AboutOur PeopleMatthew Friedman
Headshot of Matthew Friedman
Fellow, Class of 2024

Matthew Friedman

Business analytics, data science, marketing
Chappaqua, New York

Matt is a student in the Wharton School, with an interest in business analytics, data science and marketing. He was inspired to be a fellow through the SNF Paideia designated course Grit Lab and looks forward to engaging in a holistic education through the Program. He is interested in applying his marketing and data analytics coursework to combat manipulative marketing. He hopes to focus his fellowship on the prevention of harmful marketing campaigns that rely on misinformation, unsolicited data collection, and suppression of marginalized voices. Matt is curious to learn more about the exchange of information between consumers and large firms. Specifically, he is concerned with manipulative marketing strategies in the pharmaceutical industry designed to convert patients into consumers.

During summer 2021, Matt worked as a Marketing and Product Strategy Intern for a startup company, an experience providing him with an in-depth immersive experience of building a brand from the ground up. “Understanding the company side of this dilemma, particularly at a Direct-to-Consumer firm, has granted me a meaningful perspective for my research.”

Although Wharton’s curriculum has some elements that grant students with cross-cultural perspectives, I wanted to dive deeper into the four pillars of the SNF Paideia Program that my existing coursework just couldn’t support.

Matt is a member of the Wharton Alliance, where he works with corporate sponsors to hold events specifically for the LGBTQ+ community around professional development and networking. These panels and events help uplift the queer community at Penn and makes sure LGBTQ+ perspectives are included from the professional and recruiting process.  He is also involved in 180 Degrees Consulting, a consulting club on campus. His most recent project was working with Twitter as a client, predicting and analyzing why specific Tweets go viral. During the summer of 2022, Matt is working as a marketing and strategy intern at L’Oreal. “With this internship, I’ll be able to get first-hand exposure to how large, direct-to-consumer firms make decisions about their marketing campaigns. I’ll learn best practices on how to make them positive rather than manipulative, and hopefully I can carry this knowledge to future experiences.”