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Luis Díaz

Luis Díaz entered the Executive MBA (EMBA) program in the College of Business Administration with impressive credentials. He was the holder of six patents, developed while he was working for Stryker, a manufacturer of medical devices and equipment. He had experienced a rapid rise as an engineer at Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson Company that manufactures innovative cardiac devices for patients with coronary heart disease.

Yet, he felt there was a gap in his knowledge base. While his grasp of technical matters was strong, he thought his understanding of broader business issues—finance, organizational behavior, global markets, accounting, and organizational development—was limited. “Back to school” became his mantra, and the EMBA program fit the bill perfectly.

His classmate, Valerie Crawford, tells a similar story. A successful entrepreneur and business owner for more than seventeen years, Crawford nonetheless felt her skills and knowledge needed some updating.

“I felt like I’d been working in a vacuum, to some degree, and realized that a lot had changed since I had entered the workforce,” she said. “I looked at other programs, but none attracted me as much as the EMBA.”

Valerie Crawford

Quality and reputation of the EMBA faculty draw Díaz.

“When I looked at the faculty roster and realized who I’d be learning from I decided that the program was for me,” Diaz said. Another important aspect: the chance to learn with, and from, accomplished peers from a range of professional fields.

Another important aspect of the program, he says, has been the chance to learn with accomplished peers from a range of professional fields.

“What they bring to the table in terms of perspectives and experiences is invaluable to the learning process,” he said. “For me, the program has been a big eye opener and I am getting a lot more tools than I imagined—things that I can use immediately on the job.”

For example, in his position as head of a newly developed business unit, Diaz is using behavioral interviews, an approach he picked up in his human resources class, to identify and recruit individuals with the right skill set to implement his vision. Another class has aided him in developing a strategic plan for his operations.

“From the point of view of running a company, you have to understand a lot, and it’s that breadth of knowledge that I am gaining from the EMBA program,” he said.

One of the more exciting elements of the program for Díaz has been the corporate simulation, which requires teams of students to develop business plans based on the principles and strategies they’ve learned during the course of their studies. The teams compete against each other, analyzing market forces, assessing supply and demand, and using other tactics to create the most viable plans.

“It’s both exciting and challenging to see how well you can apply what you’ve learned to the business scenario,” Díaz said.

A mandatory trip abroad is one of the signature features of the program. He and his classmates traveled to India, which left a lasting imprint on him. While there, he got to visit several Indian companies and meet with business leaders. Díaz said it was fascinating to explore the business environment in another country. He was impressed by the ingenuity of Indian workers and amazed at how well Indian companies operated in the absence of infrastructure levels that U.S. companies would consider standard.

“What I saw was a lot of talented individuals with extraordinary initiative,” he said. “It really struck me that if you have the right team in place and a clear vision for where you’re going, then you’ll get there.”

Entrepreneur seeks entry into global business.

Crawford would agree. The Philadelphia native knows what it takes to implement a vision and make it financially viable. As head of her own small business and personal consulting firm, Crawford Enterprises, it’s what she does every day. Crawford works with clients on the development of business plans, mission statements, sales and marketing strategies, operations management, and customer service issues. She also employs motivational strategies to help clients with goal setting and with creating what she calls “a paradigm of success to achieve their aims.”

Crawford, who also is the marketing and strategic planner for CEI, Inc., an importer of raw materials for the manufacture of fragrances, has pioneered a concept called the “corporate self” that she uses with clients to promote excellence on the job. The idea, she explains, is to “create a business plan for your life and to approach each task, even the ones that seem mundane, as an opportunity to maximize individual potential.”

“I equate it with being the department head of your own life, the idea being that when you slack off, you basically cheat yourself out of an opportunity to do something today that could contribute to your success tomorrow,” she said.

It’s a model that came in handy when Crawford began to feel a sense of restlessness that let her know she needed to make a change. That’s when she decided to take her “corporate self” back to school. She was concerned at times that she was “too old” to be a student again, but her doubts soon gave way to what she knew, and had been teaching clients, about seizing opportunities.

While the EMBA program was her first choice, Crawford enrolled in another that accepted her first, fearful that if she didn’t get into the College of Business Administration, she’d have to delay her studies.

EMBA features make it a cut above.

“I was only in the program for a couple of days when I realized I’d made a mistake,” Crawford said. “So I took a chance and called Sarah Perez, EMBA program manager, to find out if there was still an opening in the program and to my surprise, she said ‘yes.’”

For Crawford, the differences were readily apparent.

“The university is so progressive in its thinking and the EMBA is so comprehensive in its approach,” she said. “Plus, requiring students to make a global business trip let me know that the program was truly international in scope, something that other programs seemed to lack.”

Crawford plans to work internationally on issues of productivity. One area she's interested in is promoting business ownership opportunities for women in Africa, India, and Asia.

“These are nations in which American companies are doing a lot of outsourcing,” she said. “I think we need to be sure that in creating new opportunities for some, we don’t leave others behind.”

Crawford, who sees herself as a “social entrepreneur,” said she has strong notions about corporate responsibility and wants to use her EMBA to work in a way that is respectful of people and local cultures. It is a value reflected in her volunteer work as executive director of “One Congregation. One Family.”—a Miami-based non-profit that provides subsistence aid to displaced families and victims of natural disasters with a focus on solutions that promote lifelong self-sufficiency and resilience.

“I am firm believer in the idea that to whom much is given, much is expected,” Crawford said, “and I think the EMBA will help me make good on that promise, to myself and to others.”

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