Paula Cuerquis, KLN ‘18, recently won first place in the Philly Ad Club scholarship competition. Each year, Philadelphia colleges and universities nominate students for the award and this is the second year in a row a Klein College student earned first place.
Cuerquis was required to submit a nomination form before proceeding to a conversation with four judges. Local professionals taking part in judging included Alan Tempest, owner of Tempest Communications, Stephen Facenda, owner and operator of Philadelphia’s Viamark office, Elizabeth Howarth, manager at Aloysius Butler & Clark, and Christina Katsapis, an independent marketing and communication consultant, from the Philly Ad Club. While meeting with them, Cuerquis discussed her accomplishments and aspirations.
Her efforts paid off with a $10,000 scholarship.
“I’m really grateful,” Cuerquis said. “I think awards like these are really beneficial to students, obviously financially, but it’s a great motivator to know that whatever I’m doing now is helping me pursue careers in the future.”
Cuerquis was one of the lead account managers for the Klein College advertising team that recently placed second in the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC). She discussed her role in that project with the judges, as well as some of her work from data analytics classes and her projects from her position as the director of marketing for Temple’s Main Campus Program Board.
“Paula reminds me of the key players, the vital teammates, that I wanted to work with during my time in the agency world,” said Professor Joe Glennon. “She was a critical part of the NSAC team and her fingerprints were on most parts of the wildly successful work.”
“I wanted to show them that although I work more on the business and strategy side of advertising, that I think having the skills for content creation is really important,” Cuerquis said. “I talked about my previous internship experiences with Flackable and Digitas Health and how I wanted to pursue a career in Philadelphia and my love for the community.”
Cuerquis received a call from one of the judges a few days after her interview with the news that she had won.
“Paula would be wildly successful in anything she pursued. For our department, for our industry, I am thrilled she is starting with advertising,” Glennon said. “I don’t think that’s where she will stop. Part of why I think it’s important to study and practice advertising is that today we may be solving problems for brands. Those same creative muscles can be used to solve societal problems tomorrow.”