Cal State East Bay’s College of Business & Economics hosts the Marketing Connect Speaker Series

(Pictured from left to right: MaryAnn Wofford, Scott Deutsch, Joe Gura, Dorothea Sieber, Div Manickam)

Every semester, the Marketing Department at Cal State East Bay’s College of Business & Economics hosts the Marketing Connect Speaker Series, where students get to hear from alumni who are industry leaders in top companies including Salesforce, Oracle, and Microsoft.

Since the first event in 2019, there have been 5 speakers, reaching an even bigger audience of CBE’s network by going virtual in the past year. Topics that have been discussed include building a brand, the business of storytelling, and breaking into a career in technology. 

Bridging the gap between classroom learning and career development, the Marketing Connect Speaker Series serves as an extension of the Marketing Internship Pipeline Program created by Department Chair Dr. Yi He. Through the Internship Pipeline Program and Speaker Series, students can have earlier exposure to different career paths and goals. “Research on academic retention and career development theory has demonstrated a correlation between career choice, degree progression, and retention,” says Dr. He.

The following are guest speakers from past Marketing Connect Speaker Series events. Alumni and professionals are invited to become speakers in the future or partner with Cal State East Bay’s Marketing Department by contacting Dr. Yi He at yi.he@csueastbay.edu or learning more at https://www.csueastbay.edu/marketing/index.html

MaryAnn Wofford

Salesforce, Area Vice President, Cloud Sales

MaryAnn Wofford is Area Vice President, America's Sales for Heroku at Salesforce, a global Fortune 500 SaaS company that advocates for diversity and equality in the workforce. She has worked there for over 7 years in total. MaryAnn has experience in Sales at several high tech companies during her career including Sun Microsystems, Symantec, and Splunk. She's a mom of two teenagers, and a strong advocate of volunteering throughout her entire career. She has volunteered for Food Runners, Jack & Jill of America, multiple political campaigns, and served on the Alameda County Commission on the Status of Women for over 3+ years.  

Dorothea Sieber MBA ‘10

VP, Content Marketing & Keynotes, Oracle

Dorothea is vice president of content marketing and keynotes at Oracle, leading the strategy for large-scale content marketing initiatives across the business. Prior, Dorothea led content and thought leadership strategy for Adobe Experience Cloud to engage prospects and customers across the entire customer journey. Her accomplishments include developing the overall demand and event content strategy, keynote productions, creating a governance model to drive cross-functional alignment, and operationalizing content creation, experience, and activation across the organization. Dorothea joined Adobe through the Marketo acquisition, where she led the corporate marketing team including corporate communications, public relations, social media, executive communications, content marketing, and corporate events. Before Marketo, Dorothea spent eight years working at SAP, most recently as chief of staff driving the platform and analytics business, aiming to drive customer loyalty, accelerated growth, and employee success. This included internal and executive communications, strategic customer programs, employee engagement programs, key projects, and business priorities. 

Scott Deutsch MBA ‘16 

GM and VP Worldwide Sales and Marketing- TDK

Scott Deutsch is an experienced executive with over 25 years in engineering, sales, and marketing roles. Scott brings an extensive history of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), scaling organizations, building strategic partnerships, and accelerating growth in start-up and large firms. Scott has a wealth of international experience and has built large-scale operations in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe, and the Americas. He is a talented professional, with unique skills in establishing executive relationships and business development with top-tier consumer and networking companies. Scott has a passion for leadership and demonstrated capabilities in developing strategies for high-performance organizations.

Div Manickam, MBA '11 

Director of WW Services Marketing and Portfolio Management at Lenovo

Div Manickam is passionate to empower a mindful team and foster a vulnerable culture where everyone feels their voice is heard and can truly be themselves in a safe environment. 

She has led product marketing efforts in startups and Fortune 500 technology companies. Div has a Masters in Cyber Security, Bachelors in Information Technology from India, and an MBA in Marketing from California State University East Bay. 

Div was recognized as a 2019 40 under 40 CSUEB recipient for contributions toward her workplace and community. She was also recognized as one of the top 50 Product Marketing Influencers in 2019 and 2020 by Product Marketing Alliance for redefining standards, helping shape the evolution of PMM, and elevating awareness among the C-suite.

Div is a Forbes Communications Council member sharing her experiences on leadership and product marketing.

Just as committed and passionate, Div is also an avid traveler, foodie, and a proud Google Local Guide exploring the world around the corner. And one day, she aspires to share her passion and story on TEDx.

Joe Gura BA ‘02

Storytelling Lead for Microsoft Teams Marketing at Microsoft

Joe Gura is the Storytelling Lead for Microsoft Teams marketing. An alumnus of Cal State East Bay (BA, 2002), and West Virginia University (MS, 2015), Joe has spent the past 15 years in technology marketing, after a 10-year career in broadcasting. An inaugural “40 Under 40” CSUEB alumni award honoree, Joe also served on the Cal State East Bay Alumni Association board of directors from 2018-20.