Mousa Ackall, alum of the One Year MBA program at the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics, is now the Director of Marketing at Knotel at their headquarters in New York City, New York. Knotel is an office space platform that designs, builds, and operates branded spaces for established and growing brands, so they can be free to grow their businesses at will and build through Knotel's Agile HQ™ Platform.

"I'm incredibly excited to be joining one of NYC's hottest and fastest-growing companies, Knotel, which creates agile HQs that liberate companies to innovate and scale," says Mousa. "I'll be tasked with leading our content and communications efforts which ultimately consists of generating compelling content and press that drive company awareness, boost customer engagement and ultimately empower our sales teams." 

After graduating with his MBA from the University of Kentucky in 2011, Mousa has held several leadership positions in marketing including Digital Marketing Manager at GlowTouch Technologies, Director of Lead Generation and Content Marketing at OpTier and Vice President, Brand Marketing at WorkMarket, an ADP company. While at WorkMarket, for nearly 5 years, Mousa was instrumental in building a robust market leadership platform that played a key role in the company's acquisition by ADP in January 2018. 

Mousa says, "My UK MBA has armed me with working knowledge of key business functions such as supply chain management, financial operations and new product development, just to name a few. This gave me a well-rounded foundation needed to succeed in today's dynamic business environment." 

After graduating from Transylvania University ("Transy") in 2007 with his Bachelors in Marketing, Mousa worked in industry for a few years and then decided to pursue Gatton's full-time One Year MBA. This program is designed for young professionals and recent graduates who typically bring in limited work experience. Candidates in this program are immersed in a cross-disciplinary curriculum designed for all academic majors and backgrounds. Earlier this year, Transylvania and the UK MBA formed a pathway program partnership in an effort to recruit more quality Transy candidates into the UK MBA. Read more here.

"Some of the most important skills I learned in the UK MBA that I continuously deploy in the course of my day-to-day professional activities include public speaking, critical thinking and cross-functional collaboration." 

Mousa also participated in the unique, built-in internship experience in the One Year MBA called Project Connect. In Project Connect, teams are paired with companies to work on projects of importance to their corporation or organization. For Mousa, he and his team were paired with Lexmark International. Headquartered in Lexington, KY, Lexmark creates innovative imaging solutions and technologies that help customers worldwide print, secure and manage information. 

With his MBA at the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics, Mousa continues to advance and lead in the field of tech marketing with valuable experiences in lead generation, content marketing and strategic communications. He's worked with start-ups and Fortune 100s and specialize in B2B verticals such as healthcare, financial services, telecommunications and enterprise software.

Regarding advice that he would offer today's candidates interested in an MBA, Mousa says, "Today's job market has becoming fiercely competitive. I would advise students and working professionals to consider pursuing an MBA because it helps differentiate them from other job applicants. More importantly, an MBA gives them a multi-disciplinary foundation that allows them to build a diverse skill set and accelerate their professional development."

Knotel designs, builds, and operates branded spaces for established and growing brands, so they can be free to grow their businesses at will and build what’s never been built. Named a Business Insider Top 50 Startup and New York's Hottest New Workspace Model, Knotel has over 80 locations across approximately 1.5 million square feet in New York, San Francisco, London, and Berlin. Founded in 2016, Knotel has raised $100 million in funding and their member network includes companies like Starbucks, Cheddar and King.