Meet Foster’s MBA Class of 2018

Amanda Lowe

Foster School of Business, University of Washington

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Marketing professional. Strategic thinker. Unrelenting optimist. Simpsons enthusiast!

Hometown: Atlanta, GA

Fun Fact About Yourself: I spent a summer in college living on remote islands in Vanuatu and Samoa, conducting field research on child development in developing countries.

Undergraduate School and Major: Emory University, Psychology

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: The Capre Group (Senior Associate), Focus Brands (Brand Licensing Specialist), Moxie (Market Researcher)

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: In my last year of consulting, I managed the development of a collaborative sales planning toolkit for one of our firm’s largest clients, who is a global leader in the beverage industry. In the past year, this toolkit has been rolled out nationally and it has become their gold standard for joint business planning and elevating customer relationships.

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants? Take the time to learn and understand the culture of the schools you’re applying to and what they are trying to accomplish as a community. In addition to strengthening your competitiveness by making your essays and interviews more insightful and customized, getting your MBA is two years of your life and you should be somewhere that fits your needs and personality. Utilize current students, admissions officers, and alumni to get a sense for what the school is like outside an admissions pamphlet.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? Making the decision to go back to school and weighing the opportunity costs of leaving the workforce was difficult, but after visiting Foster the tangible benefits of going back for an MBA became so much clearer. I was impressed by Foster’s small class size and focus on individual development, which allow for personalized career coaching, and their incredible mentorship program, which matches MBA students with corporate leaders in the Seattle business community. When I learned that Foster had a 96% job placement rate, the second highest in the country, I knew this school was doing something different.

But what distinguishes Foster is the people and the tight-knit community they have built. The Foster Admissions Director once spent an hour with me on the phone, telling me about the different programs and giving me feedback on my application. I interviewed the day before spring break and a current Foster student stayed on campus to talk to me enthusiastically about how much she loved the program. Every Foster touch point I had throughout my application process reinforced what a special place this program is and how much its community members value it.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? After leaving Foster, I would like to put my past marketing experience and post-MBA sharpened skill set to work in a marketing department or consulting firm. In my last job, I worked mostly with customer marketing and commercial marketing, but would love more experience in brand marketing or innovation.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? I’d like my peers to say that I was a good community member and teammate. I want to be seen as someone who brought leadership and new ideas to the table, but also championed my teammates’ ideas and approaches. Above all, I want to be seen as someone who was always a team player and jumped in when there was an opportunity to provide support and encouragement. Over the next two years, I want to make sure that I continue to help build and champion the Foster community, on and off campus.