From Tuck Bridge to Consulting and Marketing: Meet Emily Clark Bridge’20 and Robert Gonzalez Bridge’19

From analyzing data at Cadent Consulting Group to contributing to marketing strategies at CVS Health, two Tuck Bridge alumni reflect on how the program prepared them for successful careers in consulting and marketing. 

Emily Clark Bridge’20

Manager, Business Analytics, Cadent Consulting Group 

What first sparked your interest in consulting, and how did the Tuck Bridge program help you explore or confirm that path? 

With a major in Applied Mathematics, I’ve always gravitated toward analytical and quantitative problem-solving. At the same time, I’ve found energy in collaboration and communication, two skills that come alive when working on teams. Consulting appealed to me as a space where I could combine these strengths while gaining exposure to a range of industries. As a student at a liberal arts school with little formal business coursework, I turned to the Tuck Business Bridge Program before my junior year to test this interest. Bridge confirmed my curiosity about business and my excitement for the dynamic, fast-paced world of consulting. 

What does a typical week look like in your role as a consultant, and what skills do you rely on most? 

No two weeks are the same, which is one of the aspects I enjoy most. Typically, I’m staffed on multiple projects at once, so time management and flexibility are key. Much of my work involves understanding new datasets—identifying meaningful metrics, extracting trends, and turning those into insights our clients can act on. Beyond analytical work, I rely heavily on communication and storytelling skills to present the data in a compelling and digestible way. The role constantly challenges both the left and right sides of my brain. 

What’s one thing you wish you knew about consulting when you were in college? 

I wish I had understood just how broad “consulting” really is. It’s not a one-size-fits-all role. Consultants work across industries, functions, and client needs. Once you know you’re interested in the field, it’s worth digging deeper: What industries excite you? Do you prefer strategy or operations? There’s a lot to explore, and each path offers different challenges and learning curves. Regardless of the niche, consulting is an incredible foundation for personal and professional growth. 

How did Bridge help prepare you for the fast-paced, team-oriented environment of consulting? 

Bridge brought the intensity and structure of real-world business into a team setting that mirrored what I’d later experience in consulting. While I was used to group work from my math courses at Colgate, Bridge elevated that to a new level with late nights, tight deadlines, and diverse team dynamics. It gave me a tangible sense of what business roles look and feel like. Even today, five years later, I still stay in touch with some of my Bridge teammates. For liberal arts students especially, it’s an invaluable launchpad. 

Robert Gonzalez Bridge’19

Digital Strategy Manager at CVS Health  

What first sparked your interest in marketing, and how did the Tuck Bridge program help you explore or confirm that path?

Tuck Bridge was instrumental in sparking my interest in marketing and defining my career path. I approached undergrad with the hopes of eventually attending law school and becoming a lawyer, but it wasn’t until my junior year of college that I started to have second thoughts about that line of work. I questioned what I wanted to do for a living, so going into Bridge, I kept an open mind about the career paths available to me. Marketing was not top of mind originally, but it only took one seminar for me to realize, “This is what I want to do.” It’s fair to say that I misunderstood what marketing was before attending Bridge, and the program showed me the valuable business impact strong marketing efforts can have. I had an amazing professor, Gail Ayala Taylor, who took a genuine interest in me and my career, and we’re still in contact to this day. It is because of Bridge that I became a marketer, and I am forever grateful to the program for that. 

What does a typical week look like in your role, and what skills do you rely on most? 

I recently transitioned from an analyst role into a manager role at CVS Health, so I am still getting up to speed on the day-to-day of the manager position. In the analyst role, I worked on the ExtraCare loyalty program, focusing on acquisition marketing—that is, efforts aimed at getting more customers to enroll in our loyalty program. While the average day or week could vary greatly depending on what campaigns are live or upcoming, my work was focused mostly on data analytics, marketing strategy, and creative development. At the highest level, I would dig into enrollment and campaign performance trends, use those insights to inform new or ongoing marketing strategies, and help bring those strategies to market with the help of my cross-functional partners. And then the cycle starts again as I have fresh data and insights from the new and/or optimized campaigns to work with. It’s hard to say exactly what has changed in the day-to-day of my new manager role yet, but I can already tell that there are higher expectations from a marketing strategy perspective, and this role will be focused on the larger CVS business, as opposed to focusing on just the loyalty program. 

What’s one thing you wish you knew about marketing when you were in college? 

I wish I knew that marketing was so much more than just advertising and creative arts. I had this idea when I was younger that marketing=advertisements, and I hated commercials growing up! I used to believe that succeeding in marketing required being an artsy, highly creative person who constantly generated original ideas—and I never saw myself that way. While those roles certainly do exist, I now know that marketing is so much more than just ads and creativity. In fact, I’ve never worked on an ad in my whole career! There are so many positions and careers available within a marketing department that I was not aware existed when I was in college, but I am happy to have attended Bridge and discovered what marketing really is. 

Looking back, what part of Bridge best prepared you for success in marketing? 

Tuck Bridge did an excellent job preparing me for a career in marketing, and I still rely on the knowledge I gained there every day. Specifically, what prepared me most for my career was learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Bridge pushed me out of my comfort zone in a way that was necessary for my long-term development, whether that was through networking, listening to seminars on complex subject matter, or speaking in front of a room of strangers. None of this was easy at the time, but looking back, I’m grateful I pushed through it because it helped me grow into a more mature, experienced person.