Maria Bariami
MSc ITMOC, 2005
Country of origin: Greece
Employer: Solid Relations
For many people my decision to enrol on the MSc ITMOC was not an obvious one – because on the face of it my background was not immediately relevant.
But having studied marketing at the Athens University of Economics and Business, and having worked for two and a half years as a client executive in Public Relations and Communications, I wanted to explore management but from a different perspective.
My working experience – and my intuition – led me towards the area of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Therefore Lancaster University Management School and the MSc ITMOC was an obvious choice!
Lancaster University’s reputation and the ITMOC's structure and mixture of technological, organisational and managerial elements, guaranteed a successful choice.
I have to admit that ITMOC was a very demanding programme in terms of work load and effort required. However, it was a very fruitful year that affected my way of thinking and interpreting, as I started questioning things that I used to take for granted.
I gained a deep insight into how technology affects humans and non-humans and of current managerial trends (such as BPR, IT strategy, knowledge management, systems thinking etc). My decision to complete my dissertation in collaboration with Accenture was another element that provided me with new notions and precious experience, since my work had both an academic and a professional side. The focus of my dissertation was identity management and how the relation between state and citizen is changing.
The post-ITMOC period was a period of evaluation of my personal desires, targets and expectations; new options were revealed after the completion of this Masters programme that I had not thought of before.
I decided that the career I wanted to pursue would be a combination of marketing, communication and information management. Actually, things happened much more easily and faster than I had expected.
I was selected for the position of Marketing and Communications Manager at Deloitte (in Greece), which was vacant and needed filling immediately. From this position I had the chance to explore ideas I had studied during ITMOC and acquire new knowledge – managing extremely large flows of information that were generated within Deloitte’s worldwide network. It was a challenging area that I enjoyed and I really believe that if it wasn't for ITMOC I would not have been offered my position with Deloitte.
Since 2007 I have worked as an account manager with Solid Relations in Greece.
