MBA Reflection: A model experience

Published on October 12, 2022

By Anna Hutton-North (MBA 2002)

I never expected to arrive at Henley and experience love-at-first-sight, but I did.

As an MBA student back in the early 2000s, I was already working in marketing and looking forward to expanding my knowledge around that area.  Little did I realise that actually it was the introduction to models that really fascinated me.  Marketing, operations, finance – it didn’t matter what it was, there was just something both exciting and fulfilling to be able to take a model and be able to use it to explain a situation quickly and simply.  Even better, by linking models together you could start using the data to finesse concepts and design solutions.

It’s something that has stuck with me over the past twenty years and definitely helped shape my career.  Now I run my own marketing consultancy, and use a variety of models and methodologies to help clients optimise their marketing so that the marketing activities generate the results their business wants.

Over time the models have got more sophisticated, and as business analytics, predictive analytics and AI become more mainstream there is definitely potential for our ability to record, measure and improve marketing performance to be more effective.  Working with clients on industry-leading modelling means that I am involved within real blue-sky approaches.

So when I’m asked by a client if I can really help them improve their marketing, I reflect back to my MBA days and respond:

“Certainly, let me show you how using this model.”
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