Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) alumnus Suat Ozsoy (MBA, 2016) has had a varied career since graduating in 2016, and now works as Director of Business Unit – Emerging Countries at Epson Europe, a role for which he and his family have had to relocate to Dubai. Having worked in Product Marketing Management for several years, Suat has now released a book ‘Product Marketing Management: How to become the most influential person in your company’ to help people understand and optimise their work in the field. We spoke to Suat about his time at Bayes, his career to date and his venture into writing.
Could you tell us a bit about your time at Bayes?
Completing an MBA was one of the toughest decisions to make from a commitment point of view nonetheless. I’m very glad that I did commit as it allowed me to join a great cohort. At that time, my first child was born two months into the MBA course and not sleeping during evenings helped from a course work point of view! I really valued the “real” experience in the field when we visited China and Vietnam. We worked as a consultant team to a Vietnamese Coffee company whose owner wanted the business to become like Starbucks. I enjoyed every day of the work during this visit.
How has your career developed since leaving Bayes?
I had been working in the management field when I joined the MBA course and was overseeing a group of product managers in a well-known IT brand. After the course, I was able to join the wider projects in the company and have therefore gained a vast amount of experience following the completion of my MBA. I then joined a new company and over the past 5 years I have been promoted every year and am now at Director level.
You have recently published a book on Product Marketing Management, could you tell us a bit about the book and how this came about?
My background is in Product Management and in a few companies that I have worked for, as well as interviews I have had, I have recognised that it is a field that is not well understood by employers as well as employees. For example, we didn’t have a course related to it when I was at Bayes. I thought that writing a book about it can help those who are aiming to work in multinational companies and don’t know much about this field.
Product marketing management is one of the most important fields that you can use to grow your career. My book focuses on the Product Marketing Management function in the international company environment and provides simple steps for you to grow your influence within your organisation. I hope that a few of the ideas in the book will be helpful to those working in the field.
What has been the biggest challenge of your career?
In my career I have had to restart in different locations with new roles. Flexibility and adaptability are required in many fields in today’s work life but with family involved, it is always difficult to move around. We recently moved to Dubai, which was particularly tough due to the challenges of the pandemic.
What has been the most rewarding part?
I think for me the most rewarding part of my career has simply been to see my own development in return for the time and the energy that I spent throughout my career. I have been fortunate enough to receive good recognition from my company over the past years and I also am coaching the new members to grow their confidence with their roles and responsibilities. Actually, the book links to that and aims to share the ideas with wider circles to influence one or two people to help to grow their career.
Do you have any advice for anyone who might want to follow in your footsteps?
I would recommend for everyone to have a good self-assessment and focus on the weak parts of your skills set at the beginning of one’s career and then ensure you work on that basic skillset to constantly improve – this, in the long term, will help you to grow your career. For book writing, focus and commitment is key as it takes quite a lot of time to say what you want to say with a good story