WBS opened up opportunities I couldn't have imagined back in 1987

After graduating and spending a year in the Philippines with AIESEC, I went into traditional marketing at Proctor & Gamble. After a few years, I took the opportunity to move to consumer technology at start of the internet boom, working with some innovative start-ups. Surviving the dot com bust, I progressed to more mainstream internet companies, initially Ask.com, and now eBay where I'm Director of Search Optimisation.

When I chose to study management, over twenty years ago, my main reasons were that I had a real interest in technology, but I also wanted to give myself a broader understanding of how businesses ticked. WBS offered me the best combination of courses to help me do that.

Amazingly, I still have some of my textbooks and I do find that, even 20 years on, I still refer to them. My accounting courses were really useful when I was in a startup company going through a float, and enabled me as a marketing professional to be ahead of the game when we were making decisions about acquiring other companies. Time spent in strategic planning courses paid dividends when became part of a team devising company strategy through the dot com boom and bust - against some very agile competitors.

But what I didn't really appreciate at the time was how much the reputation that came with a degree from WBS would give me a real boost in securing opportunities later in my career. I've been very lucky; managing to work in an area I find immensely fascinating, and with some companies I respect hugely. I've had opportunities that I couldn't have imagined back in 1987, including my current adventure living in California with my family, leading some of eBay's global search strategies. But all of these opportunities can be traced back to my decision to study at WBS.

Tony Macklin, BSc Management Science 1987 (now BSc in Management)
Director of Search Optimisation, eBay