Federica Roo
Federica, our April Student of the Month, chose marketing because it offered the perfect balance between creativity and analytics. For her, marketing represents the intersection of strategic thinking and imaginative problem-solving. Rather than choosing between spreadsheets and creative briefs, she was drawn to a major that allows her to do both, dig into data to uncover insights while developing unconventional, impactful ideas that bring brands to life.
A defining academic experience for Federica has been the MKTG 495A: PRIME Practicum, Smeal’s immersive client-agency course. Structured to mirror a real-world brand partnership, the class assigns students to either the brand or agency side to tackle a live marketing challenge. During her semester, the team worked on a new product launch for CeraVe Sunscreen, collaborating directly with brand managers at L'Oréal. Weekly calls with industry professionals transformed marketing from theory into practice. Rather than analyzing case studies from years past, she helped build a campaign for a product actively entering the market. The experience was so impactful that she later returned to serve as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for the course. Federica is pursuing a Marketing emphasis in Brand Management and Client Strategy, further aligning her academic focus with her professional ambitions.
Born and raised in Venezuela, Federica brings a global perspective to her work. As a Schreyer Honors College Scholar, her honors thesis explores her family’s logistics business, where she coded and cleaned data from more than two million customers, an academically rigorous and deeply personal project. Beyond the classroom, through freelance work managing creator operations on TikTok Shop, she helped scale the board game brand Spite House Games to the #1 position on TikTok Shop, generating approximately $300,000 per month in sales and more than 500 million impressions.
After graduation, Federica will move to New York City to join TikTok as an Account Manager for TikTok Shop, an opportunity that grew out of her summer internship in Seattle. In the short term, she is eager to deepen her expertise in e-commerce at scale. Long term, she aspires to build something of her own, embracing an entrepreneurial path shaped by years of hands-on marketing and business experience.
Leadership has been central to Federica’s Penn State journey. She served as President of Penn State PRIME, leading a 100+ member student-run marketing agency and its eight-person executive board. She has also held leadership roles as Logistics & Faculty/Alumni Outreach Chair for the Penn State American Marketing Association, Marketing Department Student Ambassador, Smeal Student Advisory Council member, and Vice President of the Venezuelan Student Organization, where she helped raise more than $3,000 to support children in Venezuela.
Her professional experience includes serving as an E-Commerce Intern at TikTok, a Marketing Co-Op at Kenvue (formerly Johnson & Johnson), a freelance TikTok Shop Affiliate Manager with Mas Multi-Media, and a Social Media Intern for the Smeal Marketing Department. She has also earned both second- and third-place finishes in the Business with Integrity Case Competition.
When asked what advice she would give to new students entering Smeal or the Marketing Department, Federica emphasized exploration and initiative:
“Try everything you have time for. You’re not going to know what you want to do in marketing until you’ve tried different things and figured out what clicks. I didn’t know I’d end up in e-commerce or TikTok Shop when I started. I got there because I said yes to things that seemed interesting, even when I wasn’t sure where they’d lead. Smeal gives you the tools and the people. Your job is to show up and use them.”