Employment Reports | Focused MBA Stories

“While studying user experience design and entrepreneurship as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, I became captivated by the intersection of people and technology. I have since been able to explore and pursue this passion as a Venture for America fellow, working at a SaaS startup. I held numerous roles while working at the startup, which culminated with me beginning my career as a product manager. After several years, I realized that I needed to round out my business and technical acumen to continue growing as a PM. NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA, through its balance of business and tech, offered the perfect way for me to achieve this goal. I saw the MBA as an opportunity for me to continue my professional growth and move into a product role at a larger tech firm. During my time at Stern, the Office of Career Development was invaluable to my recruiting experience. It was with the career office’s help that I was able to focus my recruiting efforts, prepare for interviews, navigate offer negotiations, and ultimately accelerate my career as a Product Manager at HubSpot."

"I have worked and lived in several cities like London, Hong Kong and Singapore - but New York was always the dream. When I decided to pursue my MBA, the Fashion and Luxury MBA program was a natural fit, given my experience within the fashion and beauty industry. I ended up taking lots of tech classes like Data Driven Decision Making, which led me to the intersection of tech and retail. Graduating and recruiting during a pandemic definitely was challenging, but it forced me to narrow my search towards tech companies that were gaining momentum. The Office of Career Development was extremely helpful in guiding me through my search, and by leaning on the career team and the alumni network, I found my current role at 3DLOOK, an AI tech body measuring startup that uses machine learning to create unique 3D avatars, as the Director of Customer Success and Insights."

"I am currently working at Instacart, a company I love, in an industry I am passionate about, and doing exactly what I always wanted to do. However, two years ago, I would not have been able to put my current role description into words. Since my first day at Stern, the Office of Career Development team pushed me to question my future, what industry I see myself working, what role, and even brainstorm specific companies. I believe that the most important step to finding the right job is the strategic planning that precedes it. For me, it was not about applying to as many jobs as possible but rather prioritizing and understanding the path I wanted to take. Stern gave me the tools to understand the CPG and Retail industry, and helped me prioritize all the opportunities presented to me during my time as a student. Experiential learning courses, company visits, and even the chance to participate in competitions were vital to understand the industry and discover my true passion, and that is why I was able to begin my story with such a positive opening line."

“Technology is integrated into every facet of life, from the way we receive our news to monitoring our health to connecting with our loved ones. My fascination with technology started at a very young age; watching it evolve and change our world is inspiring to me. I loved understanding how things work and helping family and friends with technical issues they encountered. I knew that both teamwork and technology are the foundations on which I want to build my career. For that reason, being a Product Manager at a NYC startup was a great starting point for me. As my hunger for larger impact grew, I realized that I needed to expand my skills in entrepreneurship, management, and innovation on a global level. The NYU Stern Andre Koo Tech MBA program was exactly what I was looking for, as it focused on preparing me for ambiguous environments while creating career opportunities that allowed me to kickstart my development into the leader I want to become. When I received multiple job offers from competing companies, the Office of Career Development was instrumental in guiding me through the delicate process of weighing each offers’ pros and cons, communicating with the recruiters respectfully, and negotiating the final contract. I eventually received a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a positive impact on billions of people as I joined Meta's Integrity team as a Product Manager.”

"Public service in any form has always been important to me. After serving as an engineer in the U.S. Coast Guard for 9 years, I wanted to find an MBA program that would help me understand how to best leverage the intersection of business and technology to serve customers in the public sector. The only program that checked this box was NYU Stern's Andre Koo Tech MBA. Along with the coursework, which ranged from managerial accounting to machine learning and advanced networks, the focused MBA program offered an immersive environment to meet and connect with business professionals in New York City's burgeoning tech ecosystem. The Office of Career Development especially helped me realize that I wanted a role and company with the same sense of mission that I had while in the military. Their accessibility and guidance led me to accept an offer as a Product Manager at C3.ai, where I now manage the creation of artificial intelligence applications for aerospace and defense customers."

“Early on, there was a seed planted in my mind about the ‘randomness’ of widespread social and economic disadvantage. This was apparent in my own country of Argentina, and I came to the realization that businesses have a unique opportunity to leave a positive footprint by leveraging technology. Therefore, enrolling in Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program was a no-brainer because I could gain invaluable managerial and technical skills to tackle widespread social disadvantage head-on. The Office of Career Development has played an instrumental role in helping further define my career goals and identify a clear path in the short- and long-term to achieve them. The career team also helped me identify roles at companies that aligned with my career interests, which in turn helped me focus on the opportunities that mattered most to me. In my current role as Product Marketing Manager at Welcome (formerly NewsCred), I not only play a part in the positive impact our company has on our community, but also enable hundreds of other businesses to do the same. Stern’s Tech MBA and the career team allowed me to build the skill-set I needed to take the next professional step in my career, and leverage my skills to make a tangible difference.”

“From the moment I decided to pursue my MBA, I knew that I had to go somewhere where my differences would be embraced and empowered. On paper, I didn't feel like I fit the mold of an "MBA Student" - my undergraduate degree was in the arts, I was on the younger end of my class, and I was an out member of the LGBTQ+ community. However, what I ultimately found was that Stern's Andre Koo Tech MBA program not only welcomed all these differences, but also gave me the foundation to craft them into my greatest assets. Having held the positions of VP of Marketing at OutClass, Stern's Leadership Accelerator Fellow, and my cohort's Cohort Leader, I fine-tuned my marketing skills in an environment that strove to lift members of our community, facilitated trainings on storytelling, leveraged my artistic background in a way I had never done before, and exercised the importance of being a great people manager. These extracurricular activities allowed me to feel confident in who I was, while strengthening the skills I was learning in class. All of this paid off in my Digital Media Innovation class when the CEO of VidMob spoke to our class and said "We look for people who are both creative and tech-driven." It was a lightbulb moment I had been waiting to hear for years. And when I was offered the opportunity to take on a part-time internship during my fall semester, I immediately scheduled a meeting with a career coach at the Office of Career Development, who heard the passion in my voice and said "Go for it, Scot." That internship turned into a full-time offer from VidMob, and now I work as a Strategic Client Manager leading our Tech and Gaming vertical, where I synthesize data from our proprietary Creative Analytics platform into actionable campaign strategies for clients. As I look back on my time at Stern, the day that stands out the most to me is when I was given the honor to be a Commencement Speaker at Madison Square Garden. That day, I had the honor to represent my Tech MBA cohort in front of thousands of people to testify that Stern is a community where every individual belongs, and every individual excels.”

“I was a Product Manager before Stern and wanted to stay in Product after. I was often asked by my peers "Why are you doing this MBA, if you are already doing what you want to do?". In the words of Professor Nate Pettit, "What got you here, won't get you there." I knew I had strong execution prowess working across startups, but I felt I lacked the depth and grounding in broader business understanding in order to catapult me to the next level. The MBA for me, was a place of reflection, to more deeply understand my experiences from a new perspective so that I can make smarter and more intentional decisions. An example is in a past startup; I had to launch a brand new product, where I winged everything from pricing to go-to-market. I felt I had no idea what I was doing. At Stern, my classes in Pricing, Marketing, Leadership, Finance, and even unexpected fun ones at the Law school, taught me so much. My recruiting path towards Meta was an arduous 4 month process. The Office of Career Development organized critical PM Tech Interview workshops which changed the trajectory of my interview prep. They also were there for me in whatever way I needed, from providing uninterrupted interview spaces to behavioral mock interview support. Recruiting can be a long, lonely path, and I couldn't have done it without Stern alumni, peers, and the career office. As a product manager at Meta, I need to exercise every arsenal in my toolkit as I engage with cross functional teams from design, research, data science, engineering, and product marketing. Every time I encounter a new problem such as making a decision on where to invest, there are lectures flashing in my head of what I can pull from. I am a better product thinker because of Stern. More importantly, I am a better person and citizen of the world.”

“Before joining Stern, I worked in FinTech as a product manager at Goldman Sachs. Though tech and fashion are historically opposite worlds, the luxury fashion industry has seen a massive shift toward digital priorities and shares a common focus on customer and brand experiences. This motivated me to leverage my tech background into the fashion space, and Stern’s Fashion & Luxury MBA program opened this door. It broadened my knowledge of the fashion business, from supply chain to merchandising and marketing, and Stern’s alumni network and the Luxury Retail Club were essential in connecting me with industry professionals. Building a relationship with the alumni network gave me the opportunity to intern at PVH in the Tommy Hilfiger E-commerce team and the Corporate Digital Innovation team while completing my MBA and start my post-graduate career at Tapestry (Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman) in Digital Operations and Innovation. Now, I hold the position of Senior Manger, Global Innovation at Chanel.”

“Prior to Stern, I spent five years in the advertising industry building 360-degree brand and product launch campaigns. It was a dream job after undergrad, but I wanted to further my professional development and switch to the brand/client side with a company I was personally passionate about. I decided that getting my MBA would help me accomplish both goals. I came across Stern's Fashion & Luxury MBA program and was immediately hooked. I knew that it was the program for me given the balance of retail-specific coursework, exposure to a variety of companies and top industry leaders, and classmates with diverse professional and personal backgrounds. The program helped me overcome the challenge of switching industries in the absence of prior industry experience. Through three semester-long immersion projects, I was able to apply my coursework to solve business challenges in real-time. It was incredibly valuable to have multiple internship projects across the fashion and beauty space so that I could gain exposure to different types of companies and ultimately hone in on what I really wanted to pursue after graduation.”

“Prior to stern, I held various roles working in transportation and consumer electronics as an electrical engineer. Most recently, I was lucky enough to bump into some folks at a company called Cruise and got heavily involved in launching driverless vehicle programs to the public in the Bay Area. Over the years there, I worked in various capacities in operations, reliability engineering, and product as we scaled the fleet from 10s to 100s of driverless cars and scaled our team from 100s to 1000s of employees. After a few years, I decided it was time to hone in on my business and product skills with some formal education and was fortunate to find a home with the Stern Andre Koo Tech MBA program. For me, the Tech MBA was the perfect mix to get exposure to how businesses really work while allowing me to double down on my focus to become a broadly capable product manager. The Office of Career Development was there at every step of the process to help me figure out where I fit in and how to pursue my dream role. They were there for the broad conversations as a sounding board when I was focusing on a handful of product roles in the fall. They were even there in the spring to get into the minutia with me on all of the things we students tend to worry about in recruiting: when and how to send the perfect emails, how best to negotiate an offer, etc. Now, thanks to the many people who have supported me, I’m working at an e-commerce startup in New York City called Order where I lead automation work to better enable our internal operations and fulfillment teams. It seemed like a big stretch for me to jump from autonomous cars into e-commerce, but Stern helped me bridge the gap and gain the confidence I needed to turn my experiences into themes that are easily relatable across many industries as a product manager.”

"Having spent 8 years of my career as an Art Director and wanting to move into the fashion e-commerce industry, I knew I needed to make three strong pivots: Industry, Function, & Geography. The Fashion & Luxury MBA was the only program that promised such a jump. While I was confident in my ability to navigate parts of this new industry, I needed to enrich my creative capabilities with tools of business such as data analysis, decoding consumer psychography, and strategizing digital innovation, specifically in the luxury sector. Courses such as Luxury Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Data-Driven Decision Making & Digital Strategy really helped me develop the functional skills I needed to be successful in the profiles I was targeting. Also, working directly with senior leaders at influential organizations during our three Stern Solutions Experiential Learning projects opened doors for me to network directly with prospective hiring managers and showcase my abilities first-hand. I leaned on the Office Of Career Development to streamline my recruitment strategy and leveraged their expertise to structure my approach as an international candidate. A career coach helped me create an action plan, explore relevant resources, manage my time, stay on track and she supported me through the ups and downs. From my resume review through networking and finally, to negotiating my offer to join as a Senior Manager for Digital Marketing & E-Commerce at The Watches of Switzerland Group, the career office, faculty members, and my cohort at NYU Stern were all instrumental in my success story."