For Daniyah Khan, Class of 2023, strategy and storytelling are the heart of everything she does. She lives in Washington, D.C. She’s now an Associate Product Manager at Capital One through its product development rotational program.

When she was at UNC, Khan majored in business and minored in advertising and public relations. She was interested in the intersection between strategy and business, having done several internships in marketing and staying involved in various student business organizations.

It was in her senior year that she discovered the Brand Studio. Her roommate, who was already a part of the 1893 Brand Studio, suggested it to her. Soon enough, she applied and joined the campaigns team.

“I would highly recommend anyone to become a brand or campaign strategist if they’re kind of interested in the same things, or have the same academic background similar to me,” she said.

After graduating, she was at first focused on consulting and business. Her first job post-grad was as a Business Analyst at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Afterwards, she moved on to be an Account Executive at a London-based software company GEEIQ.

Her work with the 1893 Brand Studio was especially relevant as an Account Executive because of the overlap of building client relationships. As a product manager, she said, the transferrable skills she learned from Brand Studio were strategic prioritization. 

“Right now, I’m on data guidelines, supporting the marketing messaging for Capital One,” she said. Her work focuses on ad tech for Capital One’s emerging channels such as Meta, YouTube, and Google. She was drawn to Capital One’s product development program because of its focus on strategy. She was also interested in being in a cohort of peers.

Throughout her career, including internships, she’s worked in several industries: telecommunications, entertainment, and gaming, among others.

To invest in her career, she has the support of her manager, mentor, and development advisor at Capital One. Beyond that, she keeps in touch with previous internship mentors and managers. She said the business school and Hussman School have reinforced the importance of networking, which is something she continues to do.

“I feel like I’ve started to build a network of people over the past years in college and post-grad of people that are doing the things that I currently am doing, people that are doing things that I used to be doing, and then people that are doing things that I one day want to do,” she said.

Looking back, she said she’d tell her younger self not to stress out so much about recruiting. She was worried that she’d be too general and become a “jack of all trades, master of none.” But now she thinks it’s important to invest in doing a lot of different things, especially in your early career.

“I think a common thread throughout all of that is I really focused on being just a good, strategic storyteller in a lot of different ways,” she said.