Ashleigh Herd

University of Oxford, Saïd Business School

“Curiously exploring the world. Tenaciously achieving dreams. Compassionately serving others.”

Hometown: Everywhere! As the child of a military family, I have been fortunate enough to live all over the United States and have carried that into my working life as well.

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have attended games at 16 of the 30 Major League Baseball stadiums and have a goal of one day visiting them all! I have had so many people ask me for recommendations, I created a five-category ranking system to determine the best one.

Undergraduate School and Major: Kansas State University, B.S. Chemical Engineering, Minor in Leadership Studies, Summa Cum Laude

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Leprino Foods Co., Technical Training and Organizational Development Supervisor

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:  My favorite part of my job is the letters, texts, and emails I receive from previous employees thanking me for the development and opportunities I gave them and the positive impact it had on them both personally and professionally.

While I couldn’t begin to choose “the biggest” amongst them, most recently, I had a team leader who had aspirations to become a supervisor. He had many obstacles in his way including reputation and experience, but I saw his potential to be a great leader. He was smart, quick, innovative, and our team respected him. I had serious conversations with him to make sure he understood the challenge he was undertaking. Once he committed, I dedicated my time to mentoring him and teaching him how to be a better leader and grow his influence. I taught him the importance of being a servant leader and putting your people first. I challenged him and tested him and gave him opportunities to prove how great he was and show everyone else what I already saw in him.

On my first day of business school, he sent me a picture in his new uniform after having been promoted. A few days ago, he let me know that he had been awarded the most prestigious award in the company.  He thanked me for all the development I had provided to help him on his journey, saying that I seriously changed his life. These moments and messages are what drives me. By helping him develop his leadership skills and beliefs, the impact of my own leadership ripples farther, impacting exponentially more lives than I ever could on my own.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? Collaborative. Everyone is incredibly supportive and always willing to help each other. Whether it’s dropping off someone’s dry cleaning, sharing job ideas and applications, or teaching multiple support classes before exams, we all help each other thrive.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of the MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The key reason I chose the Oxford MBA was the unique experience that Saïd offered to be embedded within the broader university.  The opportunity to be a member of an Oxford College and the Oxford Union, access the famous university libraries, explore the historical sites within the town and nearby, and learn from students and faculty from other cultures and disciplines is unmatched. To justify taking a year off from my work, I wanted more than just a traditional business school experience. I felt that Oxford offered a more diverse and eclectic program that would facilitate a broader and more versatile understanding of what business is and how it interacts with society.

What is the most “Oxford” thing you have done so far as a full-time MBA student? Matriculation. The most Oxford thing I have done is dressing up in full academic dress, parading from my college, Green Templeton, with all of my collegemates to the Sheldonian Theatre where the streets were filled with everyone else dressed for matriculation. Then we entered the theatre and participated in a ceremony in Latin signifying our official membership in the university. It was humbling to be a part of a ceremony that has existed for nearly a thousand years as a common thread amongst all generations of Oxford students.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? One of the most challenging questions was seemingly one of the simplest: “Describe your current role”.  I had never had to put in words what I did. After checking the description online, I realized I did so much more. Trying to describe the technical, cross-functional, and leadership components of my job in just a few sentences was more difficult than expected and really pushed me to think about how my official work related to my personal brand.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? In 2014, I read The Dream Manger by Matthew Kelly. The premise of the book is that you should live every day in service of your dreams and that employees will be most engaged when they can make a connection between their personal dreams and professional work. In the end, it prompted me to write 100 dreams.

Once I wrote my list, I realized how little I was actually working towards my dreams. I had a long list of countries I wanted to see, so I set a new goal of visiting at least one new country every year. Since then, I have been to nine. I wanted to summit mountains and run 5Ks, so I started training to be able to do those things. A few months later, I had summited two mountains and completed a 5K. I also had dreams of making a real impact on my job and helping to develop other people. By consciously working on this list, I was able to bring my whole authentic self to work and it made me a better leader. It fueled my passion to help other people realize their dreams inside and outside of work and provide proof that it was possible.

Last year, when I did my regular reflection on the list and what I was working on, I decided to commit to one I had held since I was a child – to attend Oxford. Five months later, I was admitted to the business school and nine months after that I started my first day of classes with my cohort. Reflecting on the things that truly matter to me in life has cleared the path for me to set priorities and achieve my dreams – and to use those lessons to help those around me achieve theirs as well.

Where do you see yourself doing ten years from now? If you had asked me this six years ago when I was graduating from undergrad, I would have had a very detailed plan – and I would have been wrong.  The greatest learning I have had is that the best things in life are unexpected and unplanned. I know that I want to spend my career and my life helping others unleash their potential, training people to be more effective and impactful leaders, and helping organizations design sustainable programs and cultures to value and utilize this potential for the benefit of all parties. However, where this will be or what this will look like will evolve over the next decade into something greater than I could possibly imagine right now.