SMU Seattle Chapter Alumni Share Career Insights With MBA Students

One of the most valuable resources available to students exploring career options is the SMU alumni network as Daniel Molina, a first-year marketing and finance student in the full-time MBA program, experienced last fall. He was among a group of MBA students from the Cox School of Business offered insider access to some of the world’s top companies by SMU alumni during Cox’s “Marketing Trek to Seattle.”

Shanna Upchurch, associate director of MBA marketing, analytics and operations career coach at Cox, worked with Cort Clark ’12, Alan Clements ’06 and Gavin Benedict ’14 of the SMU Seattle Chapter leadership team, as well as the SMU Office of Alumni Relations and Engagement staff, to spread the word among alumni about the exploratory tour and arrange a gathering with Cox alumni in the Seattle area for the visiting students.
In the following summary written by Molina, he describes the fact-finding expedition and networking opportunity as a highlight of his first semester in the Cox program:
Last October, my peers and I from the SMU Cox MBA represented our school in a series of visits to companies throughout the Seattle area. As a first-year MBA with a background in operations management at Starbucks, this trip was a great way to act as an ambassador for SMU to the Fortune 500 companies we visited. On this trip, I had a great time meeting with upper management and touring the facilities of prominent businesses, all while networking with SMU alumni and executives.
During the trip, we visited Nuance Communications and spoke with marketing managers about how they work with such companies as Apple and Amazon to create voice commands for their phones and technology apps. We toured Boeing, the world’s largest manufacturer of planes, and learned what it is like to market directly to businesses and governments. Starbucks, the global coffee and retail company, invited us behind the scenes at their headquarters, where we learned about the innovative way they design drinks and how they finance new marketing projects through long-term contracting and coordination with farms throughout the world. At Amazon, the leader in internet retailing, we learned how they aim to implement their plans for an efficient global marketplace with low costs and intricate shipping strategies.
At each business visited, we interacted with SMU alumni who worked there, learning how they navigated their way after the MBA program. We met Amazon’s Nikhil Nilakantan ’05, a Cox MBA alumnus, who told us how his time at SMU prepared him for a career at the world’s largest online retailer. His recommendations for success in the MBA program inspired us to work hard to achieve our personal goals and someday succeed at Fortune 500 companies, perhaps in the Seattle area. I am very grateful for all of those who helped us on our trip, including Michael Barry ’14 at Amazon, Shalini Nilahantan ’05 at Starbucks, Mark Silverman ’94 at Boeing and Cort Clark ’12 from Microsoft. Without these esteemed SMU alumni, my peers and I wouldn’t have been able to experience the great industry that Seattle offers.
The MBA program and SMU makes trips like the “Marketing Trek to Seattle” possible. As a student seeking an internship in marketing or operations in the summer, I feel fortunate to have been able learn more about the possibilities afforded to an SMU Cox graduate. The amazing faculty and staff guided our way around the wonderful northwestern city, and the experience remains as one of the highlights of my first semester in the MBA program.
In addition to being a coffee aficionado, Daniel Molina loves travel and case competitions, and he even geeks out with HTML coding from time to time. Contact him at dmolina@smu.edu.
For information about providing Cox MBA internships or employment, please contact Shanna Upchurch at shanna@smu.edu.