2018 MBAs To Watch: Dalia Rinaldi, Boston University (Questrom)

Dalia Rinaldi

Boston University, Questrom School of Business

Pragmatic idealist working tirelessly to leave the world better than she found it.”

Age: 35

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Fun fact about yourself: I am a certified yoga instructor and have taught mindfulness practices to incarcerated women in New York.

Undergraduate School and Degree: BA, English Literature, UC Berkeley & MA, Modern Art and Critical Studies, Columbia University

Where did you work before enrolling in business school? Chief of Staff to the US Regional Head at Russell Reynolds Associates, a leadership consulting firm with 47 offices globally.

Where did you intern during the summer of 2017? MBA Associate, Pharmacy Team Evolution at CVS Health

Where will you be working after graduation? Rejoining CVS Health as an Advisor in Pharmacy Operations, with a mandate to improve both customer and colleague experience. The scale of the company creates some really exciting opportunities to impact thousands of lives.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

  • VP Finance, Questrom Graduate Internship Fund
  • BU on Board Fellow
  • TA for first-year MBA Economics
  • Deborah Scott Dawson Fellowship for Women in Business
  • Questrom Hero

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? The Questrom Graduate Internship Fund mobilizes our MBA community to fund students pursuing unpaid or underpaid social impact internships. As operational head, I led the transformation of this scrappy student group into a professional fundraising institution, recruiting an Advisory Board, producing our first-ever Annual Report, and pitching to major alumni donors. This year, we hosted our first-ever annual Impact Week on campus, with over 80 students pledging to “Donate a Day” of their salary to the fund in June. Together, these efforts will triple the amount of funding raised in previous years, allowing more students to sustainably pursue work in social enterprise, the public sector, and nonprofits, locally and globally.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? At CVS Health last summer, I conducted ethnographic research in the retail pharmacies to identify key drivers of field management turn and churn. The qualitative insights were intriguing, but didn’t provide a real business case for change. In order to quantify the business impact of these challenges, I ran a correlation study, tracking field manager tenure against district performance. I found that districts with supervisors in role for 3+ years showed a statistically-significant performance lift on KPIs critical to the bottom line.

It is easy for business leaders, especially in retail, to forecast the impact of cost cuts, but nearly impossible to project ROI for employee satisfaction. As a business student, I was excited to have found a compelling way to use data to support an intuitive reality.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? I took two different strategy courses with Paul McManus, a “Master Lecturer” at Questrom, which means he’s a real business practitioner, not a PhD. McManus heads up the concentration and has taught every graduate strategy course on the syllabus, to full-time, part-time, and executive-MBA students. He is a fast talker and packs every minute of class with valuable insights—he doesn’t waste time. From my first introduction to Porter’s Five Forces to “modified Shakespeare” (Who is likely to be found guilty and punished although innocent? Who is likely to be honored although uninvolved and why?), he has put more tools in my tool belt than any other MBA professor.

What was your favorite MBA Course? Negotiations! It is one of the most celebrated classes at Questrom, with a famed assignment where you go around asking for things in hopes of collecting “No”s. The surprise discovery is that people really don’t like to say “No,” and you can often get more than you would have thought just by starting a conversation. The course is built on strategies for creating shared value, which I find especially critical given the current political climate.

Why did you choose this business school? Visiting campus, I felt an immediate sense of belonging. I remember sitting in on a class where a guest speaker was conducting a live case study in social impact investing, and it was my first exposure to that type of business model. I was hungry to learn more, embraced by this warm and welcoming community of people using business principles in service of something greater than money or power.

What is your best piece advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? Be your genuine self. Questrom students are down-to-earth, open, and curious about themselves and others. This is not the kind of place where you have to impress people with your achievements or connections to stand out—the community will celebrate you for your work ethic, service orientation, and commitment to self-discovery.

What is the biggest myth about your school? I don’t know if there are a lot of “myths” about Questrom. It’s a humble place and we are known for rolling up our sleeves and playing well with others. The curriculum’s intense focus on teamwork makes sure that remains true year-after-year.

What was your biggest regret in business school? I wish I had gotten involved in more case competitions earlier in the program. This fall, I was on the team that placed second at the National Human Capital Case Competition at Vanderbilt, and it was an amazing learning experience with great corporate coaches. Nothing teaches you to think on your feet like 30 minutes of Q&A with executive judges! That is serious preparation for the real world, where you will have to defend your recommendations to senior leaders every day.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? KC Caine, a dual-degree MBA/MPH, is one of the social impact interns we funded through the Internship Fund last summer. This fall, she has helped pitch the project to major alumni donors. KC is probably ten years younger than I am, but she knows exactly what she wants to do with her life. I am consistently blown away by her depth of knowledge, poise, and determination, not to mention that she is putting all of this to work in service of improving health outcomes for populations around the world. By the time she is my age, she will have demonstrably changed the world.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business? I was pregnant with my first child when I was admitted to Questrom. We didn’t know if we would have a boy or a girl, but I knew that if I had a daughter, I wanted her to grow up seeing my career as evidence that she could pursue whatever she wanted in life. Equally importantly, if I had a son, I wanted him to grow up with deep respect for women and mothers in the business world. We ended up having a boy—Rafi is a toddler now, and comes to class with me once in a while when daycare falls through. Being a working mom isn’t easy, but he inspires me to be my best self every day.

If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be…getting a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. I’m a thinker, and I wanted an academic “time out” in which to explore my place in the world, to figure out where I could have the greatest impact and be most satisfied. In the end, the MBA was more efficient and more versatile than a PhD, and more aligned with my ultimate goal of being a leader and changing the status quo.”

If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience? I would sponsor more conversations about balancing work and family, for women and men in the program. Most full-time MBAs don’t have children yet, but a lot of women in my class have approached me confidentially to ask about trade-offs between motherhood and their careers. Unfortunately, a lot of driven young women still feel like they have to choose between work and family. That choice costs humanity, because ambitious, engaged women build society through both family and work. This isn’t just a conversation for women, though—young men pursuing their MBAs need to see and hear from male executives who are proud to shoulder a fair share of household responsibilities to support their partners’ career trajectories.

What are the top two items on your bucket list? 1) Studying yoga in Pune, India with the Iyengar family; and 2) building a nonprofit organization to drive fundamental changes in the US criminal justice system, particularly in the area of corrections—one will clearly be easier to achieve than the other!

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? A servant leader who inspired others to be their best selves.

What is your favorite movie about business? Glengarry Glen Ross – though it’s a bit dated at this point, with salesmen being dealt stale leads typed on index cards – it provides a textbook case in how not to motivate people when driving for results. The film is a cautionary tale for any leader who thinks they can rely on threats rather than inspiration to get their teams to achieve business goals.

What would your theme song be?Mountains to Climb” by Jahdan Blakkamoore, a Brooklyn-based reggae artist. It comes off the 2010 album Babylon Nightmare, which I think is the most inspiring reggae album since Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire. This song makes me feel strong enough to do anything.

Favorite vacation spot: Any seaside town in Liguria, Italy.

Hobbies? Yoga, reading, playing LEGOs with my son.

What made Dalia such an invaluable addition to the class of 2018?

“Dalia is an influential leader and has worked to advance several causes while at Questrom. First, she has worked tirelessly to enhance the profile of our MBA Internship Fund. She and her colleagues have developed an organizational structure, new fundraising avenues, and metrics to advance the fund and the program. In addition, Dalia has been an advocate for women’s issues while in the MBA program. She regularly meets with fellow students about balancing motherhood and school, as well as balancing work and life without compromising ambition. Dalia is admirable, an influencer, and a great role model for our MBAs.”

J.P. Matychak

Associate Dean for Student Experience & Services

 

DON’T MISS THE FULL LIST:

100 MBAS TO WATCH IN THE CLASS OF 2018

 

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.