Career Path Of A Senior Manager Marketing Operations At SmithRx
Michael's career path began with a college club presidency and student advertising agency experience, launching them into a support role at Prezi, where a knack for automating email campaigns led to an unexpected shift into marketing operations after being "fired from a sales role". This pivot sparked a decade-long career in marketing operations, culminating in the current Senior Manager position at SmithRx, where they are applying their expertise to improve the US healthcare industry.
Networking, Marketing Operations, Career Pivoting, Data-Driven Marketing, Resilience
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Michael Schnell
Sr. Manager, Marketing Operations
SmithRx
UCSB
n/a
Communications
Healthcare, Medical & Wellness, Insurance
Communication and Marketing
Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Student Athlete
Video Highlights
1. Making connections and networking are crucial for career advancement. Michael emphasizes the importance of networking throughout his career journey, highlighting how building relationships led to several key opportunities.
2. Don't be afraid to pivot your career path. Michael's career trajectory showcases a willingness to adapt and explore different roles. Initially in sales, he transitioned into marketing operations after discovering his passion and expertise in optimizing campaigns.
3. Practical experience, even outside of traditional internships, can be valuable. Michael's experience leading his college club and working in a student-run advertising agency provided him with transferable skills and experience that helped launch his career.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Please include any internships or jobs you had before your current role.
In college, I was president of the club baseball team. That's how my career in jobs really began. I moved into a couple of internships, including one with the SB Media Group.
This was a local, student-run advertising agency on campus. We worked with community organizations, acting as the liaison between them and their ability to advertise on the UCSB campus. I gained valuable experience there heading up partnerships.
I worked on contracts with different organizations we were sponsoring. I also worked on marketing campaigns, including building a giant bowl of soup out of PVC pipe when I was a senior. These were some fun and crazy campaigns during college.
This experience launched me into a job search right after graduation. I was able to leverage some connections and that's a theme that will repeat: networking and connecting is important because my career has taken off by knowing people and making good impressions.
I landed a job at Prezi, a presentation company many college students know. I used it in college and loved the platform. I applied right out of college but didn't hear back. After applying for many jobs and feeling a bit discouraged, I revisited my connections.
I was then able to land a job as a support agent at Prezi, working in customer support for about a year and a couple of months. I answered technical issues with the Prezi platform. After a year, I moved into a sales role as a Sales Development Rep.
My role involved emailing and calling people to encourage them to upgrade from Prezi's free version to a business version. After about six months, I realized sales wasn't for me. I started automating email campaigns for the sales team.
I was so good at automating email campaigns that I was actually fired from my sales role for not producing enough phone call activity or closing deals. However, the marketing director noticed what I was doing and pulled me into the marketing department.
There, I continued to run and optimize campaigns. This is where I found my expertise, joy, and curiosity peaked. I've been in marketing operations ever since, working on everything from campaign structure and email sending to data infrastructure and architecture.
I started at Prezi about 10 years ago. Since then, I've worked at three other places, including my current role at Smith Rx. At each of these roles, I've been a marketing operations manager at some level.
I've focused on similar tasks involving systems, data structures, and campaigns, making marketing teams more efficient. This has all led me to my current role at Smith Rx, a pharmacy benefit manager. We aim to fix parts of the broken healthcare industry in the United States, and it's been a lot of fun.