Since I decided in 2017 to go back and get my MBA from the University of Cincinnati, the primary question I have received was “Why”? I must admit I had wrestled with the decision, and whether I should do it or not. After all, the last classroom I sat in with a professor was in the mid 1990’s. Did I really want to spend the next several years learning more about business, and in a classroom setting?
To answer the question, requires a closer look at my career. I had experienced immediate success as a software developer out of college so much so that I was the only employee retained out of 125 employees after the company was purchased by a public company. However, I was not retained as a programmer but as a sales and business subject matter expert (SME) on the company’s software products, which I had an inherit knowledge of since I helped develop them.
That led into a sales and systems engineering role in my only enterprise company I ever worked for – EMC Corp. I then joined a startup company as co-owner and helped scale it to tremendous success over the next 11 years. My next role was an investor and CEO of an early-stage software company, and then COO of a technology company that I relocated to the Midwest. This career path provided me more diversity and experiences than being at a Fortune 100 company for 15 years and doing essentially the same thing everyday.
But I was ready for something new, and decided I needed a reset. My MBA provided an opportunity to focus on the gaps in my abilities as an executive leader, and has afforded me the resources (academic research and technology) that I never had access to while attending a smaller university on a basketball scholarship.
I had always enjoyed the international business environment. Having been required to travel internationally many times throughout my career, it was always something I looked forward to. I know it takes a bit of a mental imbalance to get on a plane for 8+ hours, have a few days of meetings, and then get back on the plane, but it truly didn’t bother me.
I focused a great deal of my courses on International Business and Marketing. Courses like cross cultural management, global entrepreneurship, branding strategy, innovation tools, and others have sharpened my skillset in a variety of ways and I now have a lot more tools at my disposal in my business dealings.
In the end, the experiences and relationships I have built over my MBA program have been invaluable. So much so that one of my professors made the initial introduction to a South American institutional investor which has created a nice pipeline of business for my consulting company… something I didn’t even foresee would occur.
I will be receiving my MBA in the next few months and could not be more pleased about the decision I made.
