Month: May 2016

George Gichimu, MBA Class of 2014 & MSA Class of 2015

My experience at UMB will remain forever etched in my heart. A premier institution within Boston which  offered me life changing skills. I admired the ability to  earn dual degree (MBA & MSA) while working because of UMass Boston flexibility and affordability.

Course  projects were good challenges that helped me to sharpen my research, writing, and presentation skills which are all important in my current role. I’m using skills such as Lean Management and Six Sigma in my daily life and sametime has applied them within my team and we have noticed  value add for our customers.

Besides work experience the credentials from a respected university was instrumental in getting my current opportunity at John Hancock Funds.

 

Vishwa Shroff, MBA Class of 2012

My name is Vishwa Shroff and I have had the opportunity of completing my MBA at the beautiful campus of UMass Boston, positioned right next to the bay. UMass Boston’s MBA program offers courses that help students understand diverse business perspectives and multifaceted contexts, in meaningful ways. There are several core courses covering a comprehensive list of specializations that facilitated picking my favorite focus areas. I chose to focus on Marketing and Information Systems. During my time as a graduate student at UMass Boston, I had access to top-notch faculty who were field experts in the classes they taught. I also had the opportunity to be a graduate assistant at the department of Information Systems, which aided alignment of my course to real life cases. My classroom was a greatly diverse group of students from all over the world, which enhanced my student life and increased engagement on worldly affairs and global economies.

All in all, I am grateful to have graduated from UMass Boston as it served as a bridge in helping me transition from an international student from India into a successful business strategy and marketing professional in the US.

I graduated from UMass Boston in 2012 with an MBA.  

Post MBA

My first full-time role once I graduated was in a privately owned, luxury travel company as their first Web Marketing Analyst. It was a hands-on role where I got the opportunity to see how a medium sized, B2C direct marketing firm runs business and created marketing & CRM success metrics for them. Later, I joined a fast paced Ed-tech firm headquartered in the greater Boston area as a Sr. Marketing Data Analyst, and worked in a B2B environment, leading several projects in the marketing analytics and marketing operations domains for the firm.

About a year and half ago, I decided to make the big move and venture out to Silicon Valley to join the high-tech industry and think it has been great career choice. Currently, I work as a Marketing Manager, Digital Strategy & Marketing Operations in the Enterprise Marketing Group at the newly formed Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in San Francisco Bay Area. The role is a great blend of marketing operations, digital marketing strategy and program management. Thus far, I am pleased with how my career has shaped out to be post-MBA from UMass Boston.

 

 

Lori Kelleher, MBA Class of 2013

Prior, as well as during my MBA, I was working in the Pharmaceutical Industry as a Sales Representative. I knew that if I wanted to move up within my company, or transfer to another, I needed my MBA, and an MBA specializing in Healthcare Administration would make me even more valuable. Today, most everyone has an undergraduate degree, so in order to make myself more marketable, as well as sharpen my business skills, pursuing my MBA was a necessity.

I selected UMASS Boston for five reasons:

(1) It’s one of the only programs in Boston, considered the hub of westernized medicine, to offer a program with a Healthcare Management track (2) The cost was appealing, especially as a state school, and even more so with tuition reimbursement, so I never had to pay out of pocket (3) The Professors were either Ivy League grads or successful business leaders in their respective fields (4) Convenience of the school; parking, location, accessibility (5) Ability to waive core courses I already (relatively) recently completed and excelled at, which saved a lot of time, money and frustration of repetition.

My experience at UMASS couldn’t have been any better! The professors were engaged and exceptional, and the courses challenging yet realistic. I found myself surrounded primarily around other students working full time and pursuing the MBA on the side, so they, as well as the Professors, understood this intense workload. I was able to network with others in similar industries, which is valuable for career progression and determining ways this could assist me with my current job. But, my most memorable experience was collaborating with a Professor on a paper that was actually published! This was something I never thought possible, but through the MBA program, became a reality.

After graduation, I continued working at my current company with the goal of transitioning to medical devices. One month post graduation, I was able to utilize my MBA to ‘move ahead’ of others in the interview process, and successfully land a job with Medtronic, the largest medical device company in the world. Within 2.5 years at Medtronic, I have been promoted, and incorporate the skills earned during my MBA to not only move to the next level, but to also excel in my current role, everyday.