⚡️ Are you a marketer? Get the best jobs delivered to your inbox every Monday: https://www.columbusmarketingjobs.com

Dr. Kristina Medvedeva is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Otterbein University who spent nearly a decade as a marketing practitioner at companies like IKEA and Deutsche Post DHL before stepping into academia. In this episode, she and Andy dig into what's really changing in higher ed, why AI is both the great equalizer and the great trap for marketers, and how she's rebuilding her curriculum around critical thinking instead of prompt writing. If you're trying to figure out how to stay marketable, hire smarter, or make sense of what a marketing degree is actually worth in 2026, this conversation gives you a straight answer.

CONNECT WITH KRISTINA

🌐 Website: https://www.otterbein.edu/profiles/kristina-medvedeva/

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-s-medvedeva/

CONNECT WITH ANDY

🌐 Website: https://www.mmgdesign.net/

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmgdesign/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulmilligan/

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:36 - Six degrees, four languages, three countries

03:15 - Why she left the industry to teach

05:56 - Nine years teaching, fifteen years as a student

06:53 - What's actually changed in higher ed

13:02 - The real ROI question every student should ask

16:03 - Is US business education really the best in the world

20:17 - How she keeps her curriculum from going stale

23:43 - What makes a marketing student marketable

28:27 - Why every marketer has to be AI literate

32:37 - The advantage, and disadvantage, of AI: everybody can use it

36:28 - Why she still grades you, not the AI

42:33 - The wrong way to pick a career based on AI

45:09 - Her honest advice for anyone considering college

TEAM

🎙 Host // Andy Milligan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmgdesign/

🎥 Production // MMG Design: https://www.mmgdesign.net/

🤝 Powered by // AMA Columbus: https://amacolumbus.org