Emanuela Frattini Magnusson

As the founder and president of her own architecture and design firm, EFM Design, Emanuela Frattini Magnusson enrolled in NYU Stern's Executive MBA program to improve her understanding of important business principles that affect her work on a daily basis, such as managing risk factors and understanding the impact of assets and liabilities. With high profile clients such as the Museum of Modern Art and Knoll, EFM Design is a growing company, in which Emanuela is able to directly apply concepts from her courses, such as utilizing regression analysis to project sales.

She chose NYU Stern's Executive MBA Program to take classes with other experienced professionals and because she wanted a program that embraced students with non-traditional backgrounds. Already holding a doctorate degree in architecture from Milan Polytechnic in Milan, Italy, Emanuela espouses the benefits of getting her MBA: "I get involved at different stages of the architectural design process, and each step has significant business implications. Having already gained some business acumen on-the-job, I was excited to build on that knowledge in areas such as financial analysis and its application throughout the strategic decision making process." Emanuela was accompanied in her classes by a number of other alumni from diverse backgrounds including several doctors, lawyers, researchers, entrepreneurs and students with PhDs.

Since graduating from the Executive MBA Program, Emanuela has expanded the scope of her work based on the relationships she's developed with the diverse set of senior executives in her classes. She and several alumni are now developing ideas about how to pool their talents and resources into common ventures. Emanuela explains, "This is a very exciting prospect for future opportunities that would not have presented itself without the networking and cross pollination of ideas that took place in class. It is about making connections not only to other people, but also to other industries."