Andrew Davis

Senior Lifecycle Marketing Manager, ShiftKey, Austin, Texas, USA
Graduate Diploma in Business

Andrew Davis is proud of relocating to the USA and landing a senior role in a tech company that recently achieved unicorn status. Now living in Texas, he works for ShiftKey, a digital platform that connects independent healthcare professionals with open shifts at healthcare facilities in the US.

“As the senior lifecycle marketing manager for ShiftKey, I’m responsible for developing data and research-backed programmes to activate new users, maintain their engagement and win them back to the platform.

“What I love about this role is that I’m given problems to solve, rather than tasks to do. Having something difficult to figure out gives me focus and motivation, and eventually solving it can be more satisfying than a paycheque.”

Returning to study
After initially working in corporate events, Andrew decided to study business at university to pivot his career towards more of a business focus.

“I really liked the structure of AUT’s Graduate Diploma in Business as I could choose specific topics I was interested in and compose my ideal programme, rather than take generic business classes.”

Because he returned to study after a couple years in the workforce, he found himself to be one of the older people in many of his classes and enjoyed taking on something of a mentorship role for some of his classmates.

“Stepping up and helping out my classmates was a really rewarding experience in itself. Seeing something click for someone was just as, if not more satisfying, than actually having one of those moments myself.”

Advice for other students
Andrew, who graduated from AUT in 2010, has some great advice for other students thinking about a career in marketing.

“Familiarise yourself with data – how it’s structured; how you work with it, analyse it and present it to others; and how to use it to develop test plans and hypotheses. This is especially applicable to anyone considering a career in marketing. I use Excel far more than I write copy or review creative.”

He says he found the course on business process management he took at AUT to be foundational to his work now.

“As marketing has largely become focused on using data and automation to drive programmes, having this understanding of how data is structured and should flow has been crucial to my career.”