Sieloff attended Kelley networking events in New York and found that the students and staff were inviting and down to earth. She also visited during Kelley Experience Weekend in the spring and saw the culture in action.
“The decision was easy,” said Sieloff. “Kelley has one of the best marketing MBA programs in the country and many of the world’s top consumer packaged goods and marketing firms recruit on campus. I knew it was the right fit for me.”
When Colgate was one of Sieloff’s clients, she would meet with the company’s brand managers. “I saw what they did and knew I wanted to be on the other side of the table making the decisions and setting the strategies,” Sieloff said.
Her experiences with Kelley and the Consumer Marketing Academy (CMA) helped her realize her dream.
Hands-on experience
“The Consumer Marketing Academy (CMA) at Kelley offers a wonderful mix of practical classroom lecturing and hands-on learning experiences,” Sieloff said.
Sieloff described some of the activities she participated in, like building frozen meals from scratch at ConAgra Foods, which gave her practical and useful knowledge for the workplace. She said that every lesson learned was grounded in real-world understanding from people who had experience in the industry.
“The MBA experience taught me how to be confident in the face of uncertainty,” Sieloff said. “I now know that I might not have all of the answers, but I have the problem-solving tools and the support network I need to figure them out.”
Sieloff’s gained more hands-on experience on the MBA Student Association student executive team. During her time with the student government, she helped create a values system initiative for the MBA student body. She worked to grow awareness of the Kelley brand with print, digital, and multimedia deliverables while practicing many transferrable marketing skills in the process.
“Hands-on experience in new product development in class and during my internship at Colgate became telling of what I would actually be doing,” said Sieloff. “We had to conduct focus groups, perform data analysis, finalize our product, and execute a multi-phased communication plan. We saw that a strong strategy was important, but the strategy was only as good as our relentless execution. I had heard this concept from marketing professors, but I came to realize its truth and understand how much this experience mimicked what I would be doing in my career.”
Preparation for the future
Sieloff says that Kelley has prepared her to move forward. Kelley challenges students, but provides the tools they need to perform in demanding industries.
“Kelley prepares its students for excellence,” she said. “Kelley also teaches students how to network and use the resources available so that we can fish for life versus fish for one day.”