Chicago Business Fellows: Future in Focus

Why Chicago Business Fellows? Why was getting an MBA earlier in your career important to you?

Manjul: “Experience at work is pivotal to seeing the bigger picture. The Chicago Booth Fellows Program allowed me to attend a top-notch MBA program without giving up the valuable work experience I am receiving at work. The CBF program helped me befriend and learn from other brilliant early career students who are doing amazing work at various corporations. Talking to them, and being in the LEAD seminar with them, gave a glimpse of what different careers look like. For some students, that is enough to start thinking about professions you never knew you’d be interested in.”

Andres: “After two or three years of working, it can be easy to get comfortable and continue climbing up the corporate ladder. What the Chicago Business Fellows Program offers is a critical pivot point in your early career that allows you to find the first job that will one day lead to your dream job.” I loved talking to students in the program prior to joining who had amazing goals of starting their own company or moving to private equity, consulting, or tech. It was easy to tell that the connections and knowledge they were building were catapults towards their future success. What’s more amazing is that the part-time program allows you to make this pivot while still in school. I’ve seen a large percentage of my Chicago Business Fellows family (that’s what we call each other), including myself, already find those new careers, just halfway through the program. The value of the Booth MBA is exponential and you see the impact it has on your personal and professional life each year.”

Kaley: “CBF provided me with deep friendships and relationships through the professional development sessions and programming where we could learn and grow our skills. This, followed by other CBF events and Booth (as a whole), helped me get promoted twice while in the program and make a career shift at the end of my time at Booth. Chicago Business Fellows provided me with some of my best friends at Booth along with making me a better leader and problem-solver.”

Anthony: “The CBF program appealed to me because I knew there would be great opportunities to interact and grow with others in the infancy of their careers, like myself. I was interested in getting an MBA early in my career for two main reasons: first, I sought the challenge of business school in these formative years before getting entrenched in a given field or role; and second, to signal to employers my willingness and ability to handle many responsibilities at once.”

What are your career aspirations and how will an MBA from Booth help you achieve them?

Manjul: “I want to ensure that every project and every entrepreneur who deserves funding receives the capital they need, no matter their background or place of origin. So, I aspire to continue in the path of becoming a sophisticated financier and play a role in fostering innovation around the world. I am originally from Nepal and I am eager to make capital accessible to companies in developing countries like Nepal that don’t have an established capital market. An MBA from Booth allowed me to take classes like International Corporate Finance with Professor Raghuram Rajan and Emerging Markets Finance and Entrepreneurship with Professor Emanuele Colonnelli, which taught how deals in foreign markets can be structured to make it attractive for all parties involved. Those classes also provided the opportunity to hear from high profile guest lecturers from the World Bank and other international organizations.”

Andres: “While I thought it would be Booth’s world-renowned financial courses that would make me a successful analytical tech investor, it was the human-centric strategic innovation, marketing, and entrepreneurship courses that shifted my career goals towards a career in product management. During my Digital Marketing Lab class, where my team and I consulted as a digital marketer for a tech company in the Bay Area, I had the opportunity to learn and use HubSpot as a CRM. In class, we even had a HubSpot marketer provide training. This same connection and experience led me to find a job as a product manager at HubSpot, only half way through my MBA program. As I continue to grow as a product and entrepreneurial leader, Booth’s New Venture Challenge accelerator gave me the opportunity to co-found a company and learn from household names such as Grubhub, Braintree/Venmo, and Simple Mills. While we shut down the company, the tools and friendships I gained along the way helped me become a better product manager and will help me as I pursue entrepreneurship later in life.”

How have you used the flexible curriculum to maximize your time at Booth and get what you needed out of your MBA? What’s a specific example?

Kaley: “I used the flexible curriculum to graduate with four concentrations...and dive deeper into subjects, decision making models, theories, etc. that I hadn’t gotten as much access to before. I was also able to take a summer off and do a few quarters where I only took one class because of a more demanding work schedule. This allowed me to balance all aspects of my life to get the most out of my MBA.”

Anthony: “The flexible curriculum at Booth has helped me narrow my career focus, which was unclear when I began. Because there are no hard requirements on concentrations at Booth, I could enroll in the courses that seemed the most interesting. Early on, I was able to discover the areas I enjoyed and excelled in.”

How has Booth helped you develop as a leader? What aspects have you found especially useful in being an effective leader in the world today?

Manjul: “In a world that emphasizes fitting in, Booth teaches you how to stand out. In a workplace that is getting increasingly diverse and dynamic, it is important for leaders to be aware of the power of situation and use it to foster creativity by removing barriers. The LEAD course at Booth is designed to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses as a leader so you can actively work on becoming an effective leader.”

Anthony: “My experiences at Booth have given me confidence in my ability to lead. The interactive lectures and team settings have allowed me to practice communicating my ideas effectively. I have drawn on these experiences in a work setting when interacting with members of our software development team and product management. Thanks in part to these skills, I have earned greater responsibility within my current role. Being a part of the Booth community has exposed me to intelligent people from many different disciplines, which has helped me be more dynamic in professional and social settings.”

How have you felt supported by the Booth community?

Andres: “The Booth network is incredibly powerful in the classroom, but also outside with alumni and professors alike. As I transitioned to a career in product management, it was Anita Brick, one of our career coaches, who prepared, connected, and guided me. When I started a company, it was professors like Mark Tebbe and Lindsey Lyman who pushed me, listened to me, and advised me. I’ve gotten to serve as a student leader in various organizations and help both nonprofit and for-profit organizations scale their businesses through Polsky’s Small Business Growth Program and Booth’s Social Impact programs. Finally, I’ve celebrated promotions, weddings, and baby showers with the most driven and incredible people in the world. People who I know will change the world as corporate CEOs, government leaders, and founders.”

Kaley: “I felt supported by the Booth community everyday through my classmates, especially my female classmates. Everyone was so supportive and encouraging of each other whether at club events, in the classroom, and both personally and professionally. Some of my best friends are my fellow Booth alumni. In addition, Career Services (especially Anita Brick) was extremely impactful in helping me navigate the world of networking, interviewing, and landing my new role. Anita was helpful, inspirational, and always available when I needed her. Lastly, the Booth alumni network is one of the best of any school in the world. When I was networking and trying to learn as much as I could while looking for new roles, almost every single Booth alumnus I reached out to was willing to connect with me for 30 minutes, even if they had never met me before. I really felt the impact of the Booth community during this time.”