Olivia George-Parker

I graduated from Ivey’s HBA program in 2015. Driven by my passion for learning, I joined Sun Life Financial’s Rotational Leadership Development Program, a three-year program that develops the organization’s future leaders. I was hired to work out of Sun Life’s historic Montréal office as I am bilingual. I moved to Montréal and began my new role as a Financial Analyst, not knowing a single person in the city. I stayed in Montréal and took on the Quebec Strategy Coordinator role for my second rotation. For my third year, I got promoted to Business and Strategic Initiatives Manager in the Client Experience Office and moved to Toronto to take on this new challenge. I was successfully hired into this role at the end of the program and worked at Sun Life for five years overall. The biggest takeaway I gained from this experience is the importance of building great rapport with all my business partners.

I knew I wanted a change after working five years at one organization in Financial Services. Pursuing my MBA has always been a personal goal of mine. I love learning, and I thrive when I have a good challenge. I see pursuing my MBA as an excellent way to upgrade my strategic thinking and decision-making skills, while also expanding my network. I consider my undergraduate studies at Ivey as one of my most formative life experiences. I strongly believe in the value of the Ivey Case-Method Learning, and I am confident Ivey is the right choice for my MBA.

I believe I was chosen to be part of the Ivey MBA Class of 2021 because of my diverse functional work experience in Financial Services as well as my demonstrated leadership abilities. I also believe my previous academic achievement as an Ivey Scholar contributed to my successful application.

Due to the pandemic, I have spent the last two months learning through online classes with my 16 MBA Direct classmates. I find that, because we are all learning online, we are all facing the same new reality, which has made it easier to keep in touch. We have made a special effort to stay connected and get to know each other through numerous online socials. Despite learning exclusively online so far, I have made some great friendships already, and I am excited to meet everyone in person in September.