Career Spotlight: MSc in Marketing & Creativity alumna Ana Marcela Suclla

Career Spotlight: MSc in Marketing & Creativity alumna Ana Marcela Suclla

On Transitioning from a Corporate to NGO Environment and Working on Social Good Campaigns

Like many of our MSc in Marketing & Creativity alumni, Ana Marcela Suclla (Class of 2013) chose to steer away from the more typical corporate marketing jobs. Ana’s passion for managing for impact in rural development – and her desire to effect true global change through her career – is worthy of note. Read on to see how her experience at ESCP Business School shaped her unique career path.


What is your current position?

I’m currently working as an Executive Director at the Fundación Custer in Peru. The organisation funds the Aprendamos Juntos Project, whose mission is to provide children with the tools for a successful learning process and to empower them during their first two years of school education.

Currently, only three out of ten students have the educational level matching their grade in urban zones; this rate tends to get more critical in rural zones. Only 30% of students in the second grade have the educational level that corresponds to the second grade – the rest of the population has the educational level of the first grade, or less. This situation is a consequence of diverse factors, from a low level of familial education leading to uninspiring environments and high rates of domestic violence, to a lack of efficiency of the public education system.

In Aprendamos Juntos we focus our programme in the first two (and most important) years of education around three main axes: Learning empowerment, family and mentors.


What was your position before starting at ESCP Business School?

I was a Product Manager at EF Education First. It’s a company also related to education, which sells innovative immersive language programmes abroad.


Please tell me a bit about your career path since graduating the MSc in Marketing & Creativity, and explain what made you realise that you wanted to steer away from big corporations?

While studying for the MSc in Marketing & Creativity, I participated in two projects which definitely had an impact on me, despite being unaware of it at that time. Those projects were both related to developing sustainable strategies for NGOs: one was Wikirate and the other was Marketing For Change.

Right after graduating from ESCP Business School, I fulfilled my stage or master’s internship at Carlson Wagonlit Headquarters for EMEA in Paris, as an International Project Manager JR. There, I supported the prospecting strategy and the elaboration of proposals for our clients.

After this, I returned to Peru where I soon began working in the private sector, again selling services. After a while working as a Business Unit Manager for a real estate company, I got involved on a campaign with the civil association called Enseña Peru, supporting their fundraising strategies to achieve their mission. The experience was incredibly gratifying, and it was at that point that I realised I wanted to work for organisations which delivered a true impact in our global community. I also knew that didn’t want to transfer to a CSR department of big corporate company, which felt too much like a compromise. I wanted to make changes from the grassroots levels.

To read the full article, please visit ESCP Business School.