Alumni: Claudio Di Gregorio

A new addition to the blog this year is the alumni network. I have, and will continue to, interview several professionals who graduated from La Salle. Here on the blog you can read summaries from the interviews, and gain inspiration to where the degree obtained at La Salle can take you.

Italian Claudio Di Gregorio graduated from La Salle in 2010. He is now 27 years old, and working as an Account Executive in Gartner, in London. In addition to the client base, Claudio also has three apprentices that he mentors. As an Account Executive, Claudio manages the relationships between clients, prospects and the company. Claudio currently manages about $700,000 worth of clients, and he now works to renew this client base to the company's existing services. In addition to this, Claudio works to find new clients, to reach his future business quota. On a normal day, Claudio stays in touch with his clients, who are CEOs, CMOs, and CTOs of companies and he works to make sure he is aligned with the clients business strategies. Depending on their problems, needs or initiatives, Claudio connects the clients with analysists from Gartner, so that the customers can reach their objectives. Claudio also has to communicate with the analysts on a regular basis to keep up to date regarding the market. This also allows him to network inside the company, and grow as a professional in the field. As Claudio also needs to prospect for new clients, he actively connects and tries to understand their needs applying Value Selling Strategies to turn these people into paying clients. When I asked Claudio about how the knowledge from La Salle has helped, he told me that the experience has been crucial in shaping his professional career. He mentioned several factors that helped him grow as a person and as a professional that made Claudio feel confident of the education and experience he had invested in. The factors were the following:

• Knowledge from professors and curriculum
• Mix of international and local students
• Peers of different experience levels
• The presence of La Salle Technova
• The international network of La Salle universities
• Initiatives and possibilities offered by the university, such as the NMUN trip, the entrepreneurship club and the internship opportunities

When Claudio started his university degree, he believed he would be an investment banker. This changed when he saw what happened in the crisis of 2008. After two years of working in a startup in Barcelona, Claudio decided that he wanted to work in a global company. He was interested in innovation, entrepreneurship, technology and sales, but was not sure what company could give him what he was looking for. The combination of Claudio being lucky and persistence along with his ability to understand himself has helped him to find a challenging job that satisfied his ambitions and he is now very happy with his job. Claudio believes that it is important to have goals to strive for and to think of what one can do to reach those goals.

"If you don't have a goal right now think of what makes you happy, what makes you wake up in the morning!"

He also recommends students to be confident, as the university is an important step and the first true test one undergoes as a part of their professional career. Claudio recommends students to keep their long term goals in mind and to have a winning mindset. He postulates that one will never be ready for one's first job, one's first clients, one's first promotion or one's first startup, but what really makes the difference is how the challenges are approached and how quickly one can adapt.

If you want to know more about Claudio, feel free to check out his profile on LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/claudiodigregorio/