Alumni

Sophie Reuben

Career Path: Influencer Marketing Assistant, Nasty Gal
Location: UK

Describe your current role and responsibilities.

Day-to-day management of influencer marketing activities in the UK, Ireland and Europe. I am responsible for driving improved ROI across channels. I help to Manage Netherlands’ marketing activities, as well as supporting on activations. Furthermore, I Manage and lead influencer events and trips for Nasty Gal. I control campaigns against set budgets which deliver MoM growth. I learn, contact and build new relationships with influencers and agencies. On top of this, I have created and managed the Student Ambassador programme, working with the global teams to re-purpose UGC across various channels.

Why did you decide to study Fashion Communication at Northumbria?

It offered a huge range of different modules which meant I was able to experience loads of different areas of fashion to find out exactly what I wanted to go into. It offered me the opportunity to explore all areas of the industry and try areas out which I never had the chance to do before. It allowed me to refine my skills in order to discover what it was exactly that I was good at and wanted to do.

What are the most useful skills that Fashion Communication taught you?

It taught me how to problem solve – things will go wrong throughout the three years, but it’s about being resilient, picking yourself back up and rectifying the problem.

It also helped to develop my confidence massively. Before I started I lacked confidence in my work and ideas, but with this course you have to believe in your ideas when you pitch them. I became really confident in my ideas and fully believed in the goals I set for myself because I quickly realised that whilst you might not be good at one thing that your friends are, you’re better at something else, so I honed my skills in a particular area and didn’t get distracted by someone excelling in another.

Finally, it gave me real life industry skills. All the different live briefs, presentations and modules gave me such an array of skills which I can apply to the industry, I probably wouldn’t have got into the industry without the skills I learned over the past 3 years.

Did you get any work experience / internships while studying?

Yes! I grabbed every opportunity I could to find to understand exactly what I wanted to do. My industry experience was one of the most crucial things that helped me to get my job. I worker over 4 internships; Style Intern at Bauer Media; Trend Forecasting at Trend Bible; Social Media at Boohoo and Marketing at HaveToLove. Without this experience I wouldn’t have realised what I wanted to do, so I kept on going and trying different things until I figured out what I loved doing.

What is the one piece of advice you would give this year’s graduates?

Don't worry if you don't get your dream job straight away, it takes time and dedication. My first job after University wasn't what I thought it would be, but it got my foot in the door and it allowed me to gain my dream job four months later. Enjoy the process and go into it wholeheartedly.