Georgetown McDonough MBAs Launch HoyAnalytics Club
A group of Evening MBA students at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business recently launched HoyAnalytics—a student organization focusing on statistics and data analytics. Though the club is is pending official sponsorship by the MBA Program Office, it has drawn a lot of interest in the McDonough School of Business.
According to the McDonough School, HoyAlytics is the first club organized by Evening MBA students. The organization’s board is made up of both full-time and Evening program students, and was created with unifying the two MBA programs in mind.
But the organization’s two main objectives are to create a community for those interested in statistics and analytics, as well as help those who are not already data-savvy gain quantitative skills. As statistics and analytics have become prevalent in more and more industries, HoyAlytics hopes to prepare MBAs for their careers.
“The club is on the cutting edge,” said Kenny Tan (MBA’19), one of the HoyAlytics founders. “Students are taking it in their own hands to make things happen.”
According to McDonough, the club recently held a free Excel workshop with nearly 40 full-time and Evening MBA students in attendance, and plans to continue holding workshops to teach different skills and software, such as Tableau, SAS, R, and SQL, as well as inviting guest speakers.
Student organizations and clubs generally provide great networking and professional benefits, such as access to industry leaders, professional development opportunities and the ability to make a real impact. A U.S. News & World Report list describes the following as reasons why it’s a good decision to get involved in a club in college:
- It allows students to become connected to their school
- It helps them build community
- It allows them to discover their passions and strengths
- It’s a résumé builder
- Sometimes, busier people do better
- Utilize your school’s resources
Check out some of the coolest MBA clubs and student organization’s in the Washington DC Metro here.
Tech Grads Surge in New Northwestern Kellogg Employment Report
The Kellogg School of Management released new employment data and statistics from the Class of 2017. According to the school, 94 percent of Kellogg’s full-time MBA Class of 2017 received an offer within three months of graduation.
“Kellogg leaders take a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex business challenges,” said Matt Merrick, Associate Dean of MBA Operations. “The versatile skills they hone at Kellogg enable them to make an immediate impact across all types of organizations.”
MBAs were hired by a wide variety of companies across all disciplines and industries, shapes and sizes. Some of the top companies hiring Kellogg students include McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, Amazon, Bain & Company, and Microsoft.
Employment data shows that the most popular industries were consulting (33 percent), technology (25 percent), finance (13 percent) and CPG (12 percent). The Kellogg Career Management Center helped students establish relationships with more than 50 technology companies in order to help secure these employment opportunities. Overall, the Career Management Center works with employers to create custom recruiting strategies, forging deep relationships with employers of all sizes, from all industries and regions.
According to our sister site Clear Admit, the 25 percent of Kellogg grads that landed jobs in the technology industry was a school record.
Jeanette Brown writes:
“Amazon hired 32 Kellogg grads, making it the third largest recruiter in 2017, behind only McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). But Amazon was far from the only tech firm to hire at the school. ‘It’s not only the big employers like Amazon, Apple, Google—but the small companies as well, the ones that hire just one to two MBAs,’ explains Liza Kirkpatrick, Senior Director of the full-time MBA program at Kellogg’s Career Management Center. ‘We had over 50 unique tech employers that hired our students this past year, which demonstrates that we really have that depth.’ Kirkpatrick further noted that the types of jobs for which tech firms are hiring Kellogg grads is widely varied, including product management, sales, marketing, business operations, supply chain, product development, and others.”
Kirkpatrick notes that the surge in tech jobs stems from a concerted effort from the business school, which was also reflected in the number of technology industry internships for the Class of 2018.
“‘We started developing relationships in the tech space many years ago,’ acknowledges Kirkpatrick. ‘It has taken a while for firms to recognize that when an MBA comes on board, it really adds value.’ But they certainly have, which can also be seen reflected in the number of tech firms that now take on summer interns. ‘They have really organized themselves to bring on an MBA class as interns as a result,’ Kirkpatrick adds. The most recent employment report reveals that 26 percent of the Class of 2018 interned at technology firms.”
In a press release from the school, Jodi Washington, a Program Manager for the Networking and Security Transformation team, said, “Kellogg’s curriculum builds leaders who are strong analytical thinkers and are confident collaborating across organizations. The Kellogg graduates we hire jump in on day one, but also continue to mature at Cisco.”
2017 statistics/photo courtesy of Northwestern Kellogg.
The statistics show that the number of Kellogg MBAs to accept job offers on the West Coast has also increased (31.4 percent) from last year, a direct correlation to uptick in tech hires. Meanwhile, 30 percent of 2017 MBAs stayed in the Midwest and 33 percent accepted jobs on the East Coast.
You can read more on Kellogg’s latest employment stats and the Clear Admit interview with Kellogg Senior Director of Career Management Liza Kirkpatrick here.
Marshall Online MBAs Tap into IBM Watson For Business Solutions
Online MBAs enrolled in the USC Marshall School of Business’ Opportunity Recognition and Implementation course were recently tasked with developing a startup that takes advantage of the supercomputing capabilities of IBM Watson, the tech company’s flagship artificial intelligence system.
The course, taught by Professor of Clinical Business Communication Pete Cardon and Associate Professor of Clinical Entrepreneurship Elissa Grossman, has been part of the MBA curriculum at Marshall for two years. The project, meanwhile, goes as follows: Students studied how Watson’s analytics software works, and then identified a problem they can solve with that technology. Each team then formulated a business plan that could be introduced and put into action, and pitch it to a panel of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
“This is not an abstract exercise,” Cardon told USC Marshall. “This is a very intense project that places students in a situation where they are thinking about how to use cutting-edge technology for new products. And we provide access to the people who are really doing this—the experts at IBM.”
Each MBA team was supported by IBM mentors and experts, such as Daryl Pereira, the Creative Content Director of Watson and Cloud Platform. Pereira told USC Marshall that IBM’s collaboration with the school and it’s Online MBAs has produced impressive results.
“We knew it would be exciting partnering with USC to explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence with the brightest business minds,” Pereira said. “What we weren’t prepared for was the creativity in the startup ideas from the students: everything from the automated review of legal contracts to the creation of a data-driven record label.”
This year’s winning was the Music Predictor, a plan drawn up by the MBA team of Steven Truong, Michele Rosette, and Erin Young. The predictor was described as “a cognitive tool that analyzed song metadata and social media to provide projections of future revenue for a potential song, allowing smaller record labels to refine their budgets.” As the winner of the pitch competition, the Music Predictor team earned an invitation to the IBM Watson Developer Conference.
“We spent a significant part of our time applying our fresh business knowledge to the various IBM technologies that were showcased,” Troung said. “We discussed feasibility of novel technology-business concepts, pondered the unmet market needs for various exhibitions and discussed real startups with more veteran entrepreneurs that are in high-growth technology spaces.”
Notre Dame Mendoza Team Takes Top Prize in Annual International Case Competition
A team of Notre Dame Mendoza School of Business MBA students won first place and a cash prize of $5,000 in the 22nd Annual International Case Competition (ICC). The competition was held earlier this month at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and was organized by Tepper’s Operations Management Club.
The competition provides student teams experience in organizing and prioritizing issues, applying decision-making skills, working in teams, and developing innovative solutions—all under the pressure of competition, according to the Operations Management Club. The competition unfolds over two rounds—a 20-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute Q&A session in the first round, and a 30-minute presentation to the judges in the finals.
The Mendoza team was made up of Christopher Kunnen (’18), Austin Gilbertson (’19), and Zachary Kozak (’18). They beat out 10 teams from top universities across the country, including MIT Sloan School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business.
“Overall, case competitions are a great experiential component to the MBA experience,” Kozak said. “The competitions combine both real-world problem solving and simulating the time-constraint project management challenges that we as professionals will experience in the future.”
Mendoza’s MBA winners, from left to right: Zachary Kozak, Christopher Kunnen, and Austin Gilbertson/Photo courtesy of the Mendoza College of Business
The Notre Dame MBA team won thanks to their ability to identify the key issues in the case and its development of data-driven insights and recommendations that went beyond expectations.
“We employed a key take-away from one of our favorite professors, Dan Connors, who teaches the course Lessons from Turnaround Situations in the fall term,” Kozak said. “Dan, a former Bain consultant, conveyed to us early on to follow the strategy of ‘Listen, Deliver and then Add’ for any business problem. We replicated this approach when analyzing the problem and then building our presentation.”
ICC also connects leading operations talent with multinational sponsor companies for networking and recruiting opportunities, including Eaton, Amazon, and Emerson.
Los Angeles MBA Programs that Specialize in Supply Chain Management
As businesses grow and develop, it’s up to supply chain managers, or SCMs, to effectively ensure that all goods and services are delivered in a quick, optimized manner.
SCMs are the logistical overlords of any major operation—they oversee how all the parts of their product, including raw materials, information, and finance, move from supplier, to manufacturer, to wholesaler, to retailer, and finally to the consumer.
As more and more MBA students and graduates find employment as SCMs, more business school have added courses and concentrations in supply chain management, including some top business schools in the Los Angeles metro.
If you’re a prospective MBA in the City of Angeles, take this deeper dive into these LA metro MBA programs.
The Best Los Angeles Supply Chain Management MBA Programs
Anderson School of Management – UCLA
While the UCLA Anderson School of Management doesn’t offer a concentration or major in supply chain management, related coursework is recommended for MBAs on the consulting specialization, including 240F – Supply Chain Management. The course is taught by Chris Tang, UCLA Distinguished Professor and Edward W. Carter Chair in Business Administration. Tang is a foremost scholar on supply chain management, having published more than 100 articles and five books.
The course explains how supply chains work and how to deal with many of their strategic and tactical challenges. Topics covered in the class include:
- Issues and opportunities brought by the Internet and the rise of e-business
- Instabilities caused by inadequate information-sharing
- Outsourcing
- Strategic alliances
Graziadio School of Business and Management – Pepperdine University
The Graziadio School of Business and Management offers not only one, but two specialized MBA programs that offer supply chain coursework: the Digital Innovation & Information Systems MBA and the Full-Time Applied Analytics MBA.
The Digital Innovation & Information Systems MBA is available to 15 and 20-Month MBA students and focuses on bridging the gap between business and technology. All electives in this program are offered in a blended learning format with one elective course scheduled per 7-week period and requires two Saturdays of on-campus class sessions at the West Los Angeles Graduate Campus, with the remaining coursework offered online. Related coursework includes DESC 634 – Supply Chain Management.
The Full-Time Applied Analytics MBA is an immersive program that prepares students through a core curriculum is built around Decision Sciences and Information Systems and Technology Management, with Global Business and elective course requirements to round out your education, such as DESC 627 – Supply Chain Management Analytics. The class places a strong emphasis on the development and use of analytics-based models to illustrate the underlying concepts involved in both intra-and inter-firm logistics operations.
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Loyola Marymount University – College of Business Administration
The Loyola Marymount University College of Business Administration offers a Purchasing and Supply Chain Management Online Training Program. While not an MBA program or part of a graduate degree program, this online certificate program teaches fundamental aspects of the supply chain environment, including enterprise resource planning systems, requirement systems, interrelationships between purchasing, vendor selection, sources of supply, and more. This program is a good choice for those looking for project management experience.
Marshall School of Business – USC
Similarly to Marymount, the USC Marshall School of Business offers a graduate certificate program in Optimization and Supply Chain Management. Offered in partnership with the Viterbi School of Engineering, the program focuses on areas such as product introduction, strategic procurement, outsourcing, logistics and distribution, information technology and its role in managing global supply chains, and supply chain optimization. Units earned in the process of completing the certificate can usually be applied to an MBA degree and successful completion of the graduate certificate is documented on the graduate’s USC transcript and acknowledged with a certificate (diploma) issued by the University of Southern California.
Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management – Claremont Graduate University
The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management offers supply chain management as an area of concentration for their MBA program. Students on this track explore concepts of supply chain management while learning to leverage technologies like big data, analytics, optimization, and geospatial systems.
Drucker is also home to the Center for Supply Chain & Logistics. After launching in 2015, the Center has partnered with business, government, trade, and policy leaders to enhance the performance of supply chains globally and the economic performance of the region. Partnership with companies like Toyota have created wonderful opportunities for students, such as the Toyota Women of Achievement Scholars program, which aims to create the future of supply chain by empowering women to take the lead in this vital field. The fellowship provides female scholars with a top notch education and formal mentor programs with other women leaders and career guidance to make the most of their degrees.
Verizon is on the Lookout for MBA Students and Grads
Telecom giant Verizon Communications provides wireless and wired telephone, internet and television service, in addition to cloud-based services to businesses. One of the largest wireless service providers in the United States, and among the largest communications technology companies in the world, Verizon employs nearly 200,000 employees—including a large number of MBAs.
Working at Verizon
Working at Verizon has its perks. In addition to competitive salaries and performance-based incentives, benefits include 401(k) savings with company match and discounts on Verizon products. Some Verizon offices also feature in-house gyms, or discounted gym memberships. The company is also committed to lifelong learning, providing training, development, and tuition assistance
Other worthy benefits Verizon employees can take advantage of include:
- Adoption expense assistance
- A matching gifts program
- Military discounts
- Employee Relief Fund for victims of natural disasters
- Best-in-class health and insurance benefits
- Healthy Pregnancy Program for expectant mothers
Verizon was also recently recognized as the top company for diversity leadership by Diversity MBA Magazine.
“Being good at diversity and inclusion is not an option at Verizon. With more than 180,000 employees serving customers in more than 2,700 cities spanning more than 150 countries, Verizon is privileged to serve a very vibrant and diverse marketplace,” said Magda Yrizarry, Verizon Chief Talent and Diversity Officer.
“Being successful with a customer base like this is not possible without a diversity of people, ideas, and experiences,” Yrizarry added.
According to Diversity MBA Magazine, Verizon recruiters maintain close relationships with organizations like the Society of Women Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers, and Hispanic Business Students and Professionals. The company also has a fantastic track record of hiring women and minorities, with women and people of color making up about 60 percent of the company’s board of directors, while women specifically make up 37 percent of senior management.
Verizon was also one of the first major companies to offer benefits to same-sex couples in domestic partnerships and provide free preventative care services to women, such as on-site mammography screenings. The company is also well-known for its practice of recruiting veterans.
“Verizon is a diverse company in its people, ideas, services, and the communities it serves,” Yrizarry said. “Our workplace culture ensures that everyone, no matter their ethnicity or background, has opportunities to contribute to the solutions required to stay relevant and competitive in the marketplace, grow professionally and advance their career.”
Joining the Verizon Team
Verizon offers a number of internships and MBA Leadership Developmental Programs to graduate business students. According to MBA Exchange, these programs offer MBAs a first-hand rotational learning experience focused in different aspects of the company. With so many different paths and career opportunities at the company, these programs are an opportunity to build strong leadership skills in a particular division of Verizon.
MBA opportunities include:
- Marketing MBA Internship
- MBA Business Transformation Internship
- MBA Finance Leadership Developmental Program
- MBA Marketing Leadership Developmental Program
- MBA Product Management and Strategy Internship
- Supply Chain MBA Internship
What Are These Jobs Like?
Let’s take a look at some of these Leadership Developmental Programs. The Supply Chain MBA Leadership Development Program is a two-year rotational program designed to develop future Supply Chain leaders at Verizon. MBAs work on projects that develop skills in supply chain, operations, strategic planning, and sustainability. Students in the Supply Chain MBA Leadership Development Program may be assigned to any of the following focus areas:
- Supplier Management
- Strategic Supply Chain Planning
- Inventory Management and Logistics
Meanwhile, the Marketing MBA Leadership Development Program challenges business students with high-impact projects that develop their skills in branding, product management, and marketing strategy. The two year rotational program is designed to develop skills in:
- Business or consumer product management
- Marketing strategy
- Marketing operations
- Branding
- Promotions
Who is Verizon Looking For in New Hires?
Verizon specifically states the type of candidates they are looking for in various job descriptions on the web. These jobs call for “a motivated self-starter” who is “never satisfied with the status quo.” The telecom giant seeks candidates who are always trying to beat a personal best and thrive in fast-paced environments where new challenges come up every day. Prospective hires should be flexible, dependable, and work well in varying environments.
It’s also a plus if any MBA internship candidate has:
- Proven record of academic, professional and leadership achievement
- Excellent organizational, analytical and critical thinking skills
- Strong quantitative and technical skills
- Great verbal, written, communication and presentation skills
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite
You can find more Verizon job opportunities here.
