Explore Marketing. Build Practical Skills. Drive Business Results.
Marketing goes far beyond media and promotion. Explore how marketers use customer insight, strategy, pricing and commercial decision-making to create value, drive growth and improve business performance.
The Marketing Executive in Residence program gives students the opportunity to learn directly from experienced industry leaders, explore the breadth of career paths in marketing, develop practical marketing skills, and apply their knowledge to real business challenges. Through workshops, mentorship, industry insights, and experiential learning opportunities, students gain insight into how marketing decisions are made and applied in the real world.
Marketing in Practice Series
The Marketing in Practice Series is designed to bridge the gap between marketing theory and practice.
Students begin by exploring marketing in practice through workshops, seminars, and discussions led by the Marketing Executive in Residence and experienced industry leaders. As the year progresses, students will have the opportunity to apply their learning through a live business challenge with an external organization.
The result is a learning experience that combines professional development, industry engagement, mentorship, and hands-on problem solving.
Find upcoming sessions to join here!
What Students Can Expect
Through the series, students will have opportunities to develop practical skills in areas such as:
- Marketing strategy and commercial decision-making
- Customer, market and competitive insights
- Positioning and differentiation
- Product, pricing, communications and go-to-market strategy
- Translating insights and strategy into marketplace action
- Strategic thinking and business problem-solving
- Developing and presenting persuasive recommendations
Students learn not only what effective marketing strategies look like, but also how organizations translate those strategies into marketplace action and business results.
Mentorship that Makes a Difference
One of the defining features of the program is ongoing access to an experienced marketing practitioner (UTM’s Marketing Executive in Residence)
Students will have opportunities to engage through:
- Mentoring and office hours
- Interactive workshops and discussions
- Industry conversations and guest speakers
This sustained interaction provides a unique opportunity to learn how marketing strategy is translated into marketplace execution, while gaining practical guidance and career perspective from an experienced senior commercial leader.
Learn from Real Business Challenges
Students will have the opportunity to apply their learning to real business challenges and explore how customer insights, market dynamics, competitive strategy, and commercial realities influence decision-making and business growth.
Through a live business challenge with an external organization, students will develop recommendations that address a real-world business need, gaining valuable experience in translating insights and strategy into practical solutions.
Prepare For Your Career
Gain exposure to the tools, data, processes, and commercial practices that employers increasingly expect candidates for marketing roles to understand.
Learn how these come together in entry-level marketing roles, where turning data into insights that inform decisions is often an important part of the job—from understanding customers and evaluating promotional performance to pricing, planning, and measuring business results.
Through real-world examples and business challenges, students will build practical context and understanding they can draw on in interviews, internships, and early career opportunities.
The Student Journey
Fall: Explore and Build Skills
Students participate in a series of open workshops, seminars, and discussions designed to explore career opportunities in marketing, build practical marketing knowledge, and develop professional confidence.
Programming focuses on:
- Marketing careers and career pathways
- Marketing strategy and commercial decision-making
- Customer, market, and competitive insights
- Turning data and insights into action
- Real-world marketing and business applications
Winter: Apply and Solve
Students who want to deepen their experience can choose to participate in the live business challenge.
Working in interdisciplinary teams, students will have the opportunity to:
- Tackle an authentic business challenge
- Apply insights, analysis, and strategic thinking
- Receive mentoring and guidance
- Develop practical, strategic recommendations
- Present their recommendations to business leaders
Eligibility:
Students from Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Economics, and other Management disciplines are welcome to participate.
Upcoming Sessions
Marketing in Practice: Beyond Advertising& Promotion
Wednesday, September 23
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Drop ins welcome.
Explore the roles, skills and competencies that shape the world of marketing.
Think marketing is mostly about advertising and promotion? Think again.
Marketing can open the door to a wide range of careers - from brand management, consumer insights and digital marketing to category management, sales, customer development, buying, entrepreneurship and more.
Join this session to explore the breadth of career opportunities available in Marketing, learn what these roles actually involve, and discover how they can lead to different career paths. The new Marketing in Practice series will also be discussed and your input into future sessions will be valued.
You'll also be introduced to the functional and leadership competencies associated with marketing roles and sought by employers - giving you the language and perspective to better understand job postings, prepare for interviews, and start thinking about the skills you want to develop.
Own Your Development: Build Your Personal Development Plan for Marketing Roles
Wednesday, September 30
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Drop ins welcome.
Identify where you want to grow and create a practical plan to get there.
Now that you’ve explored the competencies employers look for (Session 1), the next step is to turn that insight inward: Which specific marketing competencies do you want to develop in yourself as you prepare for your career? In this hands-on workshop, you’ll assess your own development priorities and create a personal development plan using an approach commonly found in the workplace. Learn how to turn a development need into specific actions and experiences that can help you grow, and become more comfortable talking about your strengths and development areas in interviews and professional conversations. You’ll leave with a practical plan you can continue to build on throughout the year, including as you prepare for the Winter Marketing in Practice business challenge experience.
Guest Speaker:
Ling Chung
Strategy & Planning Leader, U.S. & Canada Grocery & Retail
Uber
Wednesday, October 14
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Register here
*Drop-ins are also welcome.
Ling Chung brings a diverse career journey spanning consumer packaged goods, marketing, strategy and technology. She began her career in analytical and commercial roles and went on to build experience across organizations including Pepsi, Energizer and Unilever, developing expertise in areas such as business operations, product marketing and go-to-market strategy. Today, Ling is a Strategy & Planning leader with Uber’s U.S. & Canada Grocery & Retail business, helping guide the company’s expansion into new verticals. Ling holds an BBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
What makes Ling’s story especially relevant to Marketing in Practice is the path she took to get there. Her career has crossed functions, companies and even industries, demonstrating how analytical, commercial and marketing competencies can open doors to opportunities that may not be obvious when you are starting out. Ling will share insights from her own career journey, the choices and transitions she has made along the way, and the competencies that have helped her continue to grow.
Whether you’re considering Marketing, Finance, Analytics, Sales or Strategy, Ling’s experience offers a great opportunity to see how the skills you develop early in your career can take you in directions you may not yet have considered.
Guest Speaker:
Jen Moy
Category Leadership Manager
Nestle Canada
Wednesday, November 4
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Register here
*Drop-ins are also welcome.
Jen Moy brings extensive experience across Sales, Category Management and Brand Marketing in the consumer goods industry, having built her career across several major organizations and brands. Today, Jen is with Nestlé, bringing a broad commercial perspective shaped by experience on both the customer and consumer sides of the business. She also holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
What makes Jen’s career particularly interesting is the intentional way she has built it. After developing her early career in Sales and Category Management, Jen made a deliberate move into Brand Marketing, recognizing the value of gaining experience across both Sales and Marketing to broaden her understanding of the business and prepare herself for future leadership opportunities.
Jen will share insights from her career journey, the choices and transitions she has made along the way, and the competencies she has built through different roles and experiences. Students will hear firsthand how thinking beyond your next job, and considering the experiences you want to gain over time, can help shape your own career and development decisions.
Whether you’re interested in Marketing, Sales, Finance, Analytics or broader business leadership, Jen’s experience provides a great example of how careers are built over time, and how moving across functions can develop a broader understanding of customers, consumers and the business as a whole.
The Hidden Economics of the Grocery Shelf
Wednesday, November 11
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Drop ins welcome.
P&L, Trade Spending & the Business of Selling Consumer Goods
What does it really cost a manufacturer to get its products onto the shelves of Canada’s largest retailers? Explore the economics behind the consumer goods industry and uncover trade spending—one of the largest and least understood costs facing manufacturers. We’ll look at how trade spending affects profitability, why Canada’s concentrated retail environment makes it such an important business issue, and how the Grocery Code of Conduct is changing the conversation between manufacturers and retailers. Gain exposure to a commercial reality rarely discussed in the classroom, and build the kind of industry understanding that can help you ask better questions and stand out in interviews with manufacturers and retailers.
Guest Speaker:
TBD
Wednesday, November 18
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Drop ins welcome.
Details to come soon!
Guest Speaker:
TBD
Wednesday, November 25
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Drop ins welcome.
Details to come soon!
Winter Business Challenge: Overview & Registration
Wednesday, December 2
5:00 - 7:00 pm
MN 1100
Drop ins welcome.
Details to come soon!
About Joanne Hillion
The Department of Management is proud to welcome Joanne Hillion, Marketing Executive-in-Residence (MEIR). Joanne brings more than 25 years of senior-level industry experience, primarily in the consumer packaged goods sector, with particular expertise in connecting brand and marketing strategy to customer strategy and marketplace execution to drive sales and profitable growth.
Over the course of her career, Joanne worked with leading consumer goods organizations including PepsiCo, Nestlé, Reckitt Benckiser, and Mars Canada, ultimately holding senior executive and Vice President roles and serving on multiple Canadian leadership teams. Her experience spans food, health and beauty, retail, marketing agency and wholesale distribution environments, providing her with a broad perspective on how businesses develop strategies and successfully bring them to life in the marketplace.
A consistent focus throughout Joanne’s career has been translating strategy into execution. She has led large, cross-functional teams and significant business transformations, developed customer and channel strategies, built Customer Marketing and Category Management capabilities, and helped develop 4P execution frameworks and global sales and marketing execution initiatives. Her experience working with many of Canada’s largest retailers has provided an especially strong understanding of how brand strategy, customer needs and commercial realities intersect in the marketplace.
Following her retirement from industry, Joanne pursued a longstanding passion for teaching. She has taught marketing and leadership at both the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College, bringing a practical, case-based approach to the classroom that helps students connect academic concepts to real-world business decisions. As Marketing Executive-in-Residence, she extends this approach beyond the classroom, helping students build practical business skills and understand how customer and market insights, marketing strategy and the 4Ps come together in marketplace execution.
Joanne holds an MBA from the University of Toronto and an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University. Throughout both her executive and teaching careers, she has maintained a strong commitment to developing people, encouraging critical thinking, and helping others build the confidence and skills required to succeed.