chrismba wrote:
I am a 31-year old Chinese (international student turned US resident) with CPA (certified in ‘12), PMP (certified in July ‘13), and Six Sigma Green Belt (certified in June ‘13). I went to U. of Southern California for college (business major in entrepreneurship and marketing), graduated in Dec 2003. I am preparing for GMAT aiming at around 720. I’m planning to apply for EMBA programs in Kellogg (Miami Campus) and Columbia (Saturday program) in 2014.
My 10-year work experience comes from various finance/project management/strategy roles within the Pharmacy industry in 3 different-sized companies. I started off as a Pharmacy Financial Analyst (Financial Planning & Analysis role) and quickly moved up to a Pharmacy Finance Project Manager role in a big non-profit healthcare organization ($50B). Then I joined a much smaller non-profit healthcare organization ($500M) as a Pharmacy Finance consultant and later a Sr. Pharmacy Finance Lead role reporting directly to the CFO. It was a highly visible role which I have recouped couple million dollars for the company in various areas with drug manufacturers, Federal Medicaid program and drug wholesaler. The organization grew to $900M before I left. I relocated from the West Coast to the East Coast. Currently I am a Finance Manager in a strategic business unit for a for-profit healthcare company ($3B) where I focus on pricing/costing strategies on rolling out a brand new commercial pharmacy benefit management (PBM) line of business for the company, bidding for new clients against existing established PBM’s in the industry, and the typical finance manager responsibilities in budgeting and forecasting. I have a clear path for future promotions within the company.
My career goal is to grow quickly or at least at the current pace within the same industry. My more aggressive/vague goal is to blend my finance, pharmacy, and strategy knowledge with Private Equity, Investment Banking related activities in healthcare/pharmacy, which I currently don’t get to see yet.
Prior to launching my full time job, I had 3 separate internships with Disney in various roles (theme park operations intern in Florida, management intern in California, and corporate IT Finance intern), and 1 finance internship with another big entertainment company in Los Angeles before graduation.
In reviewing both Kellogg’s EMBA (Miami) and Columbia EMBA (Saturday), I feel like I am “under-aged” for Kellogg as the average age of its student profile is 37 with $170K in base salary. I am 31. My college GPA was 3.3 only. When pursing my CPA, I took 6 accounting classes in another University where I got straight A’s while working full time. I hope my recent CPA and PMP certifications (both passed on the first try) can present a better picture than what my college GPA indicated. I am preparing for GMAT aiming at 720. I read that Kellogg doesn’t require GMAT unless they ask for it though.
I am particularly interested in Kellogg EMBA (Miami) because it only requires meeting once per month. My second target school is Columbia EMBA Saturday.
499 words count
Chris,
While you concern about lack of experience for Kellogg is legitimate, everything else is in range for both EMBA programs and you have a decent shot at both.
Best,
Linda
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Linda Abraham
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