comScore

As the use of data analytics continues to grow across industries and have an increasing influence on guiding business strategy, McIntire corporate partner comScore plays a fundamental role within the School as a trusted expert on the subject. The media measurement company’s educational and financial contributions provide critical access to real-world information, enlightening learning experiences, as well as internships and entry-level positions.

A global leader in the measurement of consumer behavior, comScore first identified McIntire as a potential partner in 2006, when the company was still a late-stage tech startup driven by a mission to help firms better understand digital audiences. “We were growing rapidly and needed to enhance our hiring and decided to build a campus recruiting program,” says Jake Ridgway, Senior Director, Talent Acquisition in the marketing research, digital analytics, and technology sectors.

“What we found at McIntire in those first years really surprised us. The School’s leaders were eager to build a relationship with us and to find inventive ways to explore opportunities where students, faculty, and comScore all benefited from working together,” he explains.

 “We see a commitment to analytics everywhere we look at McIntire, especially with the creation of the Center for Business Analytics,” says Ridgway. “Through the CBA and our work with CBA Director and Professor Ahmed Abbasi and his colleagues, we’ve gained additional visibility with McIntire students, provided data and insights for research topics being pursued by McIntire faculty, and given current comScore employees opportunities to share our insights with the academic community.”

Abbasi says that comScore’s support as a longstanding CBA member has allowed the center to “engage in cutting-edge big data projects, in both teaching and research,” on topics such as customer journey analytics. “At a world-class business school,” he notes, “such partnerships are essential as we constantly innovate in pedagogy and scholarship.”

The enduring partnership has been particularly rewarding in the classroom for McIntire Professor David Mick: “Our marketing research classes have welcomed guest presentations by comScore executives for over a decade now, and each time they wow the students with the use of their technology and data to solve complex marketing strategy problems. It’s been a huge win-win relationship between comScore and McIntire for a long time.”

Ridgway believes that comScore’s practical input offers students value and helps to better prepare them for their careers. In turn, the Commerce School has had a similar profound effect on the company. “We’ve seen recent McIntire hires make huge impacts here by driving business results and contributing to development of others in our organization. We’re honored to have the opportunity to support the next generation of innovators through our partnership and hope it provides a feedback loop to McIntire faculty about the many challenges and opportunities in an increasingly complex digital world.”

If you're interested in learning more about the range of corporate partnership opportunities available at McIntire, please reach out.