Sara Pollack MBA 2012
As a creative-writing undergraduate at Brown, Sara Pollack never saw herself pursuing an MBA. Eight years later, as a Marketing Manager at YouTube, she believes enhanced business skills and knowledge will help her play a long-term leadership role in the inchoate and fast-evolving world of digital media. With her nontraditional background—and, she notes, with recent developments on Wall Street—she held certain trepidations about business school, which have been thoroughly defied by the program’s philosophical tenets, especially Haas’ emphasis on “confidence without attitude.” “I came to my role as product marketing manager in a fairly nontraditional way. I have the expertise to make good intuitive decisions, but I haven’t had the training to think as quantitatively and analytically as I would like. This program will help me feel more confident that my findings are valuable, and I will have the training and know-how to back them up with data and research.” good “YouTube is still a growing and evolving company. There’s a lot of room for great leadership and if I want to play that kind of a role long term, I need a better understanding of operations and management, which I will get from this program.” “During orientation, it was great to hear Dean Lyons talk about how Berkeley is dealing with some of the stigma facing business schools in the aftermath of the financial crisis and to hear him outline Haas’s philosophy, which is exactly the kind of philosophy I believe in—intellectualism that has nothing to do with greed or domination but rather lifelong learning. ‘Confidence without attitude’ is something I really responded to.” “Columbia is an incredibly valuable part of the program, not only offering the opportunity to spend time back in New York, where I spent much of my twenties, but also, given my career goals, the opportunity to gain that financial perspective.” “I’m really excited about the international seminars, particularly the Munich one on branding. My main priority at YouTube is to build our brand—to turn it into a more serious entertainment destination while still maintaining the site’s democratic and somewhat offbeat roots. I’m eager to study branding intensively with the great professors here.” “After the first week of marketing class, I was already using what we had learned in the classroom at work, specifically thinking through the economic value that YouTube’s new rental service might provide to consumers.” “I love how the program is designed around teamwork, like the real world, where your success often depends on working with others.” “I really love my study group. There’s Oliver, who owns a shoe factory in China; Thomas, who’s from Germany and works in gaming; Jason, who lives in Denver and has a background in finance; and Carter, who’s been in the Navy and just got back from Iraq. It’s this totally diverse group of people, but we have so much in common and so enjoy talking with each other.” “I genuinely think working with my study group is going to be a very eye-opening experience for me. I think I’ll learn a lot about myself, as well as a lot about business.” “I’ve rejiggered every day of my life, weekday and weekend, to assign work time and school time. I’m compartmentalizing and managing my time very carefully, trying to balance Sara the student and Sara the YouTube employee.” [+] to top |
Entertainment Marketing Manager, YouTube, San Bruno, California