From the Ground Up

PROVO, Utah – Jan 13, 2021 – Within of a year of graduating from the BYU Marriott School of Business, Luisa Chil helped build a company from the ground up. Now working at a digital marketing agency in Chicago, Chil uses her past growth experiences and lessons she has learned to help her succeed in her career and give back to her community.

After graduating from BYU Marriott in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, Chil dreamed of working for a nonprofit. However, she instead came across a unique opportunity to do marketing work for a small esthetic supply company called LashBomb. After accepting the job, she soon learned that she would be undertaking a much larger task than she had anticipated.

“When I started working at LashBomb, the company had only four employees, including the owner. She told me to simply ‘run the business.’ I remember my first day at work, I showed up with my laptop, sat down, and just started to write out a business plan,” she says. “I basically started from nothing, and I was there for two years building the company.”

Though the job certainly had its challenges, helping to run a business in her first job out of college helped start Chil on her journey toward becoming the professional she is today. “My time at LashBomb was a great learning experience for me,” she says. “I learned a lot of the ins and outs of what it takes to run a business and now better understand how people work. I am grateful for the experiences that I had there.”

Learning how to run a business isn’t the only experience that’s pushed Chil to grow personally and professionally. While studying at BYU Marriott, Chil decided to get in touch with her Peruvian heritage through a study abroad program in Peru, where her extended family currently resides. While there, she took marketing classes in Spanish at ESAN University in Lima, Peru.

“I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of presenting a full marketing plan in Spanish in my international marketing class at ESAN University,” she says. “My time in Peru helped me to feel confident that I could do hard things. Studying abroad stretched me to my limits but was rewarding at the same time.”

Her experiences of growth at BYU Marriott and at LashBomb taught Chil the value of perseverance, which she continues to apply in her career today. After leaving LashBomb, Chil worked as a marketing coordinator at Speck Design and McGraw-Hill before arriving at her current position at Kepler, a digital marketing company in Chicago. During her first six months at Kepler, Chil entered a new realm of digital marketing that she was not familiar with. Drawing upon past experiences, and knowing she had done new things before, Chil was able to overcome a learning curve.

Through Kepler and other companies she has worked for, Chil has been able to pursue her main passion of giving back. When she worked at McGraw-Hill in Chicago, Chil had the opportunity to work in the company's philanthropy division, called Red Cube Cares, where she helped plan events and workshops for nonprofits in her area. At Kepler, Chil has worked on various donation drives to help those impacted by COVID-19.

In addition to these projects, Chil is currently working on an initiative through Kepler to help with the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. The project is targeted toward helping students from underrepresented communities across the country learn digital marketing and gain hard skills to help boost their career preparedness for the digital marketing industry. “I've been lucky with the opportunities I’ve had to give back to my community on top of my regular work,” she says.

By persevering through the obstacles in her career, Chil has received chances to give back and serve others. “I've been trying to always be a good person. I care a lot about the message of service that is so prevalent at BYU and BYU Marriott,” she says. “That message is the reason why I decided to go to BYU in the first place, and that’s something that I'm really driven by. Wherever I may be, I always try to also do something extra to give back.”