Sarah Fleihan is an MSBA student, a marketer and data analyst with over 4 years of experience working with tech startups. Her experience ranges from innovation management to data analysis to corporate events with a twisted perspective and approach to marketing.
Coming from the startup ecosystem, Sarah knew that having a data-driven mindset, without a doubt, is what will get her places. It is all about digitizing these days. Companies are reimagining customer journeys more than ever, reducing friction, and accelerating the shift to digital channels with the use of data. The current market has either a great data scientist or a great strategist, but what is currently in high demand is an intersection of both, and that is what the MSBA program at AUB offers.
Sarah mentions, “The best thing about this MS though is that you can customize it to reflect your professional career aspirations, and vary the length of the program depending on your workload. When I joined the program, my intention was never a career shift from marketing, but rather use the data collected on the audience I'm targeting to gain insights into their tastes, preferences, behaviors, and habits and then make necessary changes to improve their conversion rates. Signaling to the market that I might not be a technical expert with 4 years of experience but someone you can fully trust to put in front of the high management or technical team to brainstorm and turn data into actionable insights is what this master offered me.”
She adds, “The program was application and case driven and gave me the opportunity to apply the resources I gained to several industries and above all build a technical portfolio. It strengthened my profile to an extent that only halfway through I was able to secure 3 projects as side hustles, 2 as a business analyst, and 1 as a project manager. Even with a full-time job guaranteed, I'm always curious to know how my profile performs in the competitive marketplace, and regardless of the troublesome times, I was able to get a job offer that paid me 40% more than my salary before I started the program and the cherry on top is that it was remote and with a silicon valley startup! So if you got any sort of interest in technology, data, marketing, design, consultancy, you name it... This program is for you. As long as you allow the data set to change your mindset.”