Executive MBA Alumni Profile Andrea van den Haak, ’21
Andrea van den Haak, ’21, shares how an EMBA from Chicago Booth helped her pivot from engineering to a more business-focused role.
- By
- June 29, 2023
- Executive MBA Blog
With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, Andrea van den Haak, ’21, spent the first part of her career in technical roles—working on well engineering and operations for Shell and on search and technical infrastructure for Google.
When she decided to pivot to a more business-focused role, she knew she needed an MBA. “I chose to study at Chicago Booth because it has a diverse global cohort who I was able to connect with and leverage their expertise in working in internationalizing products and services in my industry,” says van den Haak, who commuted to the Chicago campus for classes. Van den Haak lives in Austin and landed a role as senior product manager – technical at Amazon Web Services after earning her MBA.
“The ROI that I received from the Chicago Booth EMBA was the network,” she says. “There is no problem that I can’t solve with the Chicago Booth alumni network, personal or business.”
The ROI that I received from the Chicago Booth EMBA was the network. There is no problem that I can’t solve with the Chicago Booth alumni network, personal or business.
An EMBA program was right for me at this point in my life because I’m deeply technical. I had a lot of technical expertise in engineering, and I wanted to pivot into more of a business-focused role. I chose to study at Chicago Booth because it’s centrally located, close to a lot of the customers that I already work with, and also has a diverse global cohort who I was able to connect with and leverage their expertise in working in internationalizing products and services in my industry.
I really loved being able to network with them and being able to understand their business and the challenges that they faced while offering my unique perspective on doing business here in North America.
My personal ROI on the Executive MBA experience here at Chicago Booth is the massive amount of support that I get from the alumni network. I don’t think I fully appreciated how valuable it would be until I finished the program.