How do you plan to use the Wharton MBA program to help you achieve your future professional goals? (2022)
How do you plan to use the Wharton MBA program to help you achieve your future professional goals?
My seven-year tenure as an investment banker has proven to be a full-scale indoctrination into the widget market. Through involvement in over 300 closed deals and the instrumental role I have played in sourcing and business development, I have become an expert in a range of widget market sub-segments. What’s been most compelling, however, is the immersion I’ve taken into our clients, deeply analyzing them beyond their financials, into product, technology, market, and other functional areas. While this has helped position our clients in transactions, I believe the affinity I have for holistically mastering these businesses can be most impactful in a role where I can support operational decision-making to create value over a longer-term.
I am particularly drawn to private equity investing in the widget start-up market, focusing specifically on companies who have encountered challenges scaling beyond the million-dollar level. It is these low-performing businesses, whose stalled growth means they are neglected by traditional VC / PE investment outlets, that will benefit most from the cross-functional guidance I will bring to the table. Leveraging a proprietary playbook purpose-built for re-igniting growth in stalled widget companies, I hope to re-open exit opportunities for the founding teams whose passionate vision originally brought these compelling widgets to life.
While my long-term goal is to raise a fund aimed at widget industry growth, I envision two necessary short-term steps first. Immediately post-MBA, I intend to seek a role at a leading private equity firm to solidify my grasp of investing principles. Following this, I believe acquiring and operating a single widget company through a search fund will prove invaluable in rounding out the operational nuances of my playbook, before applying my strategy to a larger portfolio of companies.
I will use the Wharton MBA to help me realize this vision. First, the Wharton curriculum directly addresses multiple core elements of this strategy. Within the Entrepreneurship & Innovation department, widget-focused courses will cement the approach inherent to developing operational playbooks, while management courses will strengthen strategic decision-making principles needed to guide my portfolio, and finance courses will fill gaps on the “deal” side I haven’t previously been exposed to in investment banking. Working within the Learning Team will be a fantastic opportunity to refine my own leadership style and collaborative in an environment similar to the active board role I will have post-MBA.
Wharton San Francisco’s offerings uniquely complement this curriculum with practical learning opportunities applied to the Silicon Valley widget hotbed. Through the Semester in SF program, I will have access to widget industry thought leaders along with the Wharton faculty and network in the Bay Area. Supplementing these learnings with workshops at Wharton Scale School will be highly instrumental towards testing and solidifying the nuances of my widget-development strategy.
Between recruiting opportunities through the Wharton Widget Club and the extensive cohort of Wharton MBAs in the Widget Tech community, I am confident the Wharton network will open doors for me to secure my desired post-MBA role and realize my long-term fund goals.