S O. I took a little bit of a winding journey, which I think many people dio. When I first graduated college, I ended up in New York City at a company that did a furniture design and manufacturing, and I was a marketing assistant back then, so I kind of worked my way up there pretty quickly. And then I joined a TNT. Andi ended up in their public relations areas, so not so much in marketing, but more in public relations and media relations. On Ben. I did a lot of consulting on both sides. So marketing and public relations and, uh, took a turn into higher ed back in the early two thousands and did some teaching and then also worked within the marketing and communications departments, uh, at universities. And today I have marketing, admissions and financial aid at Gwynedd Mercy University, which is located in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania, about 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

Okay, so the responsibilities are all of the marketing for the university. So looking at digital marketing, print, marketing, outdoor, uh, email marketing. So the full complement of marketing and then admissions, um, primarily focused on traditional campus undergraduate students. So students looking for a four year college experience at Gwynedd Mercy University and, um, we also work with online and accelerated adult students who are looking for graduate degrees or away. Thio earn their degree while they're still working full time. So we have, ah, kind of broad mix of students here at the university. And then I also took on financial aid a couple of years ago, so helping students manage the cost of attending university in terms of top priorities. It's really structured around the strategic plan for the university. So we operate under a five year strategic plan, and then each area has their key priorities and initiatives that they work on. So my team and I really focused on moving those initiatives forward. Um, and we kind of develop our division plan around those initiatives, so we stay focused because there's always so much to do. Sometimes you can, as I call it, you can chase the shiny stuff and you don't want to. You want to stay focused on what's most important, So I tend to do that. And then, um, weekly work week. Oh, my, um, they're long. They're busy. I would say it. A 40 hour work week is not something I am familiar with. I would say closer to 55 60 hours a week. Um, some weekends, good number of nights. Certainly I'm a morning person, so I'm usually at my desk before seven. That's just, and that's just more personal preference.

Um, I would say the challenges are fairly consistent across any, um, position. You're really wanting to make sure you stay focused on your priorities. It can. There's so much going on that you have to constantly come back to Okay, What are we trying to accomplish? How are we going to get there? What's our plan? Who's handling what? Um, and how do we partner across the university so that we're not just looking at our own little areas? Um, I think silos could be a huge challenge. And organizations, if people don't understand how what they're doing, impacts people in other departments impacts for us students because that's who we care about the most. I mean, are we doing the things that make students lives better? Are we focusing on efficiency and service and an ability to solve problems across departments? You don't bounce people from one place to another that Z that's important to me. And a couple of years ago, we really joined together as a broad university team toe look at opportunities to strengthen our partnerships and our understanding of how what we do impacts how, but other people dio so that was certainly an area of focus and then the approaches. To be honest, I think collaboration, communication and transparency are the best ways to address challenges and thio reduce the pain of paying points. So working with your colleagues in an open way, being really upfront about what's happening, Um, I think when people I think sometimes organizations have trouble with trust when there people have no idea what's going on and all of a sudden there's a change made, but they don't have any context as to why. So here, a Gwynedd Mercy University. We focus a lot on communication and collaboration and transparency, making sure that people know what's happening and they understand where they fit in the bigger picture. And I certainly take that very seriously because I think it makes a huge difference.