I decided to do an MBA early in my career because I wanted to upskill and advance my prospects. The MBA program at McGill had a great reputation (39th in the world) and strong value for money for Canadian students. Looking back, the program really allowed me to think laterally, learn quickly, and gain skills that I have used in many roles.
My best memories of McGill are related to events. As a student, the MBA games, case competitions (like the John Molson MBA International Case Competition), and a study exchange at Manchester University were real highlights for me. As Director of the Master of Management in Analytics program (MMA), orientation weekend is always a great highlight, as is the final client presentation event at the end of the program.
I am an alumnus of four universities around the world and, without a doubt, the McGill network is the most active, close-knit and engaged. During the pandemic, I have seen a lot of faculty, staff and students respond by doing project work or research to lend a helping hand.
As professor of experiential learning, I am currently helping to run a local outreach initiative with our MMA students. As a program, we decided to repurpose our Study Trip course to have more of a local impact, where our students can use their much-coveted analytics skills to help small businesses and NGOs that may not have the resources to hire data science teams. During the pandemic, we know that firms will need to be leaner in order to survive, and after the pandemic, they will need to get more predictive and data driven in order to thrive. We wanted to help further some data/analytic initiatives that businesses wanted to explore or wanted to accelerate.
Some organizations we've helped build analytic solutions for include the Montreal Children's Hospital, the AQHSST (Quebec workers safety board), Turbodega (a Latin American e-commerce firm), iKure (an Indian healthcare provider) and many others. We are hoping to make this a permanent part of our program to deliver benefits to the Quebec and Canadian economy on an ongoing basis.