Benjamin Cohen

Moody taught me the importance of teamwork and effective communication, both of which are skills I use every day in my role. Much of my work involves interacting with colleagues on different teams, so understanding how to work with a team mindset is extremely important. Similarly, succinct, and effective communication is vital, especially when people’s time is limited. I continue to refine my ability to effectively communicate while ensuring I’m direct to the point and intentional with what I’m trying to convey.  

What I love most about my role is that I am empowered to work on a wide variety of projects for my company, a global financial services group. As a member of Macquarie’s Corporate Affairs team, my role focuses on sharing the story of how Macquarie is empowering people to innovate and invest for a better future through media relations and external communications across the Americas region (U.S., Canada, and Latin America). This encompasses coordinating media interviews between reporters and Macquarie executives, working on strategic messaging for Macquarie’s businesses and helping to elevate and protect the Macquarie brand.  

At the same time, my work often has crossover with social media, internal communications, marketing and government affairs, enabling me to collaborate with a range of colleagues across Macquarie and lend a hand on various tasks including drafting social media posts, helping to coordinate video shoots, and supporting internal communications.  I also love that as a global organization, Macquarie provides the opportunity to interact with colleagues around the world. On a weekly basis, I engage with counterparts in locations including London, Sydney and Singapore.  

It’s hard to name just one, so here’s two! Last year I was proud to work closely on planning a media event that featured our CEO sharing her views and experiences of women in finance. I also led the communications for Macquarie’s long-standing charity fundraising event hosted in Calgary. Attending the fundraiser was a rewarding experience as I saw first-hand the importance and impact the fundraising event had for the Calgary community.  

I always knew that I wanted to work in the communications field in New York City, but the path to studying CMS was not always clear for me. I started at Moody as a Public Relations major and switched to Journalism before ultimately landing at CMS. While PR and Journalism courses both provided excellent background for my current role, studying CMS was the best fit because it was broad enough to offer so many options but still narrow enough to keep me within the communications industry. The courses CMS offered focused on the fundamentals of communications, which were important for me to grasp as I pursued a career in the industry.   

Were you in any student orgs?  

Communication Council, The Daily Texan, Texas Student Television, Moody College Dean's Ambassador