’s downtown location. The firm is new to New York, and there is a lot of room for growth, she said.

Some of Rivera’s Fordham coursework helped her with career preparation. A fashion marketing elective “really helped tie everything together.” And then there was Professor John Carey’s business of media and entertainment class.

“I’ve been telling anyone who asks that that was just the best class I’ve ever taken at Fordham,” Rivera said. “I think that he did a really great job of bringing together all different types of media.”

That was important because in event marketing, an account coordinator must understand audio-visuals and interior design, among other types of media, and the coordinator has to understand the needs of the client as well, Rivera said.

Also important to Rivera was Fordham’s location.

“I chose a university in New York because I knew that I wanted to work in business and I knew that I wanted to do internships while I was in college,” said Rivera. “And I figured I’m already in the best city in the world to do that, so why do I need to go anywhere else?”

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