The EU Movers, Makers & Shakers series highlights successful alumni who are either excelling in their field, moving on to further studies or creating their own business. This week’s Mover, Maker & Shaker is Paulo Pinto.
Originally from Portugal, Paulo Pinto holds a master’s in IT and management and has gained extensive experience in the field. He launched his career at Samsung in Korea, later moving to the Adidas Group in 2007 where he worked in the IT department. Over the years, Pinto worked his way through various IT positions at Adidas before deciding he wanted to change direction. At the time, he lacked the theoretical background to do so.
“I wanted to move into sports marketing at Adidas and it worked out. I was just finishing my MBA – I was writing the final report – and then, right away I got assigned to a sports marketing position in Adidas, which was my original goal. The MBA was seen as a positive add on to my profile.”
Pinto wanted to continue working while completing his MBA in the field of sports management or sports marketing and found EU Business School to be the perfect fit.
I didn’t want to stay in Munich the whole time. I wanted to transfer to different campuses and I could do that with this business school. Not many offer that. Also, we could really tailor the program a lot; what we wanted to learn, how we wanted to learn and the speed we wanted to do it. Like going to Spain for one week, taking lessons on the weekend, or doing lessons via Skype. It [the program] was really good, with the one-on-one classes, we really had the chance to learn a lot.
Pinto graduated from EU Munich with an MBA in Sports Management summa cum laude in 2013 and quickly moved into the position he was seeking. The combination of practical and theoretical components of the EU MBA really helped Pinto to gain the specific skills necessary for his current role as senior manager advanced analytics hub at Adidas. Now, instead of looking at projects only from the point of view of a business analyst, Pinto works in advanced analytics. He develops frameworks and evaluates areas in sports marketing such as social media impact and ROI from sponsoring one team or athlete over another.
“When I had classes with Guillermo, I came to Spain. Together, we spoke with managers from Real Madrid Football Club and management from Microsoft in Spain. We networked with managers from the biggest companies in Spain, and worldwide. The hands-on knowledge and the contacts I made are still useful to me today. That’s what I don’t think I would have had with any other school. You end up developing a personal relationship with teachers and you build up your network from there. Overall I was very, very satisfied with the learning and teaching methodology.”
