Meet Chicago Booth’s MBA Class Of 2019

Tim Lewis 

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business 

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: I am curious, competitive, and creative. This makes me a passionate person and professional problem-solver.

Hometown: Bloomfield Hills, MI

Fun Fact About Yourself: I love soccer. As a fan, I’ve attended several incredible games including Manchester United vs Real Madrid in Ann Arbor in 2014, where I was part of the largest crowd to ever watch a soccer game in the US. As a player, I still scratch my competitive itch by playing goalkeeper in recreational leagues. A couple years ago, I broke my two front teeth by diving face first into the goal post while trying to make a save! I’m thankful for my dentist as most people cannot tell that I have fake teeth.

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Michigan Ross School of Business: BBA with emphases in Marketing and Business Information Technology

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: I have been working in Google Marketing Solutions, Google’s organization focused on its small and medium business advertising customers. My job titles were the following:

• Account Strategist, US Small & Medium Business Sales
• Product & Solutions Specialist, Regional Product & Sales Activation
• Global Mobile Lead, Global Product & Sales Activation

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Nearly two years ago, my Director tasked me with improving our small and medium business customers’ mobile websites, as poor quality sites impact Google’s revenue by hindering the success of mobile advertising. My task was uniquely difficult, as I did not receive any dedicated engineering support, and building an internal team would take a year at minimum. While securing support for these long-term solutions was an important portion of my work, I needed to derive short-term solutions.

Our advertising customers wanted high quality websites that would provide potential customers great mobile experiences, but I discovered that many customers did not recognize the shortcomings of their site nor understand specific elements to fix. Given this insight and the logistical constraints, I drove the creation of a vendor team that provided guidance to customers on how to improve. These vendors would complete scorecards evaluating whether the customer’s mobile site utilized best practices, create mockups that illustrated what the customer’s site would look like if it were optimized, and even provide over-the-phone support to customers ready to take action.

The program was incredibly successful. In the first year, vendor services were provided to over 14,000 customers around the world, and Google observed a 150% uplift in the rate customers made site improvements. My work was recognized by the Vice President of my organization with a Platinum Award, an award given to projects with significant impact on our business.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? In retrospect, I wish I had thought more critically about my fit with various MBA programs earlier in the application process. I would have saved myself a lot of time and effort in the essay writing and interview preparation if I had taken more time to reflect deeply about what I wanted and which schools would provide the best opportunity based on my needs.

Before even starting applications, I wish I had been able to answer the following questions:

1) What are your strengths and weaknesses? What would you like to build upon or improve?

2) What can the MBA program teach you that would be important to your professional development? Why can and MBA program uniquely facilitate those skills?

3) What is your ideal job following the MBA? Where would you like to be in 10 years, and how will your MBA and first post-MBA job help you get there?

When I had not answered these questions well for myself, I struggled heavily in my applications. Because I was sometimes catering to what I thought MBA programs wanted to hear rather than being true to myself, I had to rewrite my essays again and again. It was an extremely frustrating yet humbling experience.

Ultimately, I feel like my Booth essay and interview went smoothly because I more naturally understood what I would learn at Booth and how its MBA program would enable me realize my goals. I learned a lot more about what I wanted through its application process. This guided my final decision to choose Booth over other programs.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? The flexibility of the Booth program significantly influenced my MBA decision. Having attended undergraduate business school and accumulated six years of working experience, I was eager to find a program that where I could continue to learn and develop in every class. I knew that every school would provide me opportunities to grow, but MBA programs that required all students to take introductory courses in all core subjects made me concerned.

During the application process, I had conversations with former undergraduate business school classmates who were attending MBA programs. While former classmates at other schools had mixed reactions about their experiences in introductory classes, a Booth student was emphatic that he was learning something new in every class. He discussed how controlling his class schedule gave him the ability to challenge himself as much as he liked, and how most classes introduced some form of quantitative modeling that enabled him to take a new approach to familiar subjects. As this was exactly what I wanted, I became a firm believer that Booth would enable me to realize more growth than other MBA programs.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? My overarching goal for the first year of business school is to learn more about career opportunities through new experiences, and I seek to realize this through several specific goals. Academically, I seek to declare a concentration outside of my traditional comfort zone, such as one in finance or managerial and organizational behavior. Professionally, experiencing an internship in consulting would be ideal as that field seems to be a natural opportunity to leverage my problem-solving inclinations while exposure to various industries through consulting projects would enable additional growth. Finally, extending my network by participating in extracurriculars and social events would be valuable as I plan to stay in the Chicago area over the long term. While these goals are broad, I believe achieving them would be an incredible educational experience and enable me to gain a better understanding of my personal and professional potential.