BU graduate, Nikki Carpenter, has gone on to launch a business providing banks and brokers with the latest insights on trading activity.
Nikki graduated with a BA (Hons) in Leisure Marketing in 2003. Reflecting on her decision to choose the course, Nikki said: 鈥淚 initially planned to study design and began an art foundation course to prepare me for the course. But after a couple of terms I realised that the art world was not for me and instead I opted for a marketing degree.
鈥淭he degree included a placement year in the marketing department at STA Travel, which was a fantastic experience. The team were incredibly energetic and their campaigns were very creative which appealed to my design interests. It gave me a great insight in to a very busy marketing operation and fantastic introduction to the commercial world.鈥�
After graduating, Nikki joined the marketing team at a small financial news agency in the City of London, which eventually became part of Thomson Reuters. She went on to manage the marketing of the real-time financial news service at Dow Jones. This role introduced her to automated trading products and gave her the knowledge and experience to go on and launch in 2013 with a former Dow Jones colleague.
Nikki said: 鈥淲e provide brokers with sentiment data extracted from global news content, as well as visual tools which tell a story of the financial markets that engage investors and drive trading activity. They key is providing complex information in a way that is visually engaging, quick and easy to understand. Our service gives users an aggregated view of the markets, without them having to manually read all the news out there.鈥�
Since launching, the business has grown year on year and now works with clients around the world including in Abu Dhabi, Canada and North America. Nikki said: 鈥淚 had always aspired to run my own business. I was fortunate to make a contact earlier on in my career who would become a partner in this new venture. You never know who you will meet along the way who could go on to be an influential part of your future, and I would always advise others starting out to maintain connections with colleagues when they move on.鈥�