Meet Some Recent Graduates
Jennifer Aiello is a 2008 graduate of the Jeffrey Skoll BASc/MBA Program. She began what promises to be an outstanding career in healthcare almost a decade ago as a young volunteer at Etobicoke General Hospital. Now she is looking forward to a career in healthcare consulting.
“I wanted to become a doctor,” she says, “but you don’t need to be a doctor to help people or change the system. Doctors really have the least amount of time to change things. It is the consultants and people at the ministries of health who help to make change.”
Improving access to care and reducing wait times are among the issues she is anxious to address. “We’re going into a new era. In the last 10 years, new infectious diseases have surfaced and cancer has become more prevalent. There will be even greater changes in the next decade. Everything I’ve done has centred around change; I got excited about the healthcare industry.”
Jennifer chose engineering for her first degree because she knew it would teach her effective problem-solving skills—with a view to becoming a physician. “As a doctor you’re solving problems all the time. What better way to learn than engineering?” She specialized in biomedical engineering, with a particular emphasis on orthopedics and materials—learning to build fracture fixation plates, for example.
During her Professional Engineering Year (PEY), in keeping with her longstanding commitment to healthcare, she went to work for pharmaceuticals maker Apotex. That is when she began to think seriously of a career in business consulting. “I thought I’d really like the business world. There you have a great opportunity to help people.” The Skoll Program became her path to a career devoted to making healthcare better.
“I enjoyed every single aspect of the Rotman School MBA,” she says. “The engineering program was rigorous and packed full of work and the MBA is a very intense program too, but I already had the work ethic engrained in me, so that came easy. I was used to it.” The transition really involved a shift in thinking, particularly in creative areas such as strategy and marketing. “That’s a different type of problem-solving, involving interaction with others. Rotman stresses the importance of social skills in the working environment.”
Since 1999 when she began her career as a volunteer, Jennifer has remained actively involved, at the Hospital for Sick Children and Big Brothers and Sisters of Toronto, for example. During her MBA years she volunteered to help advance women in business through groups such as Women in Capital Markets and the Women in Management Association. As SheBiz Coordinator for Women in Management she organized a day- long symposium that gave young women a chance to explore career options. “By listening to successful women in industry they learn that there’s more to do out there than be a doctor, lawyer or pharmacist.”
The Skoll Program helps women and men, she says, because degrees in engineering and business lend twice the credibility or more to graduates.
In addition to healthcare and women in business, Jennifer has worked for her local political candidates and is now vice-chair of the Etobicoke Centre Young Liberals Association and sits on the riding association executive as vice-chair of youth. She has worked with her local member of Parliament to petition for federal assistance for Somalia and she helped her local member of the Ontario Legislature raise the Italian flag at Queen’s Park for the first time in history. She does not rule out a career in politics: “A definite possibility,” she says.
Jennifer recommends the Skoll Program to other engineering students unreservedly. “It’s fantastic. There should be a spot for every single engineer. It has been amazing seven years. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Paul Chavez is among the most recent graduates of the Jeffrey Skoll BASc/MBA Program. He received his MBA degree in June 2008. His trajectory—from uncertainty to enthusiasm—is typical of many Skoll students.
“I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after high school,” Paul says. “Engineering seemed like a good way to keep my options open. I took chemical engineering because it had a medical slant. I thought I might go into medicine.”
After his first year in engineering, Paul took a summer job with Enbridge Inc., the pipelines and energy company, and began to consider a future in business. During his Professional Engineering Year (PEY) he took a closer look at the business world while working in sales for IBM. That experience convinced him to apply for admission to the Skoll Program.
“Engineering is useful for the diagnosis of problems and analyzing the flow of information at a company. It helps you learn analytical skills. But business has a broader scope. You learn more about how and why things are done, and that really appealed to me. Business provides an opportunity to lead. I was undergrad chair of student chapter of the Canadian Society of Chemical Engineers and I organized a national conference. I really enjoy managing people and teams.”
Paul notes that the advent of the Skoll Program has made the engineering-to-MBA trajectory much more popular. “An MBA gives students who are quantitatively gifted broad scope and the Skoll Program helps engineering students achieve the business qualification much more quickly.” Some MBA students already spend a significant amount of time in the working world before returning to school; Skoll students move directly from engineering to the MBA.
A rigorous background in engineering more than compensates for the lack of work experience, Paul says. “The quantitative focus of engineering is a very big advantage. A quantitative background makes you much more compelling as a presenter. But engineering doesn’t prepare you for the more social aspects of business. As an undergraduate you are school focused, not so exposed to people dynamics, but in the MBA program you learn to network quickly—in and outside school.”
“Most of the Skoll students are in consulting,” he observes. “It seems a natural transition. But I chose finance because I like the nature of financial markets—the dynamics, everything connected to everything else.” And he sees a deeper connection between chemical engineering and finance. The former is about processes and flows; and so is finance: money moves.
The financial support Paul received as a Skoll student was important to him and many of his fellow students. “A lot of us have benefited from the decision by Jeffrey Skoll and the Skoll Foundation to invest in the program,” he says. The provision of student financial support is critical both to students and to the Rotman School itself. The availability of funding helps Rotman recruit the most promising engineering students to the MBA program, many of whom would choose to work after graduation rather than take an MBA were it not for the availability of the Jeffrey Skoll Scholarships and other support.
Paul credits the Skoll Program with contributing to the Rotman community. “Skoll students add a lot to Rotman and I hope we can build on that going forward. The support of Jeffrey Skoll and the Skoll Foundation has provided the resources to build up a critical mass of people—students and graduates—who really know what they want to accomplish. One thing I’d really stress: Skoll grads don’t just do well academically, they do well afterwards.”
Paul is now embarking on a career in investment banking, working for RBC Capital Markets in the “generalist rotation”. Over 16 months he will hold four posts, each lasting four months, in capital markets, investment banking, sales and trading and equity trading. Depending on his assignment he will work in Calgary, Toronto or Vancouver, or internationally in New York, London, or Sidney.
The world awaits.
Jillian Chown graduated from the Jeffrey Skoll BASc/MBA Program in 2006 and joined McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s largest management consulting firms. She began her studies in the Engineering Science Program of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering and, when the opportunity presented itself, enrolled in the Skoll Program.
“I enjoyed engineering—the content, the problem solving, the challenge—but as I worked in engineering during the summers and during my Professional Engineering Year, I began to be interested in broader questions.” And so she began to explore her options at career information sessions organized by the Faculty. At one of these she encountered a engineering graduate who now works as a consultant. “I thought that was the coolest thing,” she recalls, “and I realized that consulting was what I wanted to do.”
She considered her options. Complete her engineering degree, work for several years and then return for an MBA perhaps at another university? Or enter the Skoll Program? “I hemmed and hawed, but then decided my best option was the Skoll Program. Why wait? Rotman is a great school and there was no reason why I wouldn’t go there anyway. I thought it would be an amazing way to get a head start and graduate with an engineering degree and an MBA may years before I otherwise would.”
She worried a little that the skills she had honed in the engineering science program would not transfer to the business school. “Would I go from being successful in engineering to not being able to cut it in the MBA?” But she quickly discovered that the skills required in business were sufficiently similar to make the transition relatively painless. “You’re never going to have to figure out how to solve differential equations in the MBA program, but at Rotman there’s a concentration on behavioural aspects and, for someone who wants to specialize in business strategy and marketing, you need to learn how to work with people, to motivate and to manage.”
During the summer following her first MBA year, Jillian worked for Deloitte, another major consulting firm. “I loved it.” But McKinsey was her first choice of employer and when she received a job offer after completing the MBA she was delighted. She started in Toronto and has recently moved to Montreal, where she continues to sample the many areas and industries in which consultants work.
“What I’ve done so far at McKinsey is sample different industries and different functions. It is interesting and fulfilling, managing projects and, hopefully, climbing the ladder as you become ‘known for knowing something’. I’m just starting to develop that focus, concentrating on two areas: retail and healthcare.” She finds ways to streamline operations—to increase output without increasing costs.
“It is an extremely challenging job and demands a lot from me, my team and our partners. There are many complex problems to solve—analytical problems—and my background in engineering helps.”
With a Skoll BASc/MBA and a burgeoning career in consulting, the coolest thing is now her thing.
Malcolm Jussawalla is a born entrepreneur.
By the time he graduated from the Jeffery Skoll BASc/MBA Program in 2004 he had already had a hand in starting two businesses. The first was a football magazine that he launched and published with a friend. They began in print, seeing six issues through the press, and then migrated to the web. The second enterprise was international in scope: he and a partner attempted to start a business providing financial advice to North American companies using consultants based in India.
Both businesses were learning experiences, try-outs for his current endeavours. Malcolm and his partner closed the football magazine as the demands of obtaining their U of T engineering degrees grew. The financial consultancy project wound down when Malcolm and his student partners developed other interests in the course of the MBA program at the Rotman School. Meanwhile, however, he took an entrepreneurship certificate course. His ambitions had grown. He entered the Skoll Program and by the time he was ready to graduate he and a friend from Rotman, Niti Bagga, had decided to start their own consulting firm.
Accelteon Partners Inc. was born.
The flash display that introduces the company’s web site (accelteon.com) says it all: Unleash your potential. Chairs spin and one stands out in red. Turn opportunities into lasting success. A window opens on a blue sky. We help you make informed decisions. A bold sign with an exclamation mark points to a future of limitless possibilities.
Accelteon’s objective is to provide smaller companies with the services usually reserved for the largest corporations, providing ideas, feasibility studies and needs assessments, strategy development and business planning and, with the Farber Financial Group, financial services.
The Skoll Program was critical to Malcolm’s success. Like other graduates, he cites the importance of the quantitative approach and rigour of engineering and the managerial skills and planning competencies of the MBA. It is, he says, an ideal combination for those seeking careers in business.
The Skoll Program allows ambitious engineering students heading for business to accelerate their progress. “The process is very positive. It enabled me to acquire tools and skills in engineering and to transfer them to business—statistics and financial modeling, for example. I had taken stats in engineering and now I’m applying them to business.”
But, he says, knowledge and skills were only the “second best thing” about the Skoll Program. “The very best thing I got was the Rotman alumni network,” he says. He remembers meeting Jeffery Skoll himself, who advised him to put together a good advisory board and then “Just do it.” He took the advice. Now several Rotman alums sit on Accelteon’s board, providing invaluable advice and contacts. Through the Rotman alumni network Accelteon has acquired several of its clients. The company and its founders now work with firms in technical fields, packaged goods, sports and entertainment and other sectors.
Malcolm cites the importance of the financial support associated with the Skoll Program. Students who enter the MBA program after several years of work have had a chance to save some money, while Skoll students entering directly from engineering have less opportunity to earn before continuing. “Without that support we would have felt the pinch,” he says. “It helped a lot of people.”
Malcolm sees a bright future for his company. “We want to grow it but grow it right,” he says. “The number one way is to deliver quality work, building our reputation and getting our name out.”
Accelteon is just the beginning.