from bench to board

Toward the end of my internship, I was asked by a senior executive what I was surprised most about my summer. I paused for a long time, and finally answered: "Leadership, and how it was so front and center to my experience".

Like many new MBAs on the job, I thought my goal was to perform functionally. My expectation going in was to learn a thing or two about health care and give a stellar performance on my project, or in other words, to get a "good grade". I wanted to hone and show off my marketing skills and industry knowledge. However, at the end of the internship, I realized that leadership was in fact what was most important. And that success in a corporate environment was enabled by placing leadership at the center.

A question I get asked a lot is whether Duke Fuqua's location puts students at a disadvantage when it comes to recruiting for health care. My answer is no, because Fuqua is a target school for many companies that recruit MBAs and they make an effort to come to the Duke campus. However, I did not know objectively how Fuqua compared with schools that were local to health care hubs. I took some time and got some data from LinkedIn, and used the pharma industry as an example. Surprisingly, at least for pharma, Fuqua has a stronger presence than many local schools.

This book was given to me as a gift from a very senior leader in marketing. I was told that the book would cover things that are not taught in MBA programs. After reading the book, I must say that I agree. In my marketing classes, I was intrigued by why established brands still spent so heavily on advertising and how brands actually measured advertising effects, while not controlling for confounding variables. This book looks at empirical evidence and proposes the laws of marketing.

Taking Christine Moorman's Marketing Strategy course was essential to building my skills as a business thinker. Marketing has really evolved in recent years and is being more tied closely into business strategy. Focusing on the customer, then, is the role of any good marketing strategy and is thus key to a sustainable competitive advantage for a company.

One helpful factor to consider when choosing which MBA program to apply to are the employment statistics. While almost all MBA programs have solid consulting and banking employment numbers, health care results are less consistent across schools.