Knowing that I wanted to be an entrepreneur in the future, one of the main criteria I had in choosing an MBA program was that I wanted it had to have an entrepreneurial focus. MIT Sloan has a program called entrepreneurship and innovation (E&I) and though I didn't get a chance to participate in that program, what I found really interesting is that there are still a lot of opportunities for me to learn about and gain experience with entrepreneurship. There are competitions like the $100K, and there are so many brilliant individuals within the MIT campus that you can team up with any time you have a project. So many people here have really great ideas that are just waiting to be commercialized, and to actually be part of a school that fosters and supports that type of atmosphere is really quite amazing for me. It is a breeding ground for all types of big firms.
In the future I would like to work for five or ten years in Hong Kong, establish my reputation, establish my network, and then move on to begin my own company. I want to be in Hong Kong because it will give me good leverage toward China, where I think the most growth will be over the next few years, but because my network is strongest in the Philippines, where I was raised, it makes sense for me to return there. What I envision is that my business would eventually be set up like a multi-national with interests in both Hong Kong and the Philippines.
What first drew me to the Sloan Women in Management club was that I really liked their goal to develop leaders and career led women in the MBA program and to assist them as they move on in their respective careers. For me that is a very noble purpose and it was aligned with my own values, so it immediately struck me as something I wanted to be involved in. The first role I was given was to work on the membership side, and that led me to run for a VP position and ultimately for my current position as co-president.
As I move forward in my career I want to stay involved with Sloan Women in Management because though the MBA program is only two years long, it is really a lifetime community that MIT Sloan gives you and that for me is something I want to treasure and cultivate. One of the events that Sloan Women in Management holds is a speaker series, which essentially brings in Women from different industries around the world. We brought in people from Time Warner and from Amazon and Xerox who graduated from Sloan to describe how the MBA program shaped their careers, or how they manage their work/life balance. This is something that is a very powerful tool in helping women shape their careers and shape what they want to do with their lives, and I would love to continue to be a part of that.
© 2013 MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT