How Skills and Perspectives from the LeBow MBA Propelled a Major Career Move
Early-career success gave Julie Kimelman, BSBA marketing ’17, MBA ’20, the foundation to strive for something more. With more than five years of marketing experience between co-op and post-graduation roles, she sought to move from the agency side to the client side — specifically as a brand manager.
These types of roles go beyond marketing or creative decisions, with a more holistic approach to brands as businesses within themselves. Brand managers oversee the key drivers that bring a product to market, identifying the trends that shape innovation, securing retail partners, optimizing shelf presence, and driving demand.
“It requires understanding consumer behavior, market trends, competitive dynamics, innovation and overall business strategy,” she says.
With this dream job in mind, Kimelman turned to her network, including LeBow professors from her undergraduate studies as well as colleagues and supervisors from her past co-op roles.
“I asked them about how to make that kind of shift,” she says. “Something that came up over and over, including in job descriptions, is that an MBA is highly suggested, if not required.”
She first made the move from the agency side to the brand side through a co-op connection, then took another major step while earning her LeBow MBA: Leading the integrated marketing communications team at Lavazza North America.
That integrated marketing role, she says, “was a good bridge between my agency advertising experience and pivoting to lead a consumer brand.”
The MBA, beyond providing a valued credential, built on the experience she gained early in her career and during her undergraduate studies at LeBow. It also layered on business strategy perspectives from a higher level to help her step ahead in her career.
“Through my MBA, I gained a more holistic perspective of how different pieces — finance, operations, sales, strategy — all connect together,” she says.
After completing her MBA, Kimelman honed her expertise in consumer packaged goods by driving major brand transformations at Bimbo Bakeries and Georgia Pacific, ultimately returning to the Lavazza Group to lead North American brand strategy.
“When I’m evaluating a brand opportunity, I’m not just thinking about creative execution,” she says. “It’s about evaluating the whole business: balancing commercial risk, resources, and strategic trade-offs to drive growth.”
Her recent work includes expanding a historically B2B brand within the Lavazza Group portfolio into the consumer market, including launch of a new home brewing system, where every brand element — design, packaging, positioning and more — has been refined for maximum impact.
Knowing that building brand awareness and equity are key to driving adoption, Kimelman drove a go-to-market strategy centered on experiential engagement – hosting an immersive New York City pop-up that let media, influencers, and the public experience the product firsthand.
“When you’re trying to shift a brand and scale adoption, putting the product directly into people’s hands and watching it click for them — that’s where the real market traction starts.”
Having applied core business skills at the product, brand and company levels to advance to her current leadership role, Kimelman has seen the value of investing in herself with a LeBow graduate degree.
“Drexel helps to drive a really strong sense of ownership and action — you develop an instinct to identify gaps and then step up to fill them,” she says. “That mentality empowers you to challenge the status quo, set the strategic direction, and turn vision into execution.”
