Kate Gregory

I actually did an HND in business finance first at Solent before my degree. I loved the location and the fact that the university was in the city centre.

The facilities were good, the lecturers were great and really engaging, and I liked how broad the course was. When I first went to university, I didn’t know what career I wanted to pursue but the course gave me an insight into a wide variety of modules.

I absolutely loved marketing, which is the career path I took – I worked as a marketing manager for Build A Bear Workshop and a brand manager for Vodafone before we launched the business.

On the marketing module at Solent, we had to create a product and a marketing campaign to launch it – this was the assignment that really caught my interest and demonstrated how powerful and fascinating marketing is. It’s vital to generating sales and ensuring your business is a success.

So my studies at Solent really helped me in my career – giving me the theory that I could then put into practice. When we started Little Ankle Biters, the company I’ve co-founded, the first thing we did was write a business strategy incorporating a SWOT analysis which I remember vividly from my days at Solent. Another was to brief a creative agency to develop our brand and creative assets to really bring it to life.