MBA transformers: Teresa Demel

Once: Traveling Science Teacher, Pacific Science Center

Now: Product Marketing Manager, Adobe Systems

Teresa DemelTeresa Demel (MBA 2011) rocks. Literally.

She plays guitar and sings with “Another Perfect Crime,” a band that formed shortly after she moved to Seattle seven years ago.

Not that she’s quit her day job(s). At first, Demel put her biology degree to work as a traveling educator in the Pacific Science Center’s renowned Science on Wheels Program, followed by a gig managing heart health outreach through UW Bioengineering.

Then her destiny turned on a reading of What Color is your Parachute. “I realized that what I had been doing—and loving— was really product development and marketing,” she says.

She wanted to learn more. The Foster MBA provided “a combination of great professors who gave me strategic frameworks that I use every day, and fabulous career counselors who shaped my transformation.”

Unsure of where she’d fit in the for-profit world, Demel embraced their advice to view a first job like a medical residence—a skills-building step toward a dream career.

“As an avid user of Photoshop, I had always had a crush on Adobe,” she says. “Now here I am, product marketing manager for Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.”

And rocking it.

Update: After two years at Adobe, Demel moved on from her long-time crush to take on a larger role as Director of Marketing at A.R.O., Inc, a technology company dedicated to leveraging the power of context. Her band continues to rock on.

Find out about the other alumni who transformed their careers via the MBA Program.

Leave a Reply