Mo Banjoko (MBA ’18) made sacrifices to come to Rotman. She had moved to Toronto from Nigeria, where her husband and two young children, then one and five years old, were rooting for her. She also stepped away from a career in auditing and a position at a major firm to return to school full time.
Though there was a lot of pressure to make the most of her business school experience, Banjoko never doubted that it would be worth it. She wanted to establish a career in Canada, where she hoped to eventually settle with her family, and take on positions that required strategic problem-solving. After researching several top business schools and graduate programs, she felt that the Full-Time MBA at Rotman would give her the skills and connections to make this happen.
The real issue was knowing where to begin. As a new student in a new city, trying to break into a new job market, it was difficult. But as a Rotman student, Banjoko had a real advantage: she was instantly part of a vast community that included fellow students, alumni, professors and career advisors willing to offer advice.
“It might sound obvious, but networking helped me figure out what was really important to me. It helped me understand what type of organization I wanted to work for and it eventually helped me land and get comfortable with interviews,” says Banjoko, who’s now a senior manager with enterprise payments at CIBC in Toronto, a short commute from the suburb where she lives with her family.
“The most valuable part of the MBA was learning how to manage my network.”
Learning to love networking
Initially, Banjoko loathed networking. The conversations always felt forced and uncomfortable. She felt disingenuous when she reached out to people she didn’t know.
An important turning point came when she completed a networking session led by Professor Tiziana Casciaro. Casciaro — whose research on professional networking and power dynamics has been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets including The Financial Times, Forbes and Harvard Business Review — teaches in the MBA and executive programs at Rotman.
In her research and in the classroom, Casciaro discusses strategies for making networking more enjoyable and genuine. She encourages MBA students and working professionals not to approach networking as a job hunt, but as a way to gather information and learn about a new industry, sector or role.
This idea resonated with Banjoko. She had a lot of questions.
Though she knew what she wanted in general terms — a position with growth opportunities, that involved strategic problem solving and was immersed in a positive work culture — Banjoko used networking to help her find focus. She approached the task with the same attention that she invested in her MBA classes and case competitions.
“The most valuable part of the MBA was learning how to manage my network.”
—Mo Banjoko, MBA ’18
She reached out to second-year students and asked them about how they had landed their internships, which classes they found the most useful and how they managed their time. She spoke with Rotman alumni who had emigrated from Nigeria about how they found the adjustment and how they managed work and family responsibilities. Beyond Rotman, she met working professionals at networking events or through her career coach. She asked about which skills they valued most in employees and what they were working on.
“Most people are happy to spare a few minutes of their time, especially when they knew I was coming from Rotman,” she says. “Those meetings really paid off. Many of these contacts became friends. And all of them shared helpful advice.”
From the suggestions she collected, and after reflecting on her goals, she filled her schedule with communications and leadership electives, which she knew would serve her well in a career in consulting or strategy work. And feedback from one contact inspired her to pursue an internship at the Hatchery, a startup incubator run by U of T Engineering, which gave her experience in working in uncertain, fast-paced environments.
“It filled a gap in my professional experience that I hadn’t noticed until someone had pointed it out to me.”
How it all came together
Though she might not have known it at the time, her internship, as well as the months of coffee chats, classes and career talks ultimately served as the perfect preparation for entering a competitive job market.
When a posting for a full-time position at CIBC’s enterprise payments division came up, she was immediately interested. Weeks earlier, the bank had hosted a presentation at the School about current technology and operations projects. One big change coming to the industry was a new payments standard, ISO 20022, which would soon be adopted across Canada. Banjoko was familiar with some of the material from her accounting days — but more than that, she recognized how instituting a new national payments infrastructure could be really exciting. It would allow her to use the strategic thinking and problem-solving skills she’d acquired through the MBA.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she says. “It would definitely be exciting to be part of the team leading a massive transformation in the country’s payments industry.”
By the time she interviewed for the role, she could articulate clearly what she wanted to do, how her past experience might be applicable and why she was a good fit.
Shortly after convocation, she joined the bank as a senior manager. Every day, she’s managing risk and enhancing governance processes so that project teams can meet their timelines.
Nowadays, she’s the one who is meeting with Rotman students and offering advice.
There’s a lot of things that I learned along the way that I’d like to share, like staying focused on transferable skills, not fixating on job titles and making short, mid and long-term career plans,” she says. “And, of course, networking as much as possible.”
Written by Rebecca Cheung | More Student Stories »