Wharton MBA Program Overview

It was a bit of an epiphany. I think after so many years of working, you realize how much you don't know. I personally didn't have the skill set that I needed in order to be as impactful as possible. I knew that I wanted to develop both in a personal and professional way, but I had no idea where that was going to lead me. I came from a background as a private equity associate, and I wanted to be a leader one day. Everybody who comes here who has led has had a moment when they're thinking, I thought I could lead, but it turns out there are challenges I'd never appreciated. Once you get here, you learn that there's so many different veins in which you can go through. You're kind of exploring and feeling things out and broadening your understanding of what's available, what's interesting to you. Every block of time you have, you're doing something different, and so it really stretches your mind, and you feel like you're always learning something new. I tend to be pretty demanding, actually, in the classroom. I really do want them to speak up and bring their experience and or just their ideas about the topic at hand. In many ways it's fun and exciting, but in so many ways it's also forcing you to constantly think about things, be on your toes. Wharton students definitely demand a higher level of rigor, and I'm pleased to say we're in a situation where we can deliver it. We can teach pretty much whatever we want. We're allowed to teach to our strength. I have the privilege to be able to teach courses that are very action-oriented. My goal is to take big ideas, grounded in theory and in research, but then to apply them in the context of solving real problems. Wharton has a fantastic program called the Nonprofit Board Leadership Fellow Program. Wharton had given me a whole new leadership toolkit in how to persuade groups, even when you have little formal authority. Teaching leadership at the Wharton School is as good as it gets. I just returned about a week ago from Ecuador, where I was on a mountaineering expedition to climb Cotopaxi, a stratovolcano in the Andes. We've been encouraged here all the time to just try. I decided to start an initiative for women in private equity and venture capital. This year I was one of the co-presidents of Out for Business. One of the big things we wanted to accomplish this year is to institute an LGBT scholarship. I was fortunate enough to receive one of the Wharton Venture Awards, which meant instead of getting an internship to get a job after school to pay the bills, I was able to pay my mortgage and afford to eat over the summer while I was working on my own startup. As a student of Wharton, I find that I have far better access to people that I otherwise wouldn't have access to when I was working within industry. Wharton has the Jay Baker Retailing Initiative. They essentially have a board of advisors who's every CEO of every major brand and retailer out there. Not many people can say that they have direct access to the CEO of Macy's, and we actually can. A couple months ago, I found myself in New York City in the office of the CEO of a $10 billion fund. He actually said to me, point blank, I wouldn't be sitting here with you if you were not introduced through the Wharton brand. Whether it's the community and the entrepreneurship group, or the community within healthcare, or the community of just young people who are excited about going into the world and being leaders and creating change, all of this is very exciting. I think the interdisciplinary nature of Wharton is a big benefit because this means that when students leave Wharton, they're general all-around athletes who are well-versed in many areas of business, not just finance, but also marketing and strategy and operations. And we have such a renowned faculty that it's just great, and that I know that even afterward, I can tap into them when I need them. Our students tend to get the latest knowledge in our courses, and then they go immediately and use those ideas in their first jobs. So it's especially exciting for me to watch my students go out and create a new company using a concept that they learned in a class, or to lead a group within an organization. Where does the value from an MBA come from? And in many ways, it's about maturing as a person and understanding more about yourself and what you want from life. Every class, every speaker who comes in, they say, focus on your strengths, and they say, follow your passion. I've had a lot of opportunities to understand what my strengths are, and I've found myself being more passionate about some than the others. So really, I think this is my takeaway to life. I definitely feel well-equipped to hopefully not get out of the park when I start working. I'm pretty confident. Now that I know what I'm going to do, I'm energized by a much different force, which is just that focus and that knowledge that, oh, here's what I'm actually going to be doing, and these are ways that I can practically apply things that I'm learning in class to a job that I know that I'm starting in one month and one day.