Turkey   EBM Graduate 2001-2002

“The perfect foundation.”

Since gaining his MSc in Engineering Business Management in 2002, Murat Tanoren has forged a progressive career with one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. He took time out to talk to us about his year at WMG – and life beyond academia.

Murat came to Warwick in 2001, having gained a BSc in Industrial Engineering in his native Turkey. “I wanted to build on this and develop a broader understanding of business management,” he explained. “WMG seemed like the ideal choice. As well as being ranked amongst the UK’s top universities, it was hailed as a model institution for the development of academic and industrial collaboration.”

Murat found the course testing, but ultimately rewarding: “Yes, it was tough, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less. The programme has real breadth, combining engineering and technology areas with management subjects including financial analysis, marketing and HR. The teaching staff’s depth of understanding was also impressive. They know what they’re talking about because they’ve been there, in industry, doing it.”

His dissertation, ‘Performance management in SMEs: a Balanced Scorecard Perspective’ was subsequently published in the International Journal of Business Performance Management.

Leaving Warwick in 2002, Murat returned to Turkey and took up a Risk Consultancy role with the world’s largest insurance brokerage firm. Just a year later though, he joined Pfizer’s Strategic Planning function as a Project Manager. “It was an entry level role,” he said “It gave me my first taste of marketing, working to develop the product management track.”

Right from the early stages of his career, Murat found that he was using what he learned on his MSc course in his day-to-day work. “I was soon finding practical application for many of the things that I had studied,” he said. “Again though, I think that a lot of this is down to the emphasis given to balancing academic studies with real-life business issues. When you do get out into industry, it all makes much more sense than if you’d spent your time in a classroom simply absorbing information.”

After 12 months, Murat was promoted to Product Manager and spent the next four years gaining increasing responsibility as he moved to more senior roles. In 2008, he became Senior Product Manager for a leading product within Pfizer’s Cardiology portfolio.

By this time, Murat’s wide-ranging professional challenges had included launching products, developing creative marketing strategies, managing high-profile projects, leading advisory boards, organising seminars and implementing new market research studies. He was also a guest speaker at a patient compliance and communication conference in London.
“It was all a steep learning process,” he said. “But thoroughly enjoyable at every stage too. I even found that some of the non-academic activities I was involved with at WMG came is useful. For example, we founded the Turkish Society at Warwick and that involved organising parties and events, leading marketing activities and managing projects. It was basically a smaller version of what I found myself doing during my time as a Product Manager.”

In the early part of 2009, Murat completed his compulsory military service before rejoining Pfizer as a Market Access Manager, and subsequently became the Corporate Partnerships Co-ordinator, working within the public affairs arena. Then, in late 2010, he was appointed as the Marketing Lead for the Caucasus & Central Asia Region. “It was an exciting job and the responsibilities were huge. Put simply, my role was to drive strategic marketing planning and execution for a region that’s comprised of ten countries, spanning from Georgia to Mongolia.” In March 2011, Murat joined Boehringer Ingelheim Turkey as the marketing manager for respiratory, urology and neurology lines.

Asked to sum up how he felt his year at WMG had helped him in his career development, Murat focused on three key areas. “Firstly, the international environment at Warwick gave me the chance to work with fellow students from right across the world. This has really helped my progress in a global company and in roles with an international aspect.

“Secondly, there’s the academic side of things of course. Thanks largely to that, I was able to land a job with Pfizer and more forward. Thirdly, and it is worth mentioning, I soon discovered that an MSc from WMG is well respected in the business world. Both the institution and the qualification itself are seen to represent high-quality learning with an organisation that prepares its students to rapidly take responsibility within industry.”