Authentically Darden In D.C. Metro The Executive MBA Experience

Read the full transcript below: 

Gregory B. Fairchild:

Helping people get in the room, what a great thing.

Ryan Burns:

It’s been awesome just wrestling with complex issues.

Yael Grushka-Cockayne:

To challenge each other, to hold each other accountable, to learn from each other.

Lauren Powlovich:

I have a confidence now in myself that I never imagined I would have.

Matthew L. Boyd:

They have their own secret solves, and it’s working really well.

John Byrne:

Hi, I’m John Byrne with Poets&Quants. Welcome to UVA Darden’s DC Metro Campus in Rosslyn, Virginia, just a metro stop away from Washington, DC, our nation’s capital.

Ryan Burns:

Beautiful campus, by the way, looking over the Potomac River right outside of Washington, DC.

John Byrne:

We are here to do a deep dive into the Executive MBA program. On this campus, Darden delivers, of course, a full menu of executive education courses and a brand new part-time MBA and a new master’s in business analytics with the McIntyre School of Commerce at UVA.

Yael Grushka-Cockayne:

The degree programs that we have are for working professionals, folks who have day jobs.

Lauren Powlovich:

I just thought to myself, wow, being a mom, having a full-time job, I am getting my education, getting my MBA in the nation’s capital.

Gregory B. Fairchild:

It’s a place that doesn’t separate the campus life from the living life and the working life. They’re all integrated.

Ryan Burns:

We have folks from all over the world coming together in this town, and the access that we have is just fabulous.

Scott Beardsley:

Washington DC is one of the most important business centers in this country, and it’s also a hub for technology. As a result, if you’re looking for talent and you’re also looking to have influence, clearly the intersection of technology and government is right there, and that’s what it’s all about.

Gregory B. Fairchild:

One of the grand benefits of this location is we’re in the soup. We’re literally in close proximity to these corporations that are very, very interested in finding ways to build a closer relationship with their employees.

Yael Grushka-Cockayne:

The goal is really to create a community of leaders that are strong, that have bonded together, that have been inspired from a bunch of other individuals that have very different experiences and backgrounds, folks from the military, consulting, finance, profit, and non-profit organizations, an incredible array of individuals that come together for those weekends and walk away just different.

Ryan Burns:

My name is Ryan Burns. I’m a lobbyist here in town, which is a dirty word for a lot of folks, but I actually find it the most fascinating job. I walked in the door with a lot of political experience from working on Capitol Hill. But what Darden has done is actually given me new tools I can use to assess environments, build strategies, and be able to use that to counsel my executive leaders and consult on the hill in ways that I just couldn’t have without those tools.

Gregory B. Fairchild:

When you’re sitting in the room and you have former Fed Chairman, when you’re sitting in the room and you have the former director of the CIA, when you’re sitting in the room and you have CEOs of major defense contractors there, and frankly, we’re proximal and engaged with them, they create new opportunities for students to do projects with those organizations.

Lauren Powlovich:

My name is Lauren Lovich. I am the Associate Chief Medical Officer of a medical research organization. I don’t know how it all happened so serendipitously, but my company recently went through a restructuring. I now manage people. I now make decisions on a much higher level, and I really don’t think that I would be able to be in the position that I’m in today and have the confidence that I have in making those decisions without my Darden education.

Matthew L. Boyd:

I’m Matthew Boyd, work for a pharmaceutical company. I personally, coming from a science background, a deep science background, all my growth has been in all of our quant classes. So, I think that executive format, being able to really do the hands-on learning, but really being applied to your day-to-day life right now in real time has been really impactful for me.

Yael Grushka-Cockayne:

They want to learn in the moment and apply it next week at work.

Scott Beardsley:

And Darden has this incredible mix between being anchored in the world of practice and using the case method, combined with hiring professors and training them in that method so that they can be the most effective teachers possible.

Yael Grushka-Cockayne:

I teach decision analysis. I want students to walk away knowing Excel and functionality optimization and all these tools that I can kind of name, but it’s not really about that. It’s more around the ability to be willing to show some humbleness, ask a lot of questions, make sense out of a messy situation, and then move forward with some kind of conviction, and that’s really beautiful to see.

Matthew L. Boyd:

Each one of us had our own strengths. Each one of us is able to talk through themes in a different way.

Lauren Powlovich:

We are a community, and we care for one another. And at the end of the day, when we graduate, we are going to have each other.

Ryan Burns:

The reality is that an executive MBA program is not for everybody, but if you’re an individual who wants to grow as a leader, who wants to learn how to manage complexity in an environment where you are going to be challenged, if that excites you, like it excites me, then Darden is the place for you.

Yael Grushka-Cockayne:

Where we find ourself and in the world today, folks find it valuable to add an MBA to their toolkit.

Lauren Powlovich:

Just do it and you will not regret it.