Educational background: Vassar College, International Relations
Current or most recent position: Hollingsworth & Vose Company, Director, New Markets
MIT Sloan projects and classes involved a significant amount of teamwork, ranging from writing a group strategy project and developing a group presentation, to playing a competitive marketing game as a team, to developing a new product in the product development class. All of these group experiences taught me the value of understanding your team members' abilities, objectives and motivations and how to work together to succeed at a particular task. This learning has been invaluable in developing successful new products, introducing novel concepts to management or getting a manufacturing facility to run difficult trials.
My MIT Sloan degree helped me professionally in many ways — I obtained the type of position I wanted after graduation, learned some key skills and methods of attacking problems, and was exposed to many international students from whom I could gain exposure to multiple cultures in one location. Personally, it enhanced my confidence tremendously — an intangible, but powerful benefit. I have worked with engineers and scientists since MIT Sloan, and do not have a technical undergraduate degree. The MIT Sloan name provides a level of technical credibility that I have found valuable.
Specifically, my current position has involved evaluating new markets and technologies. In doing so, I often need to gain a significant amount of information in a short time about a product or industry with which I have minimal familiarity. I have often tapped into the MIT Sloan database to query an alum about a new market, how a product works, or to gain contacts to gather further information. I have found MIT Sloan alums to go out of their way to assist me.
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