Career Journeys

Career Journeys - Marketing

Career Path: Marketing

Marketing is a powerful business function, and Darden gives its students the skills to wield those powers. From understanding important elements ranging from the poetics of consumer psychology to the science of marketing metrics, Darden students know how to build an integrated and impactful marketing strategy. World-class faculty who are transforming the marketing space, combined with an expert array of career resources prime Darden students for a career in this sector. 

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Powered by the Darden MBA, Marketing Alumni Achieve Stellar Career Outcomes

Darden’s Class of 2023 began their post-MBA careers in marketing roles at the world’s top companies and earned record starting salaries.

Companies Redefining the Marketing Space See the Value of the Darden MBA

Top Hiring Companies

9%
of graduates entered marketing careers
$126,000
median base salary
$30,000
median signing bonus
37%
of marketing graduates entered careers in technology
26%
of marketing graduates entered careers in consumer product goods
22%
of marketing graduates entered careers in pharma/biotech/healthcare

Marketing Students From Darden Are Transformed in Charlottesville, Ready to Lead Anywhere

Top Locations

Atlanta, Georgia
Austin, Texas
New York, New York

San Francisco Bay Area
Seattle, Washington
Washington, D.C.

Students in the library

Marketing Alumni From Darden Launch Careers in Variety of Roles

Top Job Titles

  • Senior Product Manager
  • Associate Brand Manager 
  • Product Marketing Manager
  • Product Manager
  • Brand Manager
  • Global Product Lead
  • Senior Advisor, Product Marketing
  • Marketing & Analytics Director 

 

Meet Your Marketing Career Team

Jenny Zenner

Jenny Zenner

Senior Director

Shavone Dudley, Associate Director of Employer Engagement and Recruiting

Shavone Dudley

Associate Director of Employer Engagement and Recruiting

Michele Rankin

Michele Rankin

Senior Director

 

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Explore Darden Electives and Coursework That Deliver In-Demand Marketing Skills

In your First Year, you’ll gain an invaluable foundation in fundamental business concepts as you build lasting connections with your learning team and section.

Here, we help you navigate what comes next. After the First Year core curriculum, Darden students begin to tailor their experience by selecting from over 100 electives. Students interested in a marketing career may find particular benefit from the courses listed below or via the elective guide below.

Career Elective Guide.

Career Elective Guides

  • Consumer and Competitive Insight

    Understanding what consumers want by designing experiments and surveys and analyzing market data is essential. One study suggested that 83 percent of CMOs are responsible for analyzing and measuring the effectiveness of their marketing spending and 72 percent are responsible for conducting marketing research.

    Course Number Course Title
    7500 Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship in Action (IDEA)
    7600 Data Visualization and Analytics
    8015 Behavioral Decision Making
    8125 Storytelling with Data
    8334 Consumer Insights in a Data-Driven World
    8496 Data Science in Business
  • Strategy

    CMOs also need to think and act strategically by understanding what consumers want and finding unique market positions for their companies to capture. 94 percent of CMOs are primarily responsible for developing their company’s marketing strategy and 83 percent their brand strategy.

    Course Number Course Title
    7994 Strategic Analysis and Consulting
    8067 Managing Innovation
    8205 Marketing and Society
    8464 Hot Topics in Marketing
    8650 Cases in Global Strategy Seminar
    8758 Strategy in the Digital Age
  • Implementation

    As a manager with functional responsibility, it is important for marketing executives to know how to get things done. One study suggested 93 percent of CMOs are responsible for implementing their company’s marketing strategy and 78 percent for their marketing communications and media plan.

    Course Number Course Title
    8033 Digital Marketing
    8407 Pricing
    8130 Prototyping and Product Development I
    8170 Managerial Finance
    8320 Leadership Communication During Times of Disruption and Transformation
    8400 General Managers Taking Action
    8621 Project Management
    8757 Pricing Analytics
  • Specialty Knowledge

    In addition to the general areas listed above, you want to think about how you can get off to a fast start by developing industry-specific knowledge and skills. For example, if you want a marketing career in health care, you might consider some of the following electives:

    Course Number Course Title
    8030 Challenges in Health Care: A System Overview
    8500C Solutions and Innovations in Health Care

    Alternatively, if you are considering a marketing career in the technology sector, you might start as a product manager and consider taking a few of the following courses:

    Course Number Course Title
    8632 Software Design
    8633 Coding with GPT
    8636 Digital Product Management
    8640 Digital Capstone

    The technology-career elective guide can help you develop a more comprehensive point of view.

  • Personal Development and Leadership

    Senior Marketing Executives emphasize the importance of leadership and interpersonal skills. One survey of marketing recruiters suggested leadership and communication skills were both hard-to-find and highly desired by companies. It also indicated that the ability to work collaboratively was critical.

    Darden offers a wide variety of SY electives that help support your development as a leader and effective team member. Here is a short list of courses cited by recent graduates. There are many more from which to choose. "Marketing Leadership" might be particularly relevant, but many of the previously listed marketing courses will help you develop leadership skills too.

    Your choices should reflect your needs for personal growth. Consider taking a few from the list:

    Course Number Course Title
    7605 Strategic Communication
    7612 Speaking About Business
    7619 Paths to Power
    8019 Defining Moments 
    8052 Marketing Leadership
    8476 Collaboration Lab
    8500ZZZ CEO Leadership in the 21st Century
    8619 Leading Teams
    8706 Leadership, Diversity and Leveraging Difference
    8707 Leadership Coaching
    8930 Negotiations

Concentrations

  • Business Analytics

    The Business Analytics concentration will prepare students to participate in organizations that make abundant use of data/quantitative/mathematical techniques (“data science”) as part of their business processes.  It is a more general version of the “Market Analytics” concentration in that the areas of application are more than marketing.  We expect completion of this concentration to be a useful signal to potential employers of the analytic and quantitative abilities of the student.

    Faculty Contact: Robert Carraway

    Concentration Requirements

    A student will be recognized as having completed this concentration when they have met the following constraints:

    • Completed at least 9.0 hours of the courses listed below.
    • Completed at least 1.5 hours of an Independent Study with a Quantitative Analysis faculty member.

    Note: Not all courses may be offered in a given year.

    Specific Required Courses: None. Although we expect students will take Data Analysis and Optimization (7600) as it is a pre-requisite for some of the courses below.

    Course Number Course Title Credit Hours
    7600 Data Visualization and Analytics 1.5
    8015 Behavioral Decision Making 1.5
    8033 Digital Marketing 1.5
    8047 Pricing 1.5
    8053 Sustainable Global Value Chains 1.5
    8055 Analytics for Experiments, Forecasts and Growth 1.5
    8059 Foundations and Applications of FinTech 1.5
    8125 Storytelling with Data 1.5
    8180 Hot Topics in Analytics 1.5
    8444 Investments 1.5
    8445 Quantitative Portfolio Management 1.5
    8496 Data Science in Business 1.5
    8621 Project Management 1.5
    8632 Software Design 1.5
    8633 Software Development 1.5
    8636 Digital Product Management 1.5
    8640 Digital Capstone 1.5
    8757 Pricing Analytics 1.5
    8830 Supply Chain Management 1.5
  • Business Development and Growth

    Sustainable success requires organizations to innovate and grow to maintain or increase profitability. Students in this concentration will learn the fundamentals of managing innovation, organic growth, and acquisition and integration of mergers and acquisitions.

    Faculty Contact: Jeanne Liedtka

    Concentration Requirements

    A student will be recognized as having this concentration when they have completed 9.0 credit hours from the courses listed below.

    Note: Not all courses may be offered in a given year.

    Course Number Course Title Credit Hours
    7500 Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship in Action (IDEA) 1.5
    7603 Valuation in Financial Markets  1.5
    8013 Strategic Corporate Governance 1.5
    8014 Strategic Thinking 1.5
    8130 Prototyping and Product Development 1 1.5
    8304 Consumer Behavior 1.5
    8310 Competitive Dynamics Seminar  1.5
    8400 General Managers Taking Action  3
    8459 Innovation and Design Experience 3
    8697-8699 Darden Consulting Project (must be approved for this concentration) 1.5
  • Marketing

    The marketing concentration prepares students for careers in marketing by helping them understand how to manage customer relationships (e.g. in consumer packaged goods, consumer durables, consumer services, consulting firms, Not for Profits (NFPs), industrial goods and technology products). Through this series of courses, students will gain insight into how customer-based marketing decisions can create loyal, engaged customers.

    Faculty Contact: Raj Venkatesan

    Concentration Requirements

    A student will be recognized as having this concentration when they have completed 7.5 credit hours from the courses listed below.

    Note: Not all courses may be offered in a given year.

    Course Number Course Title Credit Hours
    7500 Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship in Action (IDEA) 1.5
    8033 Digital Marketing 1.5
    8047 Pricing 1.5
    8130 Prototyping and Product Development I 1.5
    8304 Consumer Behavior 1.5
    8464 Hot Topics in Marketing  1.5
    8496 Data Science in Business 1.5
    8620 Brand Management: Creating, Testing, and Analyzing New Brand Strategies 1.5
    8636 Digital Product Management 1.5
    8757 Pricing Analytics 1.5
    8999 Darden Independent Study (must be approved for this concentration) 1.5
    8500BLP Building and Leading a Professional Sales Force 1.5

Dual Degrees and More

 

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Beyond the Classroom, Opportunities in Marketing That Catalyze Your Professional Purpose

Darden’s best-in-class Career Center and wide array of student organizations and centers provide you the opportunity to learn about yourself and learn from others as you pursue your purpose.

  • Career Preparation

    Through Darden’s Career Center and Alumni Career Services, you’ll gain career guidance from the moment you enroll and for wherever your career takes you after graduation. Here’s what you can expect:

    • Darden-facilitated opportunities for networking, meeting alumni and industry leaders, and interviewing
    • Access to advanced analytics and data to craft recruiting marketing materials such as resume, LinkedIn, and more
    • NYC and West Coast job treks
    • Resume and cover letter reviews
    • Industry- and employer-specific database for interview prep and salary research
    • Case interview prep
    • Mock interviews
    • Employer case competitions
    • Negotiation skill-building
    • Executives-in-Residence Program
  • Career Clubs and Activities

    Darden Marketing Club

    The Marketing Club at Darden seeks to establish a strong marketing reputation for the School, provide a forum to educate and enhance members' understanding of marketing, assist members in exploring marketing employment opportunities, and encourage interaction between students, companies and faculty. 

  • Conferences and Events

    Darden Marketing, General Management and Tech (MGMT) Conference

    Darden's MGMT Conference provides a unique opportunity for three of the School's largest career clubs to host and engage with top employers hiring Darden talent. 

 

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Meet Marketing Visionaries Who Will Help During Your Darden Career and Long After 

Award-Winning Faculty

Consistently recognized as the best in the world, the Darden faculty look to the critical thinking from their classrooms to inform their fieldwork, and vice versa. 

Here, scholars and accomplished business leaders converge to create an unrivaled education experience. 

Explore Darden Faculty > 

 

Select Alumni Leaders in Marketing

Darden’s alumni network is united in its commitment to shared professional and personal excellence. Here, you'll join a global network that’s over 19,000 people strong.

Katie Bisbee (MBA '04)
Chief Marketing Officer, DonorsChoose.org

Robert E. Collier (MBA ’10)
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Technology, ChemTreat

Sarita T. Finnie (MBA ’01)
Vice President, Shopper Marketing, Bayer Consumer Health

Marcien B. Jenckes (MBA ’98)
President, Advertising, Comcast Cable

Marguerite M. Longo (MBA ’08)
Global Commercial Head, Future of Self Care, Johnson & Johnson

Cynthia K. Soledad (MBA ’02)
Co-Lead, Global Diversity & Inclusion; Chief Marketing Officer and Consumer Practice, Egon Zehnder

 

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There Are Even More Opportunities to Explore

Darden students can go from here, to anywhere. Graduates begin their post-graduation careers in a wide variety of the world’s most in-demand sectors. Explore even more career journeys.