Natalie De Zylva Assistant Marketing Manager of Highpoint Shopping Centre

Natalie De Zylva, 26 years old, is the Assistant Marketing Manager of Highpoint Shopping Centre.

Natalie started her professional career in retail while completing her VCE studies working casually in a small pharmacy. Soon after, Natalie moved across to a larger Terry White Chemist in a local shopping centre.

"Retail was a great start in establishing my career. It allowed me to start small, where I could gain confidence in speaking to customers and deal with product queries. It taught me the beginnings of plan-o-graming, product category adjacencies, add-on selling and working in a team. Not to mention learning how to balance life with work and managing money," says Natalie.

Choosing to study marketing at university, Natalie enjoyed the fact that this line of work has so many different jobs under the main marketing umbrella - an industry that is flexible, fast paced and constantly changing. It also requires imagination and making those ideas a reality.

Consequently, Natalie decided to combine her invaluable experience in retail and her graduate studies in marketing to pursue a career in retail marketing.

Natalie's first professional post was as the Assistant Marketing Manager at Dandenong shopping centre where she worked for seven and a half months before being promoted to another, much larger GPT shopping centre, Highpoint.

Here, Natalie works under the dynamic marketing manager, Merline McGregor, "that's the great thing about working under the GPT umbrella, is that you get to move around internally and work in different environments and experience those cultural differences, not to mention meeting and dealing with different managers and learning from their specific managerial processes".

Working in marketing has presented Natalie with some fantastic opportunities, but she credits the easy transition to the groundwork and foundations laid by her early years in retail.

Natalie says:"Retail taught me the beginnings of store layout, retail mix within a shopping centre, dealing with customers/suppliers, working productively with others, organisation skills and the mechanics behind promotions."

One of the greatest and most satisfying parts of her marketing job is seeing a campaign through from start to finish and being able to see the fruits of lots of hard work; customers enjoying their shopping experience and retailers growing their sales.

Working with advertising and PR agencies to develop creative, and seeing the final printed pieces is also one of the best and most rewarding aspects of her work - not to mention the fabulous shopping and grabbing some great bargains, being invited to product launches and working with some inspiring and fantastic people - both internal and external stakeholders.

As an Assistant Marketing Manager Natalie's next career goal is to step up into the Marketing Manager role.

Retail positions are now available at retail stores located within GPT shopping centres. To find your opportunity to gain invaluable experiences in retail, log on to www.gpt.com.au and click on 'related sites' to find your local shopping centre and the careers available.