Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

As VP of Growth, my role is to lead the marketing and sales activities of the company to grow the business. It’s a wide ranging role that can involve anything from defining the long term strategy of the company, negotiating partnership deals or testing new ads on Facebook.

The day starts with a morning standup, a short run through by each member of the team about how their last day went and what they will be working on today. This gives the team an opportunity for feedback or collaborative work while also allowing me to bounce ideas around for projects.

The rest of the day can be quite variable depending on what I work on. It could be analysing test results from a Facebook campaign, scoping out a change to how the website operates or meeting with other startups to share best practices. No two days are alike at a startup, it's very exciting.

There are plenty of reasons to love working at a startup but with ClickMechanic I would have to say it's a mix of the following: Having a strong team who I can bounce ideas off and learn from. The variety of the role. The influence you can have on the shape and direction of the company.

All start-ups have limited resources, and while ClickMechanic has grown quite a lot, we are always pushing for more. This means there is a ruthless prioritisation of product development. There are hundreds of things we want to do but limited time, money or capacity to do them!

The ability to see ideas turned into actions very quickly. I had the idea of launching a new service for customers on a Friday afternoon, by Monday morning we started testing it, and in a week the business case was made and we hired three people to roll the product out to all customers.

The softer skills from applying your education are the most important. I use these skills the most:
* Problem solving,
* Data analysis,
* Commercial skills,
* Strategic planning,
* Team management.

2002 - 2005 Sheffield University BSc Economics
2005 - 2007 Worked in India for the British Embassy and in investment research
2008 -2012 Strategy consulting in the pharmaceutical industry
2012-2014 MBA at London Business School. During which I interned at Pfizer, PepsiCo, Deloitte and Nando’s
2014 - 2015 Corporate strategy at Diageo
2015 - 2017 Marketing at Graze
2017 - present Growth at ClickMechanic

More of the same! More leading the development of startups. No plans for further formal education.

Be conscious of decisions you make in your career that close doors. The economy and the world of work is changing rapidly, so having a broad set of skills that can be applied to different areas can be much more valuable than being an expert in a niche area.

Andrew  MSc Economics (2009)
Head of Labour Market Strategic Analysis and Briefing  (Social research, statistics and translating)

Accepts questions from students about their career