The Big Payback: The Highest Paying Jobs for MBAs
Even in 2019, the search for the right MBA program is as unique as each student, and the reasons for applying are as varied as the programs themselves. Advancement in an existing career is an obvious motivation, as is breaking into a new industry or shifting one’s career focus.
One thing that all MBAs can likely agree with, however, is that earning potential is a leading incentive. This brings up questions about the most lucrative fields. Choosing the right concentration can be the first step toward achieving a position that will truly pay off. The following is a look at the current highest paying jobs for MBAs, as well as the majors that can open the necessary doors.
The Highest Paying Jobs for MBAs
Topping the list of the highest paid professions for MBAs in 2018 is strategic management. This specialization leads the way in terms of early to mid career salary, with salary averages beginning at around $125,000. Professionals with this degree and concentration earned $148,000 at the mid-point of their careers. Among the career functions for MBAs with a strategy focus are management consultant, senior strategy manager, senior product manager. Google, Amazon, PwC, and Intel are among the companies hiring for strategic management based positions.
Second on the list of highest paying MBA careers is technology management, which for many grows out of a background in IT or software development. According to Monster.com, tech management careers can start at around $113,000 per year, and advancement leads to a jump to upwards of $165,000. Roles such as senior project manager, vice president of IT, and IT director all emerge from a tech background. Companies such as Accenture, Deloitte, Cisco Systems, and HP all offer leading starting salaries in the IT management field.
Entrepreneurship also falls into the top three earning fields for MBAs. Starting salaries, according to data gathered from PayScale, hover around $100,000 per year, and reach up to around $135,000. Such roles as senior project manager and management consultant are options in the entrepreneurial field, as are various leadership roles in the growing fintech industry. Top hiring companies for entrepreneurship MBAs, according to PayScale, are Amazon, IBM, General Electric, and the Boeing Company.
A career in finance is the fourth of the highest paying categories for MBAs, with a starting salary hovering in the $100,000 range. Those with their sights upon chief financial officer, portfolio management, or financial management positions can hope to land jobs in this arena with high earning power. New York Life Insurance, Fidelity Investments, and Vanguard are currently seeking MBAs for various finance positions.
Along with strategy, tech management, entrepreneurship, and finance, marketing ranks among the most lucrative fields for MBAs. While some marketing jobs do not require an MBA, one can see a wider, more profitable range of options with a specialized study in marketing. Upper level marketing positions can start at around $80,000 per year, and can grow well above $120,000. Current listings for MBAs with a marketing focus include Dell, Microsoft, and, of course, Amazon.
The Muddled World of Leadership Cliches, and More – Philadelphia News
As November draws to a close, let’s take a look at some of the biggest business school stories coming out of Philadelphia business schools this week.
Three Big Leadership Clichés – and How to Rethink Them – LinkedIn
Geoffrey Garrett, Dean of The Wharton School and official LinkedIn “Influencer,” recently took to the social media site to talk about the gamut of leadership cliches that dominate the conversation around those roles.
In a conversation with a group of upper-level executives at the Wharton CEO Academy in New York, Garrett pivoted away from the following three cliches, turning them into something more modern, useful, and promising:
1.) Stick to your guns
2.) Question everything
3.) It’s a marathon, not a sprint
On sticking to one’s guns, Garrett emphasizes certain elements of 1980s corporate and political culture that found esteeming value when a leader does not waver on their principles. “Sticking to your guns is valued because it signals strength, courage and commitment under adversity, which is why we so often think about war heroes in this way,” he says.
He notes, however, that there is value in knowing when to “fold ’em” with a key Kenny Rogers reference in tow. “There is no simple score sheet to tell you when the positives from sticking to your guns become outweighed by the negatives. But the world is littered with examples where leaders wait too long to make the switch. Think General Lee’s historic defeat at Gettysburg in the American Civil War, Jeff Immelt at GE or John Chambers at Cisco,” Garrett continues.
“Most leaders will change course eventually because there is not much valor in heroic defeats. But the best leaders will change course long before the writing is on the wall. Compare the demise of Kodak with the transformation of IBM. But how do you know when the writing is on the wall? The answer is judgment, arguably the most valuable trait in a leader. It’s easy to recognize in hindsight, because good leaders make good decisions—the definition of good judgment.”
To see the rest of Garrett’s advice on leadership cliches, head over to LinkedIn.
Drexel Students Win Second Annual Diversity Case Competition – Drexel LeBow News
Students from the Drexel University LeBow College of Business brought home a brand new title as winners of the second annual Diversity and Inclusion Business Case Competition.
Drexel LeBow defeated 11 other local challenging universities in a competition with a goal to “help create a diversity training protocol for Home Away From Home, a global hotel chain,” according to the business school.
Winners from the LeBow College of Business at the second annual Diversity and Inclusion Business Case Competition / Photo via lebow.drexel.edu
The LeBow team of “Johnny Zhu, Kimberly Gain, Stephanie Arredondo, and Rachael Wright” nabbed first place with their curiously-titled “Raising Our One Family (ROOF)” strategy. Zhu explains, “ROOF stands for the overall company-wide training, which is rolled out in the form of top-down management and tailored to individual locations, corporate level, and field level. This proposal is not a mold, but a 360-integrated training approach where as a family, employees are living out the mindset of diversity and inclusion, not only to guests but to each other as well.”
To learn more about the Drexel LeBow team and the case competition, click here.
The Bizarre Bias That Affects How You Shop – BBC
The work of Beth Vallen, a researcher at the Villanova School of Business, was recently highlighted by author Martha Henriques in the BBC regarding just how pervasive “anti-fat” bias can be.
Henriques notes that overweight people tend to statistically suffer when it comes to things like job offerings, and even get less eye-contact than people of average weight and size. It is perhaps not so surprising to find that business models are often altered for overweight people.
In “Shape and Trait‐Congruency: Using Appearance‐based Cues as a Basis for Product Recommendations,” a new study authored by Vallen and colleagues Karthik Sridhar, Dan Rubin, Veronika Ilyuk, Lauren G. Block, and Jennifer J. Argo—published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology—found that overweight customers were offered more products that resembled their body types, even if the products, such as bottles of perfume, were not wearable.
Speaking with Henriques, Vallen says, “Our thinking was these subtle prejudices that lead to these effects are based on something more than superficial shape-matching.”
“We wanted to show that this was a bias that reflects the thoughts and decisions processes of all people, not just sales people.”
To read more about the study, head over to the BBC website and the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Lehigh MBA Success, and More – New York City News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Extraordinary Outcomes for Lehigh’s 1-MBA and M2 Programs – Lehigh College of Business and Economics
This past spring saw Lehigh graduates from the College of Business and Economics’ inaugural 1-MBA (1-year full-time MBA) cohort, as well as the third cohort of its M2 (MS in Management) complete the transition from the classroom to the boardroom.
Employers like Tesla, QVC, and Hubspot snatched up 1-MBA graduates while Amazon, Bloomberg, IBM, KPMG, and more extended offers to nearly 80 percent of M2 graduates. This statistic is very much in line with figures from the 2017 graduates of the M2 program—96 percent of which were employed within three months of graduation by the likes of Deloitte, Vanguard, IBM, and Amazon.
You can read more about the recently Lehigh MBA success here.
School of Management Students Provide Support to Businesses Looking to Export – Binghamton SOM Blog
This semester, Binghamton SOM students took part in the six-month ExportNY “Launch into the Global Marketplace” program, a unique offering that adjunct assistant professor founding director of the Center for International Business Advancement (CIBA) Elena Iankova developed to help give “regional businesses [the] knowledge and resources needed to export their products.”
The basic idea that underlies the “Launch into the Global Marketplace” program is that students research, consult, and support the export plans of participating businesses. Iankova explains: “It’s a two-way street. The students provide the companies research assistance and consultation, and the companies provide the students real-life experiential learning opportunities, helping them develop their management research and consulting skills.”
The program is a partnership between the CIBA and the Alliance for Manufacturing & Technology (AM&T), the Global New York Program of Empire State Development, and the U.S. Commercial Service and the Small Business Administration.
One of the participating companies, Awestruck Ciders, “produces hard ciders from NY state apples” and hopes to export its product to the South African market. Co-founder Patti Wilcox writes: “We think it’s important to the local economy to expand our view of the market on a global scale. We’re fascinated by this idea of an international cultural exchange, and we think doing so commercially is very valuable.”
You can read more about the program here.
The Endless Scroll: How to Tell if You’re a Tech Addict – PC Mag
Just recently, PC Mag dropped its lengthy article “The Endless Scroll: How to Tell if You’re a Tech Addict,” written by Rob Marvin.
In the piece, Marvin highlights Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked from NYU Stern School of Business professor Adam Alter, who doesn’t mince his words when it comes to tech addiction.
“There’s a myth that there’s something different about people with addictions from people without addictions,” Alter explained in his interview with Marvin. “Right now, if you are a person who doesn’t have an addiction, does that make you in some qualitative or categorical way different from people who do? The more I’ve studied this, the more I realized that just isn’t true.”
“Right now, if you are a person who doesn’t have an addiction, does that make you in some qualitative or categorical way different from people who do? The more I’ve studied this, the more I realized that just isn’t true.” – NYU Stern professor Adam Alter, interviewed by PC Mag / Photo via PC Mag
You can read more from Marvin’s excellent piece, out now, over at PC Mag.
Getting Paid: The Highest MBA Salaries in Philadelphia
Philadelphia: The City of Brotherly Love—or shove, depending on which out-of-town sports jersey you might be wearing out in public.
LeBow Students Begin Customized MBA Program
Almost three-dozen LeBow College of Business students have begun a customized two-year MBA program. These students were selected by Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment management companies, to attend the program. Students joined several Vanguard employees in this customized program.
Drexel LeBow is delivering the course at the business college’s campus in Malvern. The program began with a four-day residency at which Vanguard chairman and CEO Bill McNabb welcomed the students and described why the investment firm chose Drexel’s LeBow College of Business Corporate and Executive Education to provide the customized MBA program.
Vanguard Chairman and CEO Bill McNabb Delivered Keynote at Drexel University’s LeBow School of Business Academic Conference
Chairman and CEO of the Vanguard Group Bill McNabb III delivered the keynote address at the Center for Corporate Governance (CCG) 2014 Academic Conference held at LeBow College of Business at Drexel University on April 25. Drexel faculty along with national and international academics participated in the conference.
In his address, McNabb spoke about the six key principles of responsible corporate governance that Vanguard adheres to and advocates by the companies in which their funds invest. Independent oversight, accountability, engagement, sensible compensation tied to performance, shareholder voting rights consistent with economic interests and minimal anti-takeover devices and annual direct elections serve to inform and influence Vanguard’s views on corporate governance. These principles highlighted the themes of many papers discussed at the conference. Continue reading…
