She has led marketing efforts for some of the UK’s best-known brands, and for Charlotte Dewhurst a journey that has taken her around the world started in Lancaster University Management School.

Charlotte has been Director of Marketing at Matalan since April 2024. Before that, came a career that has taken in – among other big-name companies – Reebok, Argos, and Les Mills International.

But before any of that came a BSc Marketing Management degree at Lancaster, from which she graduated with a first in 2005. It was a course that still carries resonance with Charlotte some 20 years later – with lessons learned in the lecture theatres and seminar rooms of Lancaster applied at firms that span the globe.

“I feel like I might be biased, but I think that the course I took at Lancaster is one of the best courses for marketing in the world,” Charlotte says, who returned to Lancaster in early 2025 to share her experience and knowledge with staff, students and alumni in a fireside chat (pictured below).

“There are a lot of things I've learned subsequently, but in terms of the grounding that I received, in terms of Marketing 101 – analytics, strategic marketing, I also did some modules of entrepreneurship – I really don't feel like it could have better equipped me for not just the marketing role that I do, but the broader business education that I got.”

She adds: “One lecturer in particular who stood out to me was George Long,” recalls Charlotte, who returned to Lancaster in early 2025 to speak with staff, students, and alumni about her experiences at university and within her career. “A lot of what he talked about still resonates with me today.

“I remember he talked about McDonald's being a service environment where they didn't want you to stay for a long time. So, the seating is hard and it's always a little bit cold. Funnily enough, I went into a McDonald's yesterday before I was on a store visit for work and I thought, it feels a bit cold and unwelcoming in here, and I remembered that lecture.

“So much of [the degree] really plays into my life every day, and I literally think about what I learned here every day at work and outside of work.”

Two of Charlotte’s best friends were made from the group projects she completed as part of her Lancaster degree, Anna and Kate. Charlotte even did the maternity cover for Anna (pictured below with Charlotte during their time at Lancaster) when she worked at ClearScore, and she values those friendships and connections made from working with people inside and outside the classroom and discovering more about their backgrounds and attitudes.

That speaks to her inherent curiosity, something that the Lancaster programme encouraged in her and which she still carries in her work today.

“I think one of the great things about my course was that it really encouraged curiosity, and it encouraged me to question some of the theory that was being presented to me,” says Charlotte, whose curiosity about the world has been sated in roles which have taken her to Tokyo to hire a marketing director and to the West Coast of the USA to build a team. “I really appreciated that.

“I think it gave me a curious, critical mindset. And how that's manifested, I suppose, is that I don't take things at face value necessarily in the workplace or even outside the workplace. I'm keen to interrogate data, interrogate sources, and present my own opinion, which again, is quite unusual from an educational standpoint, but something that I really valued about my course.”

She adds: “I think fortune really does favour the brave. Whether that's work experience, whether that's getting some extra learning or extra information on a topic that you're interested in, whether that's forging connections and building a network, I really think it's about being curious, asking questions, putting yourself out there, and really asking for forgiveness, not permission, and just going for it.”

Asked for the lessons she has picked up over her 20-year career to date, Charlotte has a simple message. “I'd say it really boils down to one thing. It's not my phrase, but ‘work hard and be nice to people’ is absolutely key.

“I think it's important to have a positive reputation because of who you are as a person. I think as a leader, it's really important to be somebody that is approachable, that's humble, that's energetic and inspirational. If I can boil it down to one thing, work hard and be nice to people is how I live my life.”