Alum of the Month

Roshni Shah

April 2011

New York Program

September 2000 Intake

What and where did you study before your Mountbatten internship?
Economics at Royal Holloway, Uni of London in leafy Egham

What made you apply for the Mountbatten programme?
I spotted an ad for Mountbatten in my first year at uni, had always loved travelling and knew it would be an amazing opportunity to work abroad. I kept the thought in the back of my mind until my final year and decided to apply and make my great escape!

Describe your sponsor company and your role within it.
I worked in midtown Manhattan for Information Management Network (IMN), an organiser of conferences in the financial industry. My role was to co-ordinate and develop audiences for a number of conferences, working along side event producers, sales and marketing. The most rewarding part of this was seeing an event through from its inception where the beginnings of an agenda is formed right through to the end product attending the events and meeting delegates, speakers and sponsors.

What was the highlight/most memorable moment of your working experience during this year?
The highlight of the year was working on two events that were held back to back in Tokyo and Seoul. The few months leading up to the event were full of intense hard work and the reward was a trip to Tokyo to see through the running of one of the events. Enjoying the nightlife in Roppongi and taking advantage of jet lag to get up early for sushi at the Tsukiji fish market were both unforgettable experiences.
 
What was the social highlight/most memorable moment during this year?
Ten days holiday was not enough! But I made the most of it with long weekend trips to the likes of Miami, Washington D.C., Boston, Niagara, Connecticut and Mountain Lakes in New Jersey for the U.N. weekend.
Back then hardly any of us had mobile phones and Facebook and Twitter were yet to be invented so it was good 'old fashioned' landlines, email & messenger to send around the round robins of where the free drinks and events were being held each night. There were so many memories that stand out but a short list would include: nights on the Frying Pan, Centrofly, the parades, Summerstage, the US Open, Yankees vs. Mets, the Christmas house party with the Pogues & Kirsty on repeat (it was the year Kirsty died) and of course life in Pavonia Newport, which has changed a lot over the years! 

Please share a little wisdom/philosophy that you acquired during your internship
A mere year was short but sweet. Make the most of it and make friends with the weekly edition of Time Out. Most of all embrace the culture, lifestyle and let yourself find the real you.  

What happened after completing the year - what did you do next?
I worked for IMN in London for a while before retraining in web development. I moved into a career in digital marketing and have since worked agency side at CheetahMail and client-side at Expedia. Both companies have let me keep a closeness to the US and so my grounding during the internship was particularly useful.

Where are you now in your working life and what do you do?
I specialise in email marketing, having worked in the industry in the early days about eight years ago. Today I work in one of the largest database marketing teams worldwide for the world's largest online travel company. We are a truly global team and arranging calls between London, Seattle and Sydney is one of our greatest challenges. I've been privileged to travel a fair bit through my working life and more so at Expedia where the ethos encourages this.

Do you have any future plans that you would like to realise & what are they (career & social)?
In my career I like to keep on top of new technologies relating to digital marketing and adopting them when I can in my working life. 
I've had lots of opportunities to revisit NYC through work and socially and try and keep the connections I had there and with the Mountbatten friends I made who are now back in the UK. I'd like to keep taking advantage of the travel opportunities and growing the number of destinations on the Cities I've Visited app by Tripadvisor (shameless plug).

Can we put your e-mail address at the bottom of the article in case those reading it want to contact you?
Get in touch at: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/roshnishah