The unique Ivey experience starts when you walk through the door for the first time. And doesn’t end with graduation, or perhaps even with retirement. Students graduating in 2015 reflect on where it all started and what they will take with them from the School.
Ivey has seen dramatic change in the past decade—a new degree program, massive growth in the HBA, the introduction of a one-year MBA, and much more. Yet the core of the Ivey experience remains the same. And the result? As the Class of 2015 illustrates, Ivey continues to produce energetic and committed business leaders.
Zoe Woods, HBA ’15, clearly remembers her first day at Ivey. She was proud of the outfit she had picked out for the occasion. At the School she bought a coffee but forgot to grab a lid. She was horrified when she and her classmates were loaded onto a school bus to be driven to the welcome event. “I thought, ‘oh no, I’m going to spill my coffee and be known as that girl with the coffee stain!’”
Although her outfit (and reputation) survived the day, Woods says it was full of discoveries. “I didn’t really know what to expect when I applied to Ivey and I walked around all day thinking, ‘This is so strange—what have I gotten myself into?’”
What she had gotten herself into, of course, was the Ivey learning experience. It’s an experience that has been building careers and changing lives for more than 90 years—a tough, intense experience that produces indelible learning. It’s an experience that starts on day one and for most alumni, continues for a lifetime.
For Woods, the learning extended far beyond the classroom. She was co-chair of the Ivey Leaders Forum and led the Women in Management Club. Looking back, she says her time at Ivey gave her new confidence. “Every day I was in a room with a lot of smart Type-A people, and that really helped me grow. I knew I had to put my hand up, say what I was thinking, and really go for the things I felt passionate about.” Today Woods is working with Deloitte Consulting in Toronto.
Wood’s classmate Nick Xiang, HBA ’15, also remembers his first day clearly. “I was excited to meet my new classmates and be challenged by the best business school in Canada,” he says. “I was also a bit intimidated that I might not be able to keep up with the cream of the crop!” The biggest learning experience for Xiang was the venerable Ivey Field Project, familiar to many alumni. His team worked with the Canadian Cancer Society to develop new ways to sustain fundraising revenues. “I learned a lot of things about how to play to each teammate’s strength, and how to deliver value to the team, whether I’m in the driver’s role or just crunching the numbers,” he says. “When I saw what we actually accomplished and the impact we had, it was pretty impressive.” Xiang joined Barclay’s Bank in Calgary as an analyst last June.
When Kun Shi, MBA ’15, arrived at Ivey, he already had a PhD in biochemistry in his back pocket but that didn’t make his journey any less challenging. He participated in the preparatory course for people with minimal business background. “The first day was an extremely cold one in March, but instantly the energy in the class was so great. It was different from what I had experienced in all my years in school.”
A self-identified introvert, Shi at first found it difficult to put himself forward. “Pushing myself beyond my comfort zone and standing up in front of the class helped to sharpen my leadership and communication skills. I feel a lot more comfortable being part of the business community, which is very different from the environment I was used to.” Moving forward, Shi sees himself combining the scientific rigour and hypothesis-driven methods of his PhD studies with the business problem-solving approach of Ivey. He’ll have his first chance to do so in his new job at Johnson & Johnson.
Lauren McLeod, MBA ’15, who enrolled in Ivey’s MBA program after several years as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Ontario Public Service, also felt a mix of emotions on her first day at Ivey. “I was nervous, excited, ready to get going and anxious to start off on the right foot. Everyone else in the class seemed really phenomenal and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’” She soon realized that her classmates were feeling the same way.
For McLeod, the biggest challenge at Ivey was exactly what her parents and younger brother, all Ivey graduates, warned her about—the sheer volume and intensity of the program. “When you sign up for the MBA at Ivey, you’re signing up for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.” To add to the pressure, McLeod also served as Internal Vice President of the MBA Association.
Like Xiang, McLeod says the most important thing she took away from the program was an appreciation for the value of working in teams. “I learned to trust the people I worked with, and to know that things will always end up working better if I’m part of a functioning team—someone who knows when to lead and when to take a back seat.” That understanding will serve her well in her new job as a Consultant with Bain & Company.
Elizabeth Li, EMBA ’15, has spent the past 14 years working for the investment bank J.P. Morgan, first in New York and then more recently in Hong Kong. Although she had once considered an MBA, she wasn’t actively looking for a program until she heard about a scholarship for women students in the Ivey Hong Kong Executive MBA. The more she learned about the Ivey program, the more excited she was.
One of Li’s first Ivey experiences—and one of her greatest challenges—was a day of outdoor activity designed to help the class gel. “I’m allergic to nature!” she says. “And I’ve never been good at physical activity. But I did it, and it was a good learning experience.”
More importantly, the program gave Li a new perspective on the nature of business leadership. “The professors at Ivey go beyond the academic teaching: they teach you the importance of one’s character as a leader—the discernment to know what the right thing is, and the integrity to carry it out.” Li says the program also validated her business instincts. “With no postgraduate degree, I was starting to secondguess myself, to wonder whether I was really giving the right advice. Now I’m more confident in my judgement calls.” J.P. Morgan has undergone a lot of change in the past two years, and Li’s role has expanded with it.
Yves Plourde, PhD ’15, grew up in a small town in the Saguenay region of Quebec and didn’t speak English until he was in his late teens. He completed a BA and MSc in Quebec, and then went to work for Accenture as a consultant. But he soon realized that he wasn’t cut out for consulting. “I like to spend time thinking about problems, as opposed to being rushed to propose solutions to clients.” As he pondered his next step, he paid an exploratory visit to Ivey. “The researchers I spoke to were really committed to their research and I found that extremely exciting,” he says. “There was no doubt in my mind that it was time to do the PhD.”
Plourde’s dissertation explored how Greenpeace International chooses the issues they focus on, and how they diffuse that focus throughout the organization. It’s a topic he believes is equally relevant to for-profit companies. He gained access to the Greenpeace archives in the Netherlands, where he found 200,000 pages of documents. “I have work for the next 10 years!” he says.
Plourde, who now teaches at HEC in Montreal, says the most challenging aspect of his time at Ivey was balancing his research and academic job search with becoming a father (his son Yanni was born during his third year in the program, and his daughter Maya was born in the fifth year). Despite the time management challenges, the School left him inspired and energized. “Seeing how rigorous Ivey scholars are about their research really changed me. I learned to always question my findings, push my thinking, and keep looking at the problem from different perspectives.”
Mads Hviid Jensen, MSc ’15, certainly remembers his first day at Ivey. He had just arrived from his native Denmark, a relatively moderate climate, to start the MSc program. The University was closed for a snow day and the temperature was minus 30. “I couldn’t breathe outside!”
The next day he walked into his first Ivey classroom, and was immediately impressed by the diversity of the MSc students. He says the challenge for him and many others was to set aside stereotypes and preconceptions about how people from different cultures act in business situations and “go in with an open and welcoming mind.”
Unlike many of his fellow students, Jensen had no business background going into the program: he had completed law school in Denmark. “I didn’t have anything to un-learn,” he says, “so I just tried to soak up everything at Ivey.” The Ivey experience has given him a much more international perspective. “In the past, I had trouble choosing between working as a lawyer in Denmark and coming to Canada for my MSc,” he says. “Now my choice is where in the world to pursue my career!” The first stop, ironically, is Copenhagen, where he will begin an international rotation program with Novo Nordisk, a Denmark-based global pharmaceutical company.
Michael Pownall, EMBA ’15, admits he was “terrified” meeting his classmates on day one of the Executive MBA program. “I read the biographies of my classmates and I thought, ‘what’s a horse vet doing here?’”
Pownall and his wife run a successful equine veterinarian practice, with three locations and up to 11 vets working with them. But he recognized that his industry was facing challenges, especially after new legislation to regulate the racing industry in 2002, and the 2008 financial crisis. “There are fewer and fewer people getting involved with horses,” he says. “I knew I had to start making some smarter decisions about our business.”
Like others, Pownall found Ivey’s emphasis on group work challenging. “When you own your own business, you’re used to doing things your own way,” he says. “I had to learn that the power of the group can do incredible things. I had to find the wisdom and courage to suppress my ego and listen to other people.”
On the flip side, he says that being an entrepreneur gave him the opportunity to put new learning to work immediately and see the results. “You’re looking at a big price tag for the program, but I was able to pay it back in full in terms of money saved and new revenue opportunities.”
Still, like most people who graduate from Ivey—in 2015 or in any other year— Pownall says the impact can’t be measured in dollars or titles. “For all of us, the program was a very profound personal experience,” says Pownall. “It gave me the confidence to see that I’m a good thinker and that I have value.” Or as Zoe Woods puts it, “Ivey taught me to stand up for myself, because if I don’t believe in me, who will?”
All Photos: Nation Wong
Art Direction: Greg Salmela, Aegis
