Naz Ozbeck W'14
What did you study at Penn and when did you graduate?
I graduated in 2014. I started out studying sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and I applied to Wharton at the end of my freshman year. In Wharton, I concentrated in marketing.
What do you do now and where are you based?
I am the co-founder of a DTC menstrual hygiene brand called BEIJE. I head brand and charity related efforts. I’ve been in Istanbul for almost four years (discounting the pandemic, I’ve spent two proper years here.) I’m actually from Istanbul, and I moved back home in the summer of 2018. All in all, I’m happy to be home and doing things that haven’t really been done here.
Can you tell me a little about your career journey?
I was very uncharacteristically Wharton from the start. I knew that consulting and finance just weren’t for me, but I also didn’t know what was. I really wanted to do something more creative. But the challenge at Penn is that there isn’t on-campus recruiting for more creative careers. For me, I was obsessed with the idea of interning at Disney. I didn’t care what I did, but I just knew that I had to be there. I applied to 25 positions my junior year and eventually landed an internship with the ABC Television’s digital marketing team in Burbank, California. I fell in love with Disney and digital marketing, but unlike consulting companies, Disney doesn’t give return offers. During my senior year, I had to go job scouting again, and I got a job at a creative agency in New York. I quickly realized that social media marketing wasn’t quite right for me and there wasn’t much room for growth in the role I was in. I gave my two weeks notice, risking my H1B visa sponsorship and then started emailing everyone I knew. My best friend’s mom connected me to the founders of a co-working space - one of the first ones in the industry. Essentially, it was shared office space but also had a restaurant, movie theater, and events; it combined my interests in arts, culture, and hospitality. The only available position was a front-of-house position, which meant that I was responsible for checking people in, locking the building down, making coffee . . . Sometimes, Wharton grads would come in and be shocked to see me working at the front desk. I worked my way up to become Programming and Membership Manager before transitioning into a role at a contemporary art center. It was around that time that I started questioning if I wanted to be in the US in the long run or return home to create something from scratch there. Ultimately, I ended up moving back to Turkey in the summer of 2018. In 2019, BEIJE emerged and I've been here since.
What has been the proudest accomplishment of your career?
I’m really proud of what I’m doing at BEIJE right now. Besides BEIJE, I’m also doing brand consulting and about to launch my own line of clothing. I’m just trusting my gut, not paying much attention to what I should be doing, and not letting the world dictate what a career path should look like.
What is the worst career advice you have received?
The worst piece of advice I received was when I said I wanted to quit working at the creative agency after five months. Almost everyone I asked said I was crazy and told me to go along with the job until I secured something else. To me, it felt like they were telling me that it was okay to go against my values if I got what I wanted.
What advice do you have for undergraduates looking to recruit for more creative industries?
Career Services is a good place to start. Also, make sure to look through the alumni network and filter people by where they’re working. During my internship search, I emailed people at Disney. Linkedin is also a great resource: if you have a department in mind, you can find people through there. Penn professors are also incredibly helpful and a great resource that’s generally overlooked.