Emily Abold (CIDEF, 2001), B2B Marketing and Communications Manager

Emily Abold is a former German student who came to learn French at the Centre International d'Etudes Françaises (CIDEF) on the UCO Angers campus. In this interview, she looks back on her academic and professional journey in marketing and communication.

In a few words, can you present yourself and your professional background?

My name is Dr. Emily Abold, I have a background in communication, German literature and political science and am working in Marketing and Communication since I graduated. I am a B2B Marketing and Communications Manager with Siemens for 17 years, most of the time working for energy target groups, but I also did a work for the healthcare sector for a while.

My career however, did not start there: While I did my doctor thesis, I started working in a medium sized company as a communication and PR manager. When I realized there were no more development opportunities for me in that company, I started my career in Siemens to benefit from the opportunities of a large global player.

Would you share with us a bit about your course and what you did here? Why did you choose to come to UCO?

I used my time in Angers to mainly learn things that were not offered at my university in Germany (Otto-Friedrich-Universität in Bamberg), and I remember vividly the practical stuff we did – we had a blast developing a marketing campaign for Vodka, which I still have in mind very well. I also did some courses on German literature, and I learned some Dutch, because one of my international friends in Angers taught Dutch at UCO.

The main reason why I chose UCO was a cooperation of my hometown Uni with UCO, and the simple fact that due to my language skills I was able to study in France without any additional language test to take. But even though French was one of my main Abitur (German baccalauréat) subjects, I did have some restrictions in really speaking and well understanding French for the first weeks. However, I soon became accustomed to it, and even though my French today is not nearly as good as 20 years ago, I can still impress locals by pulling of a bit of French slang when I am on vacation.

What was your impression of the UCO Angers Campus? How was your studying & working experiences at UCO, as a foreigner?

I lived in Rue Bel Air, very close to the campus, which I liked a lot. I was already spoiled with a beautiful alma mater in Germany, so I was happy that Angers – the campus as well as the town itself – was just as nice! Being a foreigner and only staying for a few months definitely led to having less friendships with locals, but even more with other exchange students. We were a group of Irish, British, Finnish and Italian folks, and we loved going out for a galette and even more for a Cidre in the evening. We also did weekend trips to Nantes and Paris, but mostly we stayed in Angers and entertained ourselves with homecooked dinners from our home countries and booze from the supermarket, because none of us had a lot of money. I cannot tell how we managed to organize ourselves though – just imagine, no one had a cell phone, and hardly anyone had internet in their rooms, we went to the uni to reach out to our friends and family via email and made phone appointments with our loved ones, for with we had to go to public phone boxes!

Can you share with us some details about your present-day company Siemens? How has your career journey been going on with the firm ?

My business unit is developing software for power grids, and I currently am leading a team of regional marketing managers. Overall, our work is about campaigning in different countries in the

world, collaborating closely with product marketing and product managers as well as the sales teams in the different countries.

Our team are located in different countries globally, so my day starts early with meetings in the Eastern World and my regional marketing manager in Dubai, then continues with meetings in Europe and the colleague in Italy. Later in the day I continue discussing our business with the Portuguese and Spanish speaking regional marketing manager, who is based in Brazil and the day ends with calls in the US and the regional marketing manager based in California – so long days and a big variety of cultures and topics are my daily job.

How do you associate your own career goals with those of your firm?

Since I started working at Siemens, my role as a marketing manager changed a lot – from print to digital, from articles and in-person events to social media and automized lead generation. Moreover, working in a large global company gives me a lot of options, so I am happy that I can do a lot to actively steer my career within that company. If I feel like I need to change jobs or even the industry, I can do this within Siemens, and if I feel that I want to step up and challenge myself, I have met managers throughout my career that were open to listen to me and trying to make things work – as long as my expectations are realistic and there are options at the given point in time.

Is there anything that you would like to say to present-day UCO students ?

What I think is most important for students is to really follow their interests. I know people who studied law or medicine, just because they thought they had to and were not able to picture themselves in other areas where the final “job” that results from your studies might not be as clear. But I am a firm believer in following your dreams and passions, so if you’re interested in less career-focused topics like literature, philosophy or history, then go for it!

And, a no-brainer for a B2B marketer: do not fall too easily for fast moving consumer goods. They look fancy, but if you really want to make an impact, consider also companies that might not look as cool at first sight. Evaluate not only your personal benefit, but also what value a company brings to society.