A Successful Go-Getter
While Lena Hegemann will be part of the Class of 2022 commencement this May, she fulfilled her graduation requirements in December 2021 and is already immersed in the professional world. As a campaign specialist at Bloomberg LP in New York City, she is applying all that she learned inside and outside of class to help support the marketing campaigns of the company’s top clients.
A native of Düsseldorf, Germany, Hegemann earned her undergraduate degree in international business at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, located in Recklinghausen, Germany. After graduating, she got a job at the German American Chamber of Commerce, which allowed her to move to New York City. “I still wanted to get an M.B.A., so I looked at a lot of schools in the city,” she recalls. “I liked New York Tech because it had a specific marketing concentration, which a lot of schools don’t have. I really liked the types of courses, the capstone project, and the campus location in Columbus Circle.”
New York Tech also gave Hegemann a wide range of opportunities to get involved on campus. “I worked in several different roles, which I really enjoyed. I was a peer leader, an orientation leader, and later I worked as a design and marketing associate with the Office of Student Engagement.” She says she loved the sense of community that she found working with these student support teams. “One of my favorite moments was when the whole team went out to the Long Island campus for summer orientation,” she says, noting the difference between the two campuses was an experience in and of itself. “We had a get-together with the students out on the lawn, and the campus is so beautiful. It was really fun.”
Hegemann says she learned a lot by immersing herself in New York Tech’s campus environment, which was known for its diversity. She especially liked working and learning to communicate with people from different cultures and says, “A big part of my job as a peer leader was welcoming students from other countries and making them feel comfortable.” Hegemann says that being an international student herself helped her in that role because she understood what was like to attend college in another country without friends and family nearby.
All of these experiences—looking at things from unique perspectives, communicating with different people, and supporting others—provide Hegemann with the skills she needs at Bloomberg. “It’s very exciting, and I love my job working on clients’ social campaigns and marketing campaigns. I really enjoy the work environment and the diversity,” she says. Hegemann also notes that her New York Tech coursework helped prepare her for this job. “In class, sometimes we would roll our eyes at how many PowerPoints we needed to do, but that was a really good skill to practice because now a lot of my job is about making information and data digestible to clients.”
Hegemann says that her biggest advice to a New York Tech student would be to get involved the way she did. “Whether you are international or from the States, get involved, network, meet people. Take advantage of what New York Tech is offering because they’re offering a lot.”
And the one of the most relevant takeaways from one of her professors? Hegemann recalls and still uses School of Management Professor Colleen Kirk’s advice to her marketing research M.B.A. students: “Show people the bigger picture and make information digestible for whoever your audience is.”
