Catherine Robertson

BA (Hons) Business Studies, 1995

How important was your Abertay degree in helping you pursue your career?

Extremely important.

It helped me figure out which areas of business most interested me. Learnings from the whole course, even the bits I didn't like so much, are still useful today, 20 plus years on!

Since graduating, can you describe your journey to your current career?

I was lucky enough to get a graduate role at NCR and that corporate start was a great grounding in many aspects of business life. My last employed role was marketing director of a law firm before I set up my marketing consultancy, providing outsourced marketing director support.

What does your current job involve?

I co-own Robertson Collaborate with my husband and fellow Abertay graduate, John. We provide marketing and digital commerce strategy and support for growth businesses.

As outsourced "marketing directors" we help businesses identify the right marketing mix to increase sales through customer acquisition and retention. We create plans and help deliver them too, often using our network of trusted partners.

What is your lasting impression of Abertay and Dundee?

My impressions of Abertay have stayed current as we're based just 15 mins away from the University! It's been great to see the buildings and courses continue to develop and transform over the years since I've left. I'm still encouraging people to consider the type of degree I did - it's served me well.

Who had the most impact on you while studying at Abertay?

That's a hard one. Our course leader, Bob Pemble was a great character who passionately shared his views of business life. Japanese management and the internet were two of his two favourite subjects that I enjoyed learning from him about.

But in all honesty, probably the friends I made had most impact. We're still very close today. Three of us save up every ten years for big birthday weekends away!

What advice would you give to our students?

Ah, now that's an easy one. Students (from lots of different universities and colleges) send us speculative CVs fairly regularly. I don't know why in the era of spellcheck, but in almost all cases there will be some spelling or grammatical errors and, to people my generation, that's a bit of a non-starter.

Please get a second set of (good) eyes on the CV and your accompanying email. Oh, and live university life to the fullest! It's such a short and special time in your life and what a great time to be in Dundee with all the changes taking place - get out and explore the city.

What are your future aspirations?

The way Robertson Collaborate is working now really suits us. We'll keep evolving and changing with the times but the core offering will remain as it is for the foreseeable future. Oh and to keep having fun too, that's a must.

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