Claire Marsh (Kellogg, ‘20) spent the first few years of her career as a Product Manager in the social impact space. Realizing that she could advance her career in Product & Design with more business skills, she attended Kellogg’s MBA/MS Design program. In this interview, she shares her journey to Kellogg, how her dual degree is helping to further her career in the product development & design space, and her advice for others who are hoping to build careers in product.
MBASchooled: You were a Product Manager before going to Kellogg. What did you do, and why did you decide to go to business school?
Prior to Kellogg I was the product manager of Kiva.org’s U.S. and Kenya direct lending platform. I absolutely loved it, although, like any product role it is a thankless job. My entire adult life I’ve spent exploring how technology could be used to bring opportunity to those who are left out. Kiva.org’s model was one of leveraging crowdfunding to bring those left out of the traditional financial system around the world into the fold of financial inclusion. I worked with developers and business teams alike to prove out social underwriting as a form of creditworthiness. At Kiva, I wore many hats due to our team being quite small — from traditional PM work in driving roadmap development, product definition, design and launch and project management to more management work like driving the adoption of SCRUM methodology across the organization, and defining the vision for our specific business unit.
As a product manager, I knew I didn’t have to go to business school to advance within this domain because a lot of your skills come from experience on the job. That said, I felt that I could advance faster / make more informed and quicker decisions by having certain business frameworks to leverage in doing so. What is more, I chose my specific program (MBA + MS in Design Innovation), in order to go deeper into a toolkit around design thinking, in order to leverage this to get to the root of problems faster — the key role of a PM.
MBASchooled: As a dual degree student, what was your academic courseload like?
First year was heavy in both business fundamentals (accounting, statistical decision making, finance, operations and strategy) as well as design thinking experiential courses and opportunities. This has given me a great foundation moving forward into the elective courses I’ve taken to dive deeper into how to apply these foundational frameworks.
I would be doing the first year a disservice if I didn’t mention that only 50% of my time was spent on coursework, and the other 50% of the time I focused on experiential competitions, networking with classmates, and recruiting. My experience is not dissimilar to others I know.
MBASchooled: As a dual degree student what resources did you have that enabled you to get deeper experience in design + innovation?
As a MMM, I felt I had the best of two worlds I loved — business strategy and engineering/design. I had the toolkit from Kellogg for “viability”, but also the “feasibility” and “desirability” toolkit from the McCormick School of Engineering. What this meant in practice was really most of my design courses were studio time and experiential, working with clients on actual problems. In design you really learn by doing. Whereas at Kellogg we were taught about the box, at McCormick we were taught how to expand that box and look outside of the box / flip it on its head.
MBASchooled:What was your career/recruiting process like? What did you consider and where did you end up?
When starting my recruiting process, I divided my potential paths into two: design consulting and PM in tech. I didn’t think you could have both. While pursuing the design consulting route, I caught wind of the opportunity with BCG DV. In a sense I happened upon it by chance, and when I realized it was the best of all the worlds I wanted to be a part of, I went all in. It was a painless process — just two interviews — and I think that speaks to it being the right opportunity for me. The interview was fun. I enjoy product cases because it is something that I love working in. I’m thrilled to be going back to a company that combines the design thinking process, PM and tech, and startups in a variety of industries all into one.
One resource that was instrumental to my experience, and I know is the highest regarded resource at Kellogg is what we call IPGs or Interview Prep Groups. These are organized by industry, and second-year students volunteer to prepare first-years on their recruiting. I couldn’t have navigated recruiting without this type of generous mentorship.
MBASchooled: What did you do during your summer, and what were some of the key learnings?
I was a PM intern at BCG Digital Ventures, BCG’s VC/innovation consulting arm. We create disruptive new businesses for age-old corporations that don’t have the structure, process or incentives to do it in-house. I worked on both an internal and external project, and focused on the earliest stages of venture creation when everything is unknown and amorphous — my favorite stage! I learned a lot about how to not get tied to a solution, but really become obsessed with solving a problem from pitching and having thrown out many different concepts throughout the day to day. I learned what true multidisciplinary team collaboration looks like — especially across geographies. I also learned that consulting still has a lot of politics to deal with, and you must sell yourself every day alongside your project, which requires being attuned to what others in the organization care about.
MBASchooled: How did your internship help you think about your long term career goals?
Having come from a pure social impact field, one of the biggest things I was testing out this summer was if I could work at a place that didn’t explicitly only work for a greater mission to society. What I learned is that being at a place where you are literally creating a business from scratch, you have a unique opportunity to set the baseline for the reason the business exists, and the cultural values of that business. What I realized is that beyond providing me tremendous value in getting the most reps in creating new businesses, this type of work will also give me the opportunity to still influence how society is accounted for in new businesses being created.
MBASchooled: What from your experience at Kellogg was helpful to your work in your summer internship?
The most crucial classes that helped me this summer were primarily my design courses since my experience this summer was heavily rooted in that process, but I also leveraged my strategy and operations courses when defining the different business models of our concepts we developed.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for other prospective students who are considering careers in product, innovation or design?
The more reps you have the better. Whether you decide to go back to school or not, shoot for the experiences that will allow you to go through the design process multiple times, or solve the most ambiguous / sticky problems. And if you are going into product, just start getting that experience shipping / launching. Most important of all, if you are going into any of these fields, spend time close to the end customer. User empathy is the most formative for any of these roles.