Meet The Class Of 2018 At Kellogg

Brian Quimby

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Describe yourself in 15 words or less:

Gregarious geek.

Impromptu show tune singer.

Pragmatic leader.

Hometown: San Francisco, CA by way of Mount Laurel, NJ

 

Fun Fact About Yourself:  I once sang the national anthem at a Major League Baseball game (thanks Moorestown Theater!)

Undergraduate School and Major:

University of Pennsylvania- Dual degree in Computer Science (BAS) and Political Science (BA)

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Technology Consultant, Accenture

Market Manager, Google Offers

Partnerships Development Manager, Google Helpouts & Google Play

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I’m passionate about building projects that truly benefit people using technology, so I’m especially proud of my work with Google Helpouts, an incubation product launched to explore providing consumer services over video chat.

We worked with Samsung to enable video tech support across a number of their products, from mobile phones to Chromebooks. Our platform empowered users to easily connect to help over video, where they could discuss their issue with the agent live! Think of the number of times you wish you could have just “showed” the person on the other end of the phone the error message, or which lights on a device were blinking! Reading some of the user comments was really inspiring. We leveraged video chat to offer seamless tech support, and users loved it!

We also piloted some really cool initiatives in the medical space with Helpouts. Directly from Google search results for certain medical terms, for instance, we tested being able to instantly speak with a doctor over video. It was thrilling to bring this access to everyone while pushing the limits of what technology could do!

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants?

Curate long term relationships! Not just for your business school recommendations, but in life as well. Now that I’m enrolled in school, the adage “who you know” seems especially relevant! Professional and personal relationships will blossom into mentors, colleagues, and potential employers. More than anything else, these people will come to influence you, and you them. Keep them strong!

When writing essays, make sure to tell your story and be genuine. Admissions officers really want to know why you’d be a fit for their school and program. There is a reason Kellogg has the added component of a video interview, so it will readily become apparent if you aren’t being yourself! As you work on your story, be introspective and wonder what you have to give to a program as much as you have to gain from it. Within a short period of time, I can already attest to the inherently collaborative nature of a business school program.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? When deciding to Adam Sandler and go back to school, I wanted to ensure an outcome-based approach that made sense for my career aspirations and current experience. I knew I wanted to stay in the technology industry, but also wanted to equip myself with the additional knowledge of finance and venture capital before my next move. I also craved a full time business school experience with the classes, professors, social activities and extracurricular activities. So the One-Year MBA Program at Kellogg really was the glass slipper – a perfect match for what I wanted. Less opportunity cost and time out of the workforce, while still allowing me to accelerate my career with an MBA (or as we say – half the time, twice the fun!)

In the 1Y program, although there is no internship, I’ll be participating in several experiential learning opportunities such as the Venture Lab and Private Equity Lab, getting real world experience in Chicago with some top firms. I’m also pumped about some of the Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship classes, including a series of courses you can take to help you discover, test and launch a new venture. The idea of classes explicitly geared toward my entrepreneurial ambitions and actually launching a business while in school is intriguing and exciting!

Outside of school work, I really loved the Kellogg culture, which is focused on getting to know your classmates as close friends and scholars. I also can’t wait to join Special K (I’ve already gotten a taste of Chicago improv!) and work with the strong LGBT community, led by Pride@Kellogg.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? Nothing about my experience is traditional and little about our current business culture is as well.  My previous work has given me the knowledge to lead, and during my time at Kellogg, I hope to better realize how to harness these disparate, but co-functioning qualities of mine to better myself even more.

My career so far has been focused on partnerships and building new products with burgeoning teams (two of my teams at Google have even been “internal startups”!) After my MBA, I want to continue working both internally and externally at a company, while helping others discover the impact technology can have. I have the unique ability to “speak” multiple languages: technical, business and now finance and strategy as well. Leveraging this multilingualism, my ideal role would be leading growth at a Series A or B startup, where I would drive the cross-functional collaboration between teams specializing in all these areas. I’ll lead teams across product, sales, user experience and partnerships to create value for users and expand the business.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program?

I’ve always had the hope that on the day I graduate and are cryin’,

My b-school classmates will shake my hand and say, “You’ve done an awesome job, Brian!”

But in addition to my humor and clever theatrical parodies, I hope that through group projects, travel and classes, they’ll find me to be a pragmatic leader who finds potential and excitement even in the most unlikely of places. I hope that they know I don’t shy away from tackling the tougher issues and underlying flaws if it sets us up for long term success. I’m not afraid to put the “stinky fish” on the table. More importantly, I hope that I positively influenced the decisions of my peers as much as I hope for them to have influenced mine and that we’ll build on these relationships for decades to come.

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