December Newsletter

Dinner Event (LaDon Linde Class of 2009)

Thursday night we had the annual dinner with 40 alumni and strategy professors. It was great to catch up with everyone and then hear from Greg Robinson. Jeff Dyer and Greg started working at Bain & Co. at the same time, and it was great to hear about their connection and see how lifelong friendships can be developed early in our careers. That was a major take away from the evening. 

Greg was a terrific speaker. He has had a varied career working with several different companies. He was a strategy consultant for Bain, worked as an assistant to the Staples co-founder, attended HBS, worked for McKinsey, then built PWC’s media practice in Los Angeles working with several of the studios, and started a consulting business in which all fees were contingent on improving the bottom line of the companies they worked with. He is also the nephew of Mitt Romney. Mitt was like a dad to Greg, as his dad left the church (and it sounded like the family) when he was on his mission and Mitt stepped in as a father figure. Greg gave several great thoughts. Here’s a few that stuck out to me:

Balance – Mitt’s advice to him was that there was always too much to do with family, work, and church. Therefore, if Mitt ever felt like he was completely caught up with one part of his life, it meant he was spending too much time there. It was important for him to feel stretched/behind in all 3 parts of his life or he was focusing too much on one of them.

Talented people outside consulting – He realized when he left consulting that there are very talented people working in industry that had never worked for consulting firms. It was very good to get that perspective.

Following less “prestigious" routes – He left McKinsey to go work for PWC, and that was a great move for him and his family. At face value, some would say moving from McKinsey to PWC would be unwise because PWC’s consulting practice doesn’t have the prestige of McKinsey. However, PWC made him partner, he got to focus on the type of work he wanted, he didn’t travel, and he was able to be a Bishop. It worked out great for him and his family. After that he started his own consulting firm, which was also quite successful. Don’t just follow the route most people would think is the clear winner.

Breakfast Panel Part 1 (Michael Alemany Class of 2010)

I thought this was one of the best parts of the reunion and unfortunately I won’t be able to do it complete justice in a brief recap but here goes –

Panelists:

Scott Schurtlif – Accretive Health

Travis Everton – Peterson Partners

Jon Jay – Real Estate Investment

Jeron Paul – Scalar Partners

Discussion Topics:

Why/How/When did you move from your first job post college to your second?

·         Personal Network – this was critical in finding the next role and in deciding whether to make the jump.  The value of building and maintaining your network cannot be overstated.

·         Interest in industry/company – many of the panelists started in consulting roles so they used their next role to move into an industry that interested them and into a company that was a good cultural fit.  When evaluating their fit at a potential new firm they relied heavily on the individuals in their respective networks at those firms.

Why get an MBA?

·         Don’t simply use an ROI evaluation – If you simply examine the opportunity cost of attending against the salary you expect when you graduate there are a host of variables that are being completely ignored or undervalued.

·         Getting an MBA provides an excellent time to reflect on your career path and examine what you’re truly passionate about and where you’ll find the greatest fulfillment.

·         The network you develop, especially at a top tier school, is invaluable and will pay significant dividends for the rest of your career.

·         It can open doors or provide a pivot point into a total different field that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

Unlike many of us thought, the opportunities post graduation often don’t narrow but become broader.  

How do you handle the gray and determine your next career steps early on?

·         You have to identify what you love.  The only way you’re going to be able to put in the time and produce your best work is if you love what you do.

·         Be willing to take risks.  Culturally, we tend to be very conservative; hence, we produce great accountants and general managers.  The greatest limitation on our success is typically ourselves.  We assume we can’t do something because that’s not the typical path or we might fail.  Be willing to step out into the dark or blaze a slightly different trail and you may be surprised to discover that the insurmountable barriers you had imagined are not actually that insurmountable.

·         It's important to reevaluate from time to time whether your career priorities are indeed in line with all the other priorities in your life.  What you may find is that your career is a means to an end and that you have other areas of your life that you want to give greater time and attention to (family, church, etc).  This may mean you need to make changes to better allocate your time against your highest priorities.

Breakfast Panel Part 2 (Andrew Woo Class of 2011)

The second part of the breakfast panel was a breakout session during which Scott, Travis, Jon, and Jeron led separate small group discussions with alumni. It was a great opportunity to interact more closely with the panelists, and I felt like they said a lot of things that were deeply personal and very insightful.

During my interaction with Jon, he emphasized the importance of taking risks and being willing to fail. He reiterated that “if we haven’t failed, it means that we haven’t taken enough risks.” After talking to so many alumni over the past day and learning more about their different career paths, I noticed that some of them have really taken a leap of faith and tried something risky, and I am impressed and inspired by them. Definitely easier said than done, but is still significant at this stage of our careers.

Also, speaking with other alumni afterward, I found that one point that stood out to many was Scott’s comment about reflecting on our careers being a means towards an end. During the breakout session, he elaborated about how he had discovered that he was on a path where he allocated more time than he wanted to the office. Scott decided to make changes to reflect his higher priorities, even if it meant that he wasn’t going to be the CEO of XYZ corp. one day. This was an amazingly honest comment, and something that each of us will have to wrestle with throughout our careers.

Overall, I felt that the panel discussion was a great opportunity to take a step back, learn from the panelists, and evaluate the path we are on. I’m already looking forward to next year’s discussion! 

Presentation from Dr. Hatch and Dr. Dyer on ‘Competing with Free’ (Nathan Lawler Class of 2009)

Listening to Dr. Hatch talk about the research that the strategy professors have done in this space was very fascinating. For me, they were talking about products I use on a daily basis (e.g., Mint.com, Spotify, Zynga, etc). Not only was it great to be in a classroom type environment again, but it was great to hear all of the alumni comment throughout the presentation and see how much we have all progressed in our careers from when we were in school.

For me and perhaps a few others, this particular topic may not directly apply to the firm I currently work for, but it was a great refresher on how to approach thinking about a firm’s future strategy at a high level. The professors have done a great job scoping out the competitive landscape in the ‘free’ market and it was great to learn about it.

Lunch with the Current Students (Nathan Lawler Class of 2009)

I was able to chat with 4 or 5 current students during lunch, all of whom were in the process of going through full-time interviews and contemplating job offers. Hopefully, something I said was beneficial to them, but it was a great opportunity to give back in some small way. I came away thinking that the program is in great shape and has a bright future. The students I spoke with were extremely bright and I just was grateful to be a part of the program in the early years, as I probably would not have gotten in competing with the current crop of students. J