What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
“Keep yourself uncomfortable. The beaten path is boring and slow. Do things that no one else is doing. It’s exciting. It’s fun.”
At the University of Colorado Denver Business School, executives from local businesses visit frequently. Usually they visit classes to provide real-world experiences relative to course materials or act as a client in experiential-learning courses.
“When you do something, other people may not understand. My mother was shocked, ‘You’re leaving Brand Manager at Proctor and Gamble for an unpaid internship at Coca-Cola?’ This was something I knew I needed to do, though.”
Tuesday, September 9, the CU Denver Marketing Club hosted Molson Coors International Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Torsten Kuenzlen. He gave a presentation on his career path and what it’s like to market internationally.
“After the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Coca-Cola offered me a great position marketing for the 2000 Sydney games. Instead, I took the marketing position in Nairobi. I had never been to Africa; it sounded like more fun to me. And you know what? If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have met my wife.”
Kuenzlen gave a brief autobiography followed by a history of the Coors brand. After working his way from intern to International CMO of Coca-Cola in 17 years, he decided to “switch from unleaded to leaded” and took the International CMO position at Molson Coors.
“You’ll find there are so many similarities across the globe, but some things are hard to translate. In China, they understand rocky mountains, not the Rocky Mountains.”
Following a round questions, Kuenzlen spoke with several students individually about a variety of topics. Some student were eager to network while other requested information about how to seek employment at Molson Coors.
“Segmentation is so important in marketing. It’s not just limited by your insight, but by your ability to execute. That is where many companies fail: they find out all of this great information about these segments, but they have no idea what to do with it.”
For more information about upcoming events at the Business School, please visit the events page.
For more information about CU Denver Marketing Club and other student organizations at the Business School, please visit the Student Organizations page.
