Alumni Spotlight: Becci Casas 19'
Casas '19 at the iHeartRadio Music Festival the year she graduated from Marist College. Photo courtesy of Becci Casas 19’.
Becci Casas ’19 is living her dream (job) in Los Angeles, working for iHeartRadio.
Throughout high school, Casas thought she wanted to be a therapist and knew she would study psychology. However, when an opportunity she could not pass up arose, Casas found a job that incorporated her love of music and entertainment.
“My senior year of high school, my sister-in-law, who is a celebrity publicist, had an event she got contracted for called Wango Tango, which is the local iHeart event in Los Angeles, and asked me to shadow it,” said Casas. “After that, I knew I wanted to be in this space. So then I went from wanting to be a therapist to majoring in communications at Marist.”
While still at Marist, Casas made a name for herself in the iHeart industry. During her college years, she worked directly with the company’s vice president of talent relations.
“She would have me help her with talent wrangling at Jingle Ball and in New York City. Then eventually, after proving myself, I was getting flown out to the Festival in Las Vegas and Wango Tango in L.A.,” said Casas.
Casas underscored that new opportunities and experiences, such as the one she was exposed to, will help students find what they truly want to do.
“This is why internships and conversations with people are so important,” said Casas. “I always encourage students to talk to as many people as they can. It helps you find out what is exciting to you and what is not.”
These were exciting times for Casas, being able to prove her skills and make a name for herself. But not every opportunity is the dream you may want it to be, as she experienced. Her first job after graduating was as a sales assistant for iHeart — and even though she did not want to work in sales, she took the job and let it pay off in the long run.
“I got to work with all the national sellers and see how partners work with iHeart and brands,” said Casas. “I got to be a fly on the wall in all of the internal meetings, working with the top executives.”
Today, Casas is doing what she loves after working her way up, with the ingredients of hard work and luck as part of her recipe for success. “I lead the digital marketing team, our entertainment pod. I lay all of the digital strategy of how entertainment, film and streaming studios can partner with us,” said Casas.
Casas credits confidence and humility as paving the path for her professional journey. But above all, mindset is what leads the way.
“No matter how intimidating the industry, the room you are in, the people you are around, you, first and foremost, need to believe in yourself before anyone else can believe in you,” said Casas.