Alumni in the Spotlight – Patrick Yau
Patrick Yau, Cohort 44, May 2009
Job Title: Business Analyst for the Strategic Sourcing and Global Logistics Department. (Dole Food Company, World Headquarters).
Responsibilities: – Directly support the VP of Strategic Sourcing and the VP of Global Logistics. Responsible for cost savings projects, supplier negotiations, financial analysis, cost-benefit analysis, supplier performance management, commodity hedging and corporate reporting. Gathering and preparing information for corporate earnings calls and financial reports such as the 10-Q and 10-K.
Personal: I continue to dance salsa for fun and serve as a big brother in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Ventura County. I recently started training Kung Fu and Dole is sponsoring my participation in finance certification at a UCLA Extension.
“The MSGL program gave me a good foundation in project management. These skills became critical in my most recent cost reduction project where I worked as project manager. Skill sets I learned in the MSGL program also aided me in strategic business planning, supplier negotiations and internal change management.”
More alumni profiles of MS in Global Leadership graduates can be found on our website.
Alumni in the Spotlight – Cara Cerutti-Holmes
This is the first of a series of short spotlight articles on our incredibly interesting alumni. First up, Cara Cerutti-Holmes!
Cara Cerutti-Holmes, Cohort 48 , August 2010
- Job Title: Senior Consultant and Financial Analyst, Booz Allen Hamilton
- Responsibilities: Lead financial analyst for the integration and coordination of PEOC4I equipment aboard new construction aircraft carriers; which entails the planning, negotiation, execution and tracking of 43 communication systems across 3 carriers totaling approximately $350M.
- Personal: “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” — Michelangelo Buonarroti
”The MSGL program provided me the credentials, the network and more importantly – the confidence, to recognize opportunities within the community and take action. You’d be surprised how many people are looking to support a cause… all they need are trustworthy and passionate leaders.”
More alumni profiles of MS in Global Leadership graduates can be found on our website.
Thoughts from Singapore
Every year military officers face the end of their obligated service and have to make a decision about what to do with the rest of their lives – this is where I was in 2004. I was an instructor at HSM-41, and was facing my end of obligated service in 2006 and had to decide what I was going to do. A number of my fellow instructors had taken MSGL, so I looked into it and decided to enroll. Little did I know at the time, that decision would shape the rest of my career and ultimately result in me staying in the Navy.
MSGL was a little bit of a culture shock for me, as my undergrad degree was in Aerospace Engineering – not exactly a degree that requires a lot of writing. Fortunately, I was able to turn on the liberal arts side of my brain, and I graduated from MSGL Cohort 14 in November 2005. The course opened up new possibilities for me, and I was fairly certain I wanted my future career to be with the State Department or at least involve having an impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. My fear was the same as most facing leaving the Navy – I would be leaving a very comfortable position as an O-3/O-4 and taking a significant cut in pay and responsibilities to become a desk officer and work my way up in a brand-new system. Fortunately, the Navy came to the rescue by resurrecting the Foreign Area Officer community.
In 2006 I applied for lateral transfer and successfully transitioned to FAO. This transition afforded me the opportunity to go to Naval Postgraduate School and earn a second Masters in Regional Security Studies (the FAO community now accepts MSGL as a compatible International Relations Masters degree, but I am not complaining about the extra education – and location!). Following NPS, I attended the Defense Language Institute for the 50-week course in Mandarin. I highly recommend DLI for anyone who has the opportunity to attend, however it is without a doubt the most difficult course of study I have ever undertaken. Of course, I was learning a language that does not have an alphabet, and was already in my mid-30s – and any education expert will tell you learning a language becomes exponentially more difficult the older you get.
After graduation from DLI I was transferred to Singapore, where I am currently stationed at the U.S. Embassy in the Office of Defense Cooperation. I am in charge of the Navy Programs in Security Cooperation which affords me the opportunity to interact with the Singapore Armed Forces on a daily basis. Singapore is also a great location from which to see the rest of Southeast Asia, so personal travel is definitely on my agenda during this tour. The USD Global Leadership conference in Beijing in June 2010 allowed me to reconnect with fellow MSGL alumni, and brush up on my Chinese speaking – always a humbling experience.
MSGL Graduate Stacey Prescott
I truly love where I am living and the job that I am doing, and cannot wait to see what opportunities await.
Four Leadership Lessons from the Chilean Miner Rescue (via (Not so) Deep Thoughts)
A Bubblehead-Triathlete’s Perspective of the MSGL
It’s Friday, September 24th, I’m currently sitting in seat 13F on a flight from Providence to San Diego, and cruising at about 35000 feet…going to see a few friends and attend the TEDx La Jolla event. The view is great. I’ve had some time to reflect a bit since the August 6th graduation with MSGL Cohort 48 (be patient, the link take a few seconds to load), and I’d like to briefly share some thoughts on my USD experience and more with you here.
First, why the MSGL? – I can honestly say that I found the perfect fit for what I was looking for in a graduate program – my priorities were met, my career interests have grown exponentially, and I’ve made some incredible friendships through it all. The entering argument for me was a program in or near San Diego, with a flexible schedule, and offered something different than a traditional MBA track. I have an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a significant amount of nuclear engineering training through my time in the Navy, so I sought intellectual balance through a business degree. My family and friends often asked me, “Why don’t you just get an MBA?” – and effectively answered their own question. While there is nothing wrong with that and I know many people who have an MBA (as I would bet you do too!), I sought a unique degree and curriculum that would not brand me as simply one of many. Well, I got everything that I wanted out of it and I look forward to answering that specific job interview question some day – “What’s this MSGL all about?” The study abroad options are phenomenal too. I chose to participate in two 2-week courses – one in Argentina and another in Spain & Morocco. Both of these expeditions were incredible, enriching, and have forever impacted my worldview. There are also tons of extra activities to get involved with around the program. I was a member of the USD Entrepreneurship Club, attended many of the GBSA events, was inspired by the action sports innovator panelists at IPJ, and sat in on guest lectures throughout the 16-month program. Without attempting to rewrite the official party tagline, the MSGL will provide you with a unique global perspective on business leadership and empower you to be a leader in your organization as well as in your personal life.
So, where am I now and what’s the next adventure? – I’m currently a student at Submarine Officer Advanced Course in Groton, CT. Yes, directly from one school to the next…this one is a bit different though. I’m a submarine Lieutenant and Navy SCUBA diver and I’m about to embark on a department head tour as the Navigation & Operations Officer on the USS Nebraska (SSBN 739) gold crew in Bangor, WA. This is a Trident-missile, nuclear-powered submarine. It’s the next step in my Naval career and I know without a doubt that my MSGL experience will add to this adventure and enable me to be a more capable leader. As for the submarine school, there are many recent and significant changes to mention here that can parallel with my graduate education experience. The class, which is comprised of 22 submarine officers, is the first to go through the newly designed curriculum model. The submarine leadership has decided, with the help of student feedback and several unfortunate and very publicized recent fleet incidents, to completely revamp the course. It’s now 6 months long (was ~5) and has shifted to more of an adult learning style. What this translates into is less direct instruction through the dreaded death by PowerPoint that too many of us have become so familiar with – and more towards self-study, practical application evaluations, discussions/seminars, and student-prepared presentations. Along with most change comes some growing pains with trying to find the correct balance, but I feel that this can only be a good thing for the future and I’m glad that our leaders have made this necessary adjustment. Actually, the submarine force is going through a great deal of change with the addition of women to the wardrooms and the cessation of smoking onboard all submarines by the end of this year.
While I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay on the “Navy train”, I do feel confident that the combination of the MSGL degree with my experience in the military has prepared me for many future opportunities. You don’t have to look very far to see that there’s a worldwide leadership crisis unfolding and there are many difficult issues to deal with that affect us all on a daily basis. I hope that I can somehow have a small impact on this in a positive manner and do what I can to help. Whether with my current employer or not, I ultimately want to return to San Diego. It’s the place that I love more than any other. I’m interested in alternative/renewable energy, mobile technology and the Internet, biotech, and finance. I also love competing in triathlons.
Finally, as for my advice to those reading this who are considering the MSGL – it’s challenging, rewarding, offers a unique work/life/school balance, has great study abroad options, brings together many intelligent military and corporate professionals in a classroom setting, and is absolutely worth it. The choice is obviously yours, but I hope this has helped to shed some light, albeit in a small way, on a little known but well worth the attention program. If you have questions for me or of my experiences in the program, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Best of luck in your endeavors!
MS in Global Leadership Student Featured on CNNMoney.com
MS in Global Leadership Cohort 51 Student Brian Higgins was recently featured in a CNN Money article about personal investing.
Brian says, “I know the current market will probably go down in the short-term, but I’m focused on strategy for the long run, and this is a great opportunity for someone at my age to buy low and sell high in the future.
Since I have a stable job, I’m not too worried about the market volatility or the economy, but I can understand how people who have job trouble might hold back. Even if we have a double dip recession, I have over 25 years to hold stocks until they recover, and if the stock market history tells us anything, I suspect they will far surpass their current price levels.
I’m confident the economy will pick back up. But of course I’m not putting everything in the U.S. I am also investing overseas, with a focus on China, Brazil, and India.”
Nice work, Brian! We’re sure your finance professors would be proud – especially with the international focus of your investing.
The Next Chapter
Life has a tendency to throw you various curve balls that put things into perspective. As I reached my 4-year anniversary at Bank of America, I realized that my career wasn’t going in the direction I had hoped and it wasn’t something I was passionate about. The one thing I knew was that I wanted to go to business school and broaden my understanding of international affairs. I looked at various MBA curricula and in my search I discovered the MS in Global Leadership program. What sparked my interest was that this program was a combination of traditional MBA style course work with an emphasis on ethics, leadership, and culture. I applied and began my journey through Aristotelian concepts of ethics and leadership, cultural considerations of doing business abroad, to understanding the fundamentals of project management, business strategy, and finance. Through these various courses, I was able to take the theoretical frameworks and transform them into practical applications in the business world.
As my scholastic life began to transition so did my understanding of what I wanted to do professionally. The MSGL program opened my eyes to see the business world through a different lens, something that was entirely different than the corporate hierarchal framework I was used to. I started applying for positions in California that I felt would allow me to be utilize my degree while still being able to be creative, flexible, and innovative in some kind of cultural or international capacity. I began the gruesome task of interviewing with multiple companies that I felt were a great fit with my personality and what I believed represented my future career path.
On Monday of my final week in the MSGL program, I landed a job at Intuit, a global software company, headquartered in Mountain View, CA, working in a creative environment that connected me with various people and cultures from around the world. I’m sure that there were multiple candidates that applied for this position, including traditional MBA’s but I really felt that the MSGL program allowed me to stand out from the crowd and get my foot in the door. What helped me land the job was not only my professional experience but also my educational background because I was able to provide Intuit with a global mindset.
As our world becomes increasingly flattened, as Thomas Friedman would say, we all have to understand how quickly technology is taking us from an 8 to 5 behind a desk job to a more virtual and international environment. We have now come to a pivotal point in our decade where the traditional job is not so traditional anymore. The MSGL program gave me the tools to face this reality and become successful. All the academic and mental challenges, professor influence, and group interactions both in class, virtually, or in the study abroad program helped me grow from a person who was once content with just having a job to someone who is inspired and now wants to learn more about how social, political and economic challenges affects business interactions and how I can utilize my experience in MSGL to become a visionary leader in my personal and professional lives.
Henry Thoreau once said, “ Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” I am awake and beginning a life long dream.
Bridget Lopez is a University of San Diego graduate of Cohort 48 and works for global software giant Intuit, Inc.
MSGL Student Makes a Difference in Southest Asia
MSGL students have a lot going on. In addition to school, many of us are juggling work, family, church, social lives and hobbies. I add Navy Reservist to my list of extracurriculars and just performed my “two weeks a year” in Cambodia. My mission was to provide contracting support for the USNS Mercy, the Military Sealift Command (MSC) hospital ship homeported in San Diego, for the Cambodian portion of Pacific Partnership 2010 (PP10). PP10 is the fifth in a series of humanitarian efforts aimed at strengthening regional relationships in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Amy Seiberlich, MSGL Cohort 51 student and Lieutenant in the US Navy Reserve, returning from a visit to the USNS Mercy at anchor near Sihanoukville, Cambodia.
Read the full story about the Navy’s mission in Southeast Asia.
Although excited to visit a new country, I was concerned about falling behind in my course work, especially with a big team presentation coming up. I shouldn’t have worried because the MSGL program is designed for busy lives and global learning. I was able to keep in touch with my team using email and Google Docs plus all the online lectures where archived so I could watch them in my time zone! I’ve never been a big fan of working in teams but this has been a great experience. Being able to rely on others when you aren’t able to give 100% (and who can ALL the time?) really takes some of the pressure off.
And what about Cambodia? Let’s just say working with so many diverse people really gave me the chance to apply some of my newly acquired MSGL skills!
MSGL Does Madrid and Marrakesh – Part I
Let’s start with Madrid.
Well, this was quite a country to start our trip! There was a good group of us on this trip – we had classmates from the University of San Diego’s MS in Global Leadership program Cohorts 48, 49 and 50, as well as a mix of MBA and IMBA students. Most of us arrived already jet-lagged, dragging our suitcases from taxis or the metro (that was Dave Mahoney, C49, feeling adventurous), but we were all ready to learn – both inside and outside of the classroom.
In Class: At the Instituto de Empresa
The MSGL students were taking International Comparative Management with Dr. Dimon, in place of MSGL 503. The location of the school was very convenient – a few blocks away from our hotel, and close to the metro. The week began with a great speaker, Professor Gayle Allard of the Instituto de Empresa, who offered insight on the Spanish economy and culture. She discussed how the country fell into its current economic state with record unemployment, and discussed how culture can play a role in either its continued decline or its recovery.
Outside of Class: Bike Tour, Tapas, Exploring, Sangria…
Madrid is a fantastic city to explore, especially with the convenience of the metro system and a good pair of walking shoes. However, our group discovered the city through a 3-hour bike tour. We actually hopped on bikes and toured the streets – sometimes a little closer to the cars than necessary, and helmets? what helmets? – visiting all of the sights – from the Palace, to the major plazas, to famous landmarks and areas of town the guide recommended we return to for the nightlife.
And yes, there was some partaking in the nightlife. MSGL students appreciate the full global experience, right? Local beverages were sampled, the Spanish economy was stirred … and we all made it to class the next day. Go team.
Company Tour: Santander Bank
Our time in Madrid also included a visit to the Santander Bank, one of the largest banks in the world, headquartered at a huge compound about 45 minutes outside of the city. We met with some of the leadership there, who discussed the bank’s global capacities. However, nearly as interesting were the Ferrari robots in the lobby designed to escort people around the complex. We weren’t so lucky – we got a real person – but that would have been another blog post altogether.
After the Santander visit, the bus dropped us off at the Prado Museum, where we spent the afternoon.
When our week in Madrid was over, we headed off to Granada for the weekend for a tour of the Alhambra. After that, onward to Africa.
Up next… Morocco: Snake Charmers, a Beautiful Riad, Negotiations in the Souk – stay tuned!
Natalie Zacharia is a member of Cohort 49 and is also a Marketing Consultant for FLO TV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm. She lives in Encinitas, California, and enjoys traveling, writing and jewelry.
Academic Hell Week?
Welcome back to school! It was academic hell week in the MSGL program, and none of us new students had any idea what was going on. As the information slowly started filtering into our bewildered brains, we realized that we had been assigned to teams based on our Meyers-Briggs Type Indicators; but not in the way you think! Oh, no…they wanted us to have a hard time working together; so they lumped differing personality types and told us to get with our teams and start getting familiar with each other. Fortunately, we seemed to mesh pretty well right away, and we became even more friendly over boxes of Domino’s® pizza.
So there we are: Team 1 – Veritas. The best and the brightest—Jacqueline Hoover, John Petraglia, Joshua Franklin, & Rudy Hawkins. Three of us live in San Diego, and the third one [Jacque] lives in Las Vegas; so our second challenge is geographical. No problem…that’s what technology is for! The University of San Diego has a VTC (Video Teleconferencing) tool known as Horizon Wimba. With this we can utilize face-to-face conversations over long distances; the person talking is seen on everyone’s video display, and there’s a built-in chat room as well. We decided that to get the team off the ground, we would start by having weekly meetings. We’ve had three of them so far, and although they’ve only averaged about an hour long each, we’ve gotten an unbelievable amount of stuff done.
Another tool for collaboration that we’ve been very privileged to learn about is Google Documents. This is a method of sharing documents with individuals over the Internet that allows for individual users to edit the document simultaneously (a new feature that will be released soon will have character-by-character collaborative editing, and built-in chat). If it were not for Google Docs, we would probably be having 5-6 meetings a week! However, one lesson we quickly learned is that each person should use a different font color, or the changes get very confusing very quickly!
So as you can see, although the system seems to encourage discord, the tools with which new students are provided are enough to allow any team to overcome their obstacles to collaboration and promote team success. And if you’re lucky enough to have teammates like ours, you could find yourself having a little fun while you’re at it, too!
MS in Global Leadership Student & Alumni Perspectives 