Where Emory’s MBA Can Take Your Career—Ballerina To Consultant And Hospitality To High Tech

Most MBA programs tout transformative experiences, but not all have the career outcomes to back up the claim. If anything, Emory’s Goizueta Business School undersells the true impact of its MBA programs as it regularly outperforms MBA programs ranked above it.

In fact, Goizueta consistently ranks among the top-5 for employment outcomes—performing well above its #16 Businessweek and #17 U.S. News & World Report rankings might suggest. How does Goizueta deliver such impressive career results year over year? It’s simple. We take a highly personalized approach to everything we do and tailor academic and career advising specifically to each student’s career goals. Whether students are looking to make a career change or accelerate on their existing paths, the highly experiential curriculum paired with personalized career coaching sets the Emory MBA experience and our graduates apart.

Just ask the Class of 2023:

96% of graduates accepted job offers within 3 months of graduation
$165,000 median base salary
$193,000 median base salary plus bonus

Top hiring companies include Amazon, Bain, Bank of America, BCG, Capital One Financial, Deloitte, EY, Goldman Sachs, Google, McKinsey, Microsoft, PwC, UPS, and Visa, among others. While 75% of Fortune 1000 companies have offices in our backyard of Atlanta, Emory’s deep industry connections and recruiting relationship expand far beyond the South. With offers from multinational firms, students have the opportunity to choose their location.

Whatever your career goals, Emory’s full-time MBA degree can empower you to realize them – as it did for these three professionals:

Lara McGee 23MBA, From Ballet Dancer to Deloitte Consultant

While many pursue an MBA to switch career paths, not many transitions are as impactful as Lara McGee’s was. The one-time professional ballet dancer is now a senior consultant working within change management at Deloitte. After gaining some experience in arts management, Lara realized she was missing the business acumen and quantitative skills necessary to be successful.

Deciding an MBA was the best course of action to make her career pivot, she chose Goizueta because she was impressed by the curriculum and welcoming nature of the school and community. After engaging with some of the many Goizueta alumni at Deloitte, she landed an internship there working on a change management project, refreshing the data and analytics department of a large healthcare firm. That internship led to a full-time offer.

“It’s been life-changing and dramatic, but going from an arts management career to corporate America, it’s a pretty big pivot,” says McGee. “I would not have been able to make this career pivot without going back to school.”

Charis Brooks 23MBA, From Hospitality to High Tech

Although Charis Brooks 23MBA found her roles in hospitality immensely rewarding, the effect of the pandemic on her industry gave pushed her to reconsider her career path. Having always been intrigued by the intersection of technology and marketing, she pursued an MBA to deepen her marketing knowledge and strengthen her leadership skills.

She leveraged her previous experience in revenue optimization along with her new marketing skills to secure a marketing internship with Microsoft. While there, she conducted sales pipeline acceleration analysis and created a machine learning model to curate the optimal customer-type investment mix to close sales deals. Her internship, and newfound confidence in herself, led to a full-time offer with Microsoft.

“The amount of life experiences I had in two years has been remarkable,” says Brooks. “I see my MBA as a way to future-proof my career and ensure my success in an ever-changing world.”

Ryan Murray 23MBA, Accelerating an Existing Career in Consulting…From EY to McKinsey

With a background in mechanical engineering, Florida native Ryan Murray 23MBA started working as a supply chain consultant at EY, but soon felt he needed to build upon his skillset to truly excel at his job.

Ryan credits Goizueta’s small-by-design structure in his success in the classroom and in landing a new consulting role with McKinsey & Company. The personalized nature of the program empowers students at Goizueta to help one another rather than compete against one another. It also enabled him to grow his network with deep connections among his fellow classmates as well as Goizueta alumni.

“I think the ROI was there from day one in getting an MBA,” Ryan says. “Immediately you become part of every network, and I’m going into a great job because of the MBA, so I’m very happy with my decision to come here.”

Maureen Manion-Leone is the Associate Dean and Executive Director of the Graduate Career Management Center at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. After graduating from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, she started her career at Procter & Gamble and received her MBA from Xavier University while working at P&G. Prior to joining Goizueta, Maureen spent ten years working and teaching abroad for higher education institutions in Europe and Africa.

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