View this collection of shared Booth moments. Choose the moment that best resonates with you and tell us why.

The moment showing XXX (’10) standing on the NYSE floor to ring the opening bell for YYY"s IPO resonates with me the most, as my goal is to transform my family’s business, take it public, and expand it into a multinational information intelligence corporation. Entrepreneurism is in my blood. My parents were able to build one of the premier pre-publishing service companies in Australia amid a rapidly changing economy because they innovated faster than competitors. I definitely inherited their competitiveness and persistence, and as such have always tried to find ways to challenge myself throughout my professional career.

For example, last year I was intent on finding ways to expand my family’s business when an idea came to me: since we were already processing printed books for publishers, why not add another revenue stream by converting those products into e-books? So I started the e-publishing service division. Our biggest challenge: Due to compatibility problems with international formatting software, there were no tools available to convert the print-formatting files to e-book files automatically. We first approached the challenge manually. However, the labor-intensive procedure bothered me—I knew our competitors could replicate it. So I set up a team of four experienced formatting technicians and one developer to build an automated e-book conversion tool. I gathered everyone in a conference room and kicked off a brainstorming session, taking down everyone’s points across three categories: ideas, problems and actions. I also encouraged my team to challenge each other’s assumptions and keep our focus on the clients and users. During this discussion, the developer realized how obstacles he once considered insurmountable could be solved. In the following months, I set practical yet challenging goals, mobilized internal support, and helped the team push through difficulties. When we encountered technical problems that could not be solved internally, I connected my team with outside experts and contacts at data-science startups so they could get inspired both strategically and technically.

Eventually, we reworked our entire process by putting e-book preparation work ahead of print-formatting, and have since earned more than 1M AUD in additional revenue through the customizable conversion tool we launched last year. This conversion tool thrilled our publishing clients, as we could now simultaneously deliver both printable and e-book versions of their products.

Some challenges I have taken on I did not see coming. Earlier this year, several top employees in our formatting division quit suddenly. It was terrifying, especially when other employees started to question the company's stability. I knew I needed to immediately allay their concerns. I called all managers into a meeting and talked candidly about the situation. I presented our company’s healthy financials, discussed my vision for exponential growth in the e-publishing services, and explained the benefits of staying with the company. I asked managers to communicate the same information to their teams. Then, Human Resources and I interviewed our best people to get their feedback. My assumption that employees would be satisfied with fair evaluations and high wages was totally wrong. I learned that sometimes people value fun company outings, a bonus day off to be with their kids, or a sense of belonging more than higher pay. So I renovated our employees’ benefits plan: we now hold birthday parties for employees, provide better (and free) lunches, reward flexible working time to senior employees, organize team-building outings and prepare gifts for employees’ ready-for-school kids. No senior employee has left the company since we implemented these changes, and we also managed to win back one of the formatting-division employees who had quit.

I remain motivated to keep improving our human resource capabilities, and look forward to learning more techniques through Booth’s organizational behavior courses, such as Managing in Organizations.

Over the past few years I have also come to realize that most major publishers I work with have their own set of serious challenges. Most don’t have the strategies or capabilities to process, analyze or leverage their rich digital content and user information, nor can they find suitable partners to solve these problems. For example, one of my clients spent millions to build a database of its published books. But the database was nothing more than a storage platform: all of its high school textbook content is simply held in this database without generating additional value. My vision is that this publisher should be able to combine sales data with an analysis of its content in order to design teaching, assignment and grading mechanisms that would not only benefit teachers and students, but also help the company organize, create and personalize future textbook content.

That is why my ultimate career goal is to be the CEO of my family business and transform and expand it into a company such as XXX or YYY Group, that can provide analytics and information solutions for individuals, businesses and society at large. The moment of ringing the opening bell for our IPO would be a major milestone on the path to achieving my vision. However, in order to effectively scale and lead an organization in transition, I still need to develop my leadership style and entrepreneurial skills, especially in the areas of human resources and marketing. This is why I want to pursue an MBA at Chicago Booth. Booth’s flexible curriculum and belief in taking an analytical approach will allow me to prepare for future challenges with personalized courses and practices. I’ll definitely take Data-Driven Marketing with Professor XXX to explore how to leverage innovative tools and digital technologies to help me make marketing decisions in the future. I am also excited to gain hands-on experience in refining market positioning, optimizing resources and enhancing a company’s culture through Professor YYY Building the New Venture. In addition, I plan to challenge myself to improve my interpersonal effectiveness and hone my leadership style through the LEAD program.

Outside of class, I intend to participate in the Marketing Analytics Summit Competition to apply marketing lessons to real-world challenges. I will take the opportunity to visit technology companies and get inspired by industry leaders during Tech Treks through the Booth Technology Group. Further, I’ll attend the Management Conference to keep abreast of new business research and applications; participate in networking events to learn from entrepreneurs such as XXX and seek an internship at a promising startup in Chicago (such as YYY) in order to gain experience using information analytics to generate more value for businesses.

At Booth’s Sydney admissions event, I was deeply impressed by the alumni’s desire to make an impact on their corporations, as well as their support of each other in achieving both personal and professional goals. I look forward to fostering these same kinds of lifelong friendships while also transforming into a future business leader during my time at Booth.