Nuttaphon "Kong" Charuvajana
Class of 2022
Hometown: Bangkok, Thailand
Undergraduate University: Chulalongkorn University
MBA Specialization: Business Analytics
Employer: Capital One
Position: Business Manager
How would you describe the William & Mary MBA experience?
Transformative: I felt that the program has changed my perspective, not only the business view but also the way to connect with people with an open-minded perspective.
Supportive: MBA program, faculty, Executive Partner coaches, and career advisors were very supportive and gave good advice. This included academic, job search, job interview, and connection expansion.
Collaborative: Most of my classmates were great and very collaborative. We worked together to succeed together. This included assignments, projects, job searches, and job interviews. Great job to the W&M MBA admission team that gathered these talented people together.
How did the faculty contribute to your experience in the program?
Faculty always prepared good material, projects, and assignments, which developed my skills in the classes I attended. Some professors engaged with Executive Partner coaches and allowed them to share their experiences and drive students in the right ways. In addition, some faculty utilized the school's connections to make several field trips happen, allowing the students to interact with professionals in different industries and learn real-world examples from the contents we studied in the classrooms.
What were some highlights for you during the program?
CrimDell Small Business: CrimDell Small Business is a great organization founded by W&M class of 2021, aiming to support small businesses in the Williamsburg and Hampton area. As I dream to have my own small business one day, working with CrimDell helped me understand what problems and obstacles small business founders face. Additionally, this allowed me to develop my creative problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
Field Consultancy: In this class, I worked with a real-world client, ChildFund International, helping the client understand its customer's journey map and proposing solutions to improve all touchpoints on the map. This enhanced my skills, including consulting, interpersonal, presentation, strategic thinking, and teamwork skills.
How has William & Mary helped you to grow your network? What career support did you receive from the Mason School, MBA program, Graduate Career Management Center (GCMC), etc.?
During my job search, I focused on big tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google. However, the career advisors advised me to look into Capital One, which is a bank that utilizes data to drive decisions and considers itself a tech company. The advice was perfect, and turned out to be a great match for me. I ended up joining Capital One as a business manager with support from the career advisors: suggesting positions I should apply for, advising a few alumni I should connect with (one of them helped refer me), reviewing my resume, preparing for interviews (more than 10 case interviews prep were done), and guiding how to negotiate my compensation.
What are some highlights of your current position?
I work in the search engine marketing (SEM) team under the performance marketing analytic department. Major revenue from Capital One comes from the credit card sector. Around 15% of customers come from the SEM channels. My team's goal is to ensure Capital One stays competitive in this channel, engaging the right customers (searchers) with the right products and simplifying content on the website to make it easy for customers to reach and apply for our products. To achieve this, we run many tests, adjust bidding prices, enhance our content, and improve our process and content.
