Ask current Duke MBA student healthcare career questions

Question

Hi everyone,

I'm currently an MBA student student at Duke Fuqua ('15) and passionate about health care. I've gotten pretty good exposure to MBA recruiting this past year and offer myself as a resource to anyone who has questions on health care recruiting - pharma, devices, startups. I didn't do any consulting recruiting, but could help answer general questions for health care consulting.

stevenfuqua · Answer

If you're interested in comparing health care employment stats from schools side-by-side, here's a helpful post: https://www.stevensma.com/2014/07/health ... s-for.html

BigSky4551 · Answer

I'm interested in the career trajectory in the pharma / devices fields. What types of positions are usually offered at an mba program going into these companies? What background do they look for? Are some schools more specialized than others in that industry? Thanks!

stevenfuqua · Answer

Thanks for the questions. Here are my answers to each: What types of positions are usually offered at an mba program going into these companies? The post-MBA functions in pharma/devices are as follows: operations, marketing, finance, internal strategy, and pipeline strategy/business development. These are what you would see in typical corporate positions agnostic to industry. In terms of position availability, I'd rank them as follows from most abundant to least abundant: marketing, finance, operations, internal strategy, business development. What background do they look for? They are looking for people who ideally have at least one of two backgrounds: either health care experience (provider, payer, manufacturer), or functional experience (marketing, finance, etc). If you have both, then recruiting would be substantially easier. If you have neither, the opposite would be true. The good thing is that some MBA programs specialize in health care and can help those that need the health care expertise build that during the MBA. Regardless, keep in mind that any firm that recruits from an MBA program is first and foremost looking for future leadership potential. Are some schools more specialized than others in health care? Please see this post for a list of schools and a short description on their health care focus. https://www.stevensma.com/2013/06/mba-pr ... focus.html.

MBAstateofmind · Answer

Hi Steven,

I am an MBA aspirant looking to apply to Duke. I have a BE in biotechnology and a Master's in molecular biology. I want to transition from core research to a more managerial role in industry. I was wondering if you could shed more light on what roles I could look at?

Thanks,
Avani

stevenfuqua · Answer

Hi Avani,

Thanks for the question. By industry, I'm assuming you mean at a pharmaceutical or device company, and not at any consulting firms.

You could essentially transition into any role, with preparation. Given your background, it seems an operations/strategy role would be reasonable. You have the analytical skills and science background to support the business skillset gained in the MBA.

Marketing is also an option. With marketing, a science background would help with upstream marketing, meaning assets that are pre-launch. You could also transition into downstream marketing, for assets that are launching or post launch, like I did. You'd have to do more preparation and demonstrate that you know what marketing is and have a sense of how to do marketing.

Finance can work too, but I'd say requires the most preparation. There are programs and classes at Fuqua designed for people with non-finance backgrounds to get banking/finance roles. They can work quite well if you're passionate about it.

Each of these would lead to general management roles in their respective businesses. Marketing for commercial organization, finance for finance, and operations for operations. Internal strategy roles are less abundant and would be less general management (think consulting), although some senior folks can still make the transition.

MBAstateofmind · Answer

Thanks for your response Steven. Would it be possible for you to go into more detail about Operations/Strategy roles in the pharma/biopharma setting? Specifically what would the normal job responsibilities involve (broadly) ? I have had limited exposure to industry and hence am reaching out to be able to make a well informed decision. 
Thanks again!
Avani

stevenfuqua · Answer

Operations would typically mean optimizing supply chain, R&D, clinical research etc. Imagine a pharma company and its operations needs to be more efficient in order to gain a competitive advantage. Strategy would typically entail pipeline or portfolio management, etc, or basically help answer any strategic decision a pharma might have, although I feel it is typically around the acquisition of technologies or entering new and innovative markets.

Hope this helps!

Ask current Duke MBA student healthcare career questions

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