This is the 120th article in Bears Doing Big Things, a weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni.
“If you have an idea, or something that you want to build or something you want to do, just do it. You don’t have to wait for anything,” Camille Zats ’20 said. Zats is a Functional Cloud Analyst at Oracle, where she assists clients with their incorporation of Oracle cloud solutions, adjusting software to fit their needs.
Zats grew up in Menlo Park, attending Stratford School before going to La Entrada Middle School. “Both of my parents immigrated here from Russia, so Menlo Park was the first home they built themselves,” she said.
At M-A, Zats was a cheerleader for two years. “For cheer, I thought it was really fun to get support at student activities, pep rallies, and games,” she said. “I’m not really into sports myself, but it was cool to be a part of it and see the school spirit. I feel like M-A always had very good school spirit, and that was something I definitely enjoyed being a part of.”
Outside of school, Zats was involved in the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO), a youth-led Jewish nonprofit. “We were planning a lot of different events and things, so ultimately I was putting a lot more time into [BBYO], and that’s what I picked over cheer,” she said. “I held a variety of leadership roles such as running community service for my chapter where we did events such as cooking and delivering meals to isolated seniors.”
“Eventually, [I] worked my way up to VP of communications for the entire Bay Area region of the organization, where I oversaw the marketing and communication for all of the chapters in the region and took part in planning and leading large 300+ attendee overnight leadership conferences with educational programming and fun social events,” Zats added.
Zats also played a role in multiple clubs at M-A, including the Pencils of Promise club. “We had fundraising events to raise money to build schools in underdeveloped countries,” she said. “It was very cool to come together and work towards a common goal of helping somebody other than yourself.”
Zats particularly enjoyed her AP Statistics class with Ron Weiss. “I really enjoyed it because it was a lot of showing the way data is represented can change how things are viewed,” she said. “It solidified that I wanted to go into business.”
“I love working with people, and I feel like business, as a field in general, is a very people-first area,” Zats added.
After graduating from M-A, Zats took a gap year before college to intern for Opus United, a startup marketing agency. There, she conducted and presented market research to enhance marketing strategy while improving client file software.
“That was a cool experience that reaffirmed I want to do business,” she said. “I decided to take a gap year because unfortunately, when I graduated it was at the height of COVID and I had chosen to go to school across the country. I ultimately didn’t want to choose my safety over social interactions and relationships with students and faculty that I felt were an integral part of a college experience and so I decided to take a gap year to work before attending Emory.”
Following her internship, Zats attended Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “I committed without ever having seen the school,” she said. “I think it was a good leap of faith in the sense that I [ended up] really liking the school, because it was really diverse in the same way that M-A was, and that’s something I really valued in a university.”
“At M-A, there are a lot of people who come from different backgrounds, and at Emory, I met people who came from a ton of money, people who were there on a full ride that was need-based, people who were from different countries, or people who had different interests. I really appreciated that experience,” Zats added
At Emory, Zats majored in business with a focus on marketing and information systems. “I’ve always been interested in tech, obviously, growing up in the Bay Area. But also, I was interested in the marketing side of things,” she said. “I really enjoyed the opportunity to explore a lot of interests and get all of that exposure.”
During the summer after Zats’ sophomore year at Emory, she interned at Roche Diagnostics, a global healthcare company that provides medical tests and solutions to help prevent, monitor, and diagnose diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Zats was part of a team that worked with executives, focusing on long-term sales and managing large accounts. “I was like, ‘I like the business side of things. I don’t really want to be in sales, and I don’t know if I want to be in biotech,’” she said.
In her junior year, Zats studied abroad at the American Business School of Paris. “I was on the fence about it, it wasn’t something I had my heart set on. I literally applied because my friend said, ‘Please come to Paris with me.’ Two hours before the deadline, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll go,’” she said. “[It was] a great opportunity to see other cultures, other countries, and get an experience that you wouldn’t get in any other situation. I think all of that gave me more perspective and more knowledge in seeing more than what I grew up with.”
The following summer, Zats interned at Newell Brands, a global consumer goods company that owns many commonly known brands such as Sharpie and Paper Mate. She worked with the Sharpie team on brand management and marketing. “Some of the work involved was helping with the back-to-school campaign, which is like their Super Bowl, and helping with other stuff relating to some of their online retailers, and that was really cool,” she said.
“It was probably my favorite internship, to be honest. It was really fun, because you grow up seeing all that stuff and using it, and then you get to see where the magic happens. I really did love it, I just wanted to get some experience with tech because I knew that ultimately, I did want to work in tech,” Zats said.
After getting her degree, Zats secured a job at Oracle, a technology company that specializes in database software, cloud applications, and infrastructure. Zats currently serves as a cloud analyst for Oracle, aiding companies in their implementation of software. “It’s a consulting role, which was an interest I had in college. Instead of working on one thing, you’re put on different projects with different companies and clients. So I thought that would be a really good opportunity to get exposure with a lot of different industries,” she said.
As a part of her role, Zats meets with clients and her team, creates numerous presentations for her meetings, and works on software to configure it to her client’s personal needs. “For my most recent client, I was traveling to the site. I was driving there every day for two weeks to engage with them in person, which is a cool experience, and then a little bit on the software side, configuring stuff,” she said. “I haven’t gotten there in my project yet, so I haven’t had experience with that part yet, but I’m definitely looking forward to experiencing that, because it’ll be very new.”
“I enjoy the opportunity to engage with a variety of different projects and clients both virtually and in person. I’ve gotten a unique perspective of how other companies and organizations run and how technology and specifically the cloud can play a huge role in increasing efficiency. Oracle is a global company and so having colleagues all over the world is another great experience I am grateful to have,” Zats said. “I’m in a cohort program which has been great to engage with other people my age as we go through the transition into post grad life together.”
Zats’ advice to current M-A students: “Focus on the things that you’re interested in and the people that support you. Don’t do things because everyone else is doing them. At the end of the day, you’re the one who’s going to be living that life for the rest of your life.”
To those interested in business: “Networking, and it can start very early, but essentially the best thing you can possibly do is reach out on LinkedIn and just ask someone, ‘Hey, what you do sounds really cool, can I chat with you for 15 minutes about it?’ By talking to people about their jobs, you can get an understanding of, is that for me, or that actually sounds really boring, and it could save you a lot of time.”
