Rong Xue

Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business

“An energetic and motivated individual who loves to tackle challenging problems.”

Hometown: Liaocheng, China

Fun Fact About Yourself: Born in China, studied in Germany. and worked in the United States.

Undergraduate School and Major: Shandong University, Chemical Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: PPG Industry, Chemist

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I successfully solved the quality issues of one product line when I worked for PPG. This project was so difficult that I tried 13 different solutions and over 500 formulas at first, but none of them worked. What’s worse, more and more customer complaints kept pouring in and the company had to stop selling and recall some of the sold products. Facing pressure and failure, I did not give up. Instead, I decided to work harder until the problem was solved. To find a good solution, I read numerous technical books and papers, proactively reached out to other chemists, participated in vendors’ workshops, and tried their new ingredients. After considerable trial and error, I finally found a solution that met all the requirements! This project turned out to be a great success: All 30 formulas were revised, with better quality control and reduced costs. I am very proud that I helped the team complete this unsurmountable project in merely 17 months.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? I talked to quite a lot of Kelley students while choosing a school and was interviewed by a Kelley student too. Based on these interactions, I feel they are very genuine and see that as the best quality of Kelley MBA students. The genuineness comes from their inner confidence and their faith in Kelley and their futures. Their sincerity is also reflected in their attitude towards me. They treated me as an individual who is curious about Kelley and wants to be seen, not only as one of the potential students or interviewees.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? A key factor was that the Kelley MBA program enjoys a high reputation in marketing and has strong connections with industry, especially with companies in the Midwest, a place where my family has been ever since we came to the U.S. years ago. The major motivation for me to pursue an MBA degree was to complete my career transition from a technical specialist to a product manager and Kelley is a perfect place for me to achieve my career transition.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school?  On one hand, I wish I could build my business knowledge by taking courses from different disciplines such as marketing, finance, operation, etc. On the other hand, I wish I could enrich my mind by learning with my classmates who have different backgrounds but share the same ambition of making the world a better place for our children.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? The most challenging question was why I have so many restarts in my resume and how I survived them. That was a great question but very hard to answer because my life changed dramatically in the past decade, including location changes (from China to Germany and then to the United States), industry changes (from consumer packaged goods industry to coating industry) and identity changes (from a workaholic to a full-time mom who took care of two young children and then to an MBA candidate). There is no simple answer and I am still trying to answer the question in pursuing my self-fulfillment in work and life.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? For years, I was a technical person both at Unilever and PPG. In the past two years, I began to realize my great passion was doing business. So, I decided to pursue an MBA to complete my transition from technical to marketing. In addition, I wanted to be the role model of my daughter. My mom has been my role model and I learned from her at an early age to aim high, stay grounded, follow my heart, and (most importantly) never give up no matter how difficult the path was by witnessing how she, as a competitive athlete, earned the respect of the team by her strong determination and optimism. My daughter was born right before I started the MBA application and I had hoped I could become her role model by giving her the same power and strength to pursue her dreams and live a life she wants when she grows up.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Notre Dame and Carnegie Mellon.

How did you determine your fit at various schools? First, I knew I wanted to attend a compact MBA program with a collaborative culture. I feel most comfortable learning and exchanging ideas in such an environment so I could easily open my mind and express my opinions without worrying about making mistakes. Secondly, I wanted to join a program that could provide me the best training and networking to complete my career transition.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? For a long time, I felt good about myself: smart, self-disciplined and hard-working. However, there was a big change when I moved to Germany where I needed to face life’s challenges all by myself: adapt to a new culture, study a challenging major, pick up a new language and work two jobs at the same time to barely support myself. At the age of 22, I lost all my glory unexpectedly and had to restart building my confidence. Luckily, I was not knocked down and eventually survived all the challenges. The experience was my defining moment and I realized my success in my first 22 years depended too much on outside support and serendipity, which couldn’t last or carry me further to the next success. It is the inner strength that the panacea to life problems. What I experienced in Germany made me humble and brave.

Where do you see yourself in ten years? By then, I hope to have founded my own life coaching company which will help people live their lives to the fullest.