Marketing Association of Columbia Conference

Christopher Rey – Marketing Association of Columbia Conference

Featured Speakers: Chris Louie, Miguel Pairano, Babs Rangaiah, Jared Grusd

Website: https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/students/organizations/mac/conference

I, Christopher Heathcote-Rey am a currently second year student at the Sauder School of Business. I was born and raised on the small island Mauritius, off the coast of Madagascar in Africa.I had the incredible opportunity to attend the MAC (Marketing Association of Columbia) conference in New York last week, thanks to ExCo, a student run organisation from the Commerce Undergraduate Society. The reason I decided to attend this conference was due to the prestige speakers that were to attend the event, speakers such as the CEO of Coca-Cola of South America, the VP Global Media Innovation of Unilever and many other fantastic speakers. The conference was a stepping stone of knowledge and growth for a student such as myself, I really absorbed the life lessons and marketing trends that the speakers were listing to us. The “stand out” and key takeaway of this conference was emphasized by Ricardo Diaz, VP of Consumer Connections at AB InBev, who made us understand that the most important aspect of a company is not the product, but the consumer experience and joy that consumers obtain with the product and company as a whole (using the FIFA World Cup in Brazil as an extraordinary example for Budweiser).

The conference surpassed my expectations by a mile, and the main differentiating factor that I realized were the speakers. The conference itself in terms of organization, experience, location etc. were on par with the conferences that Sauder offers! The reason I believe that Sauder conferences are not globally recognized such as the MAC one, is due to the experience and professional speakers. Sauder has unbelievable resources and should leverage these to attract students from around the world! Overall, it was a trip of a lifetime. I am now confident of specializing in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, have made incredible personal connections and have taken away life changing motives, all thanks to the opportunity given to me by ExCo. I cannot thank you enough.