Real World MBA

A lot of us think about careers in terms of you got to keep climbing, climb up, up, up, up, not climb sideways, but you intentionally made a lot of lateral moves that have served you well.

Very much, very much. Not only in roles that I've done but other decisions as well. I'll tell you a quick story. Early in my career, probably 30 years ago in my career, I was in a situation where I was really attracted to marketing roles. I have always had an interest in understanding the underlying unmet need, and then helping to work with teams to solve that need in the best way. I mean, fundamentally that's what Veracyte was founded on, right. But earlier in my career, I had this insatiable desire also to get into a marketing role and be involved in how products were formulated and how those were brought to market. So I felt that I needed to get my MBA, and would need that MBA to achieve the kind of career path that I was looking for.

And so I was in Miami working for a company called Coulter Corporation. It was a large dominant player in the early cellular analysis marketplace, and I applied to University of Miami and got accepted. Two weeks before I was to start that program, I was asked to come into the executive offices, and I was told that I was nominated out of the entire global employee base as one of 12 people that were selected to go through an intrapreneurial MBA program, I'll call it, without the initials.

Tremendous.

I just was so worried about making that decision because I could not do both, but it was a two and a half year commitment, global commitment, learning all aspects of the business from real leaders across the world of our business. So this was like a real time hands on learning in the real world versus going to a university in Miami and getting those initials after my name. I think what I was worried about is will I get credit for one versus the other, maybe to the outside world? But after a lot of discussions with some great mentors and people who really helped me think this through, I decided to go for the internal entrepreneurial program, and it was absolutely instrumental in preparing me for what I'm doing today. That was a tough decision, because what you're doing is really thinking very carefully about where will I learn the most, where do I truly grow the most versus what others might interpret this decision to be.

Because some people might have looked at that as, boy, the MBA would have been a great upward move, that internal program, lateral, sideways, maybe not so great.

Absolutely. Exactly.