Ten Ways to Help Strengthen Your Kellogg MBA Application

 

Choosing to apply to a full time MBA program is a significant moment in your professional (and personal) journey and a commitment. You will devote hours to test prep, drafting and redrafting essays, practicing for interviews, perusing websites and visiting campuses. During this process, we know you have questions on how to make your application stand out.

To help demystify how our admissions team evaluates your Kellogg application, we’ve compiled a helpful “Top Ten” list of factors to keep in mind when preparing to submit your materials.  Doing so will help you identify key focus areas to strengthen your application and help you to formulate the story that will help the Admissions team learn more about you.

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10. Prepare a well-rounded application to convey intellectual ability and creativity.

Our goal is to ensure that you can handle the rigor in the Kellogg classroom. Your undergraduate GPA, course selection and GMAT score help us assess your readiness. But we’re also invested in finding creative thinkers who can solve problems. Qualitative evidence of intellectual ability is going to come out in your essays, your interview and your recommendations. We truly take a holistic look at our applicants rather than only relying on a number.

9. Highlight the quality of your professional experience, regardless of where you are in your career, to distinguish your application.

The Kellogg experience is enriched by the diversity of our student body, both personally and professionally. We admit applicants from a variety of fields, with varying years of experience. We also consider each applicant within the context of his or her own career path, rather than against each other. Be sure to include your resume and details to help us understand what the career advancement standards are within your industry and your particular company or organization.

8. Avoid jargon whenever you can.

Jargon and acronyms often create confusion. Use your application as an opportunity to showcase your ability to clearly communicate with others, without relying on industry or organization ‘speak’ as a filler to convey your ideas.

7. Have a clear understanding of your reasons behind pursuing an MBA.

Describing your goals is not an exercise in impressing the Admissions committee; it is an honest reflection of where you hope your life is heading. We want to see a clear narrative that explains why you want to pursue an MBA. No answer is wrong, so please speak freely and openly about how Kellogg and its community will help you achieve your professional goals.

6. Share how you have made an impact on the world around you.

Passion and engagement are universal features within the Kellogg community, and there are a lot of ways to show us that you’re the type of person who makes a difference, whether inside your workplace or through activities outside of the office.

5. Display an openness to collaboration and teamwork.

Our ideal applicant likes to hear different viewpoints, respects others, can challenge opinions and isn’t afraid to speak up, but can do so in a way that’s collaborative and would help further a group or classroom conversation. If you thrive in a team-based environment, or want to grow your interpersonal skills, Kellogg could be the right fit for you.

4. Provide context and background during your interview.

The interview is your opportunity to highlight aspects of your story that you believe are most important and to let us know about anything you weren’t able to address in the application. Keep in mind that your interviewer will only see your resume – not your full application – so the additional detail is helpful to facilitate a great conversation that helps us to get to know you better.

3. Keep in mind the 7 categories admissions officers use to evaluate your application.

When Kellogg admissions officers review an application, they evaluate potential students based on: intellectual ability, work experience, professional goals, leadership, impact and interpersonal skills.

2. Clearly communicate your leadership journey.

The Kellogg Admissions team is looking for both demonstrated leadership in the past and an applicant’s leadership potential.  Although leadership may be defined differently among candidates based on their experiences, our Admissions team looks for individuals who have taken on new responsibilities and opportunities, in whichever ways they can. Your roles don’t have to be formal, just indicative of your drive. If you can help us see how these activities fit within your overall career narrative, we can more clearly identify how you might fit in the Kellogg community.

And our final tip for applicants is…

1. Be authentic.

When submitting your materials for consideration, ensure that your total application, including the interview, reflects your authentic story. Above all else, be thoughtful, be honest and be yourself.

Click here to begin your application. We are very excited to get to know you!

 

So You Want to Be a Social Entrepreneur at Kellogg?

By Saumya

I was a social entrepreneur in India for three years prior to attending the Kellogg School of Management. After graduating from Kellogg’s Two-Year MBA Program, I am moving back to India to continue my journey as a social entrepreneur. My friends and family are often baffled to hear this short summary of my past five years. Their biggest question is: If you already knew that this is what you wanted to do, why spend the time and money on an MBA?

This is a question I have asked myself multiple times over the many quarters I have spent at Kellogg: Is a business school in the American Midwest the most conducive place to build a social enterprise that solves the problems of small-holder farmers halfway across the world in India? As I near the end of my two years at Kellogg, I can say without hesitation that the answer is yes.

Social Entrepreneurship at Kellogg: An Inside Look

To attend Kellogg, I had turned down an admission offer with scholarship from a competitive business school with a celebrated social-enterprise program. In my mind, running a social enterprise was no different than running any other mainstream for-profit business. A social enterprise needs to be sustainable and scalable in order to solve the deep-rooted challenges that exist in our world today. I wanted to acquire skills such as how to run a business, manage teams, liaise with different stakeholders, raise funding and so on. Joining a top-five business school made perfect sense from that perspective.

My introduction to social enterprise at Kellogg started with the Social Impact Days, an intense two-day workshop where student teams come together to create a business to pitch to a panel of judges. A few months prior to joining Kellogg, my friends and I had come up with a business idea in the agriculture space focused on helping small farmers get out of poverty. I was very excited when I found out that one of the sectors highlighted during Social Impact Days was Food and Agriculture. I was looking forward to finding classmates that were as passionate about solving the food crisis and helping farmers as I was.

Thankfully, I did find classmates interested in the sector, but “Food and Agriculture” meant something completely different to each one of them. At the end of two days, we ended up creating an app to help elderly people navigate through the millions of food choices in grocery stores in order to get the nutrition they need. We even won second prize for our idea! While I had a great time with my team (and I am still very close friends with some of them) it struck me that I was in a developed country now where people are struggling with a completely different set of problems.

When you think entrepreneurship, you may think of other schools at first. While awareness for the entrepreneurship initiative at Kellogg has been growing, the number of entrepreneurs is still relatively small, especially right when you are entering school. This means that you have a lot more resources per entrepreneur and you get a lot of personal attention from the administration and faculty. Additionally, you can actually customize a lot of the resources according to your own needs.

My biggest reason for getting over recruiting FOMO to focus on developing my idea (now known as Kheyti) was primarily due to Professor Mohanbir Sawhney. I met him in October 2015 after cold-emailing many professors at Kellogg who I thought could provide advice. I remember meeting Professor Sawhney at the Allen Center for about 15 minutes to introduce myself and share my idea. By the end of that meeting, he had offered to fund my summer internship with Kheyti through his Center for Research in Technology and Innovation! This was something I hadn’t even fathomed. He took me under his wing and pushed me to dive headfirst into building Kheyti at Kellogg.

Since Kheyti was just an idea for my first few quarters at Kellogg, I started by pitching Kheyti in multiple forums such as Northwestern University’s Pitch Night, the Kellogg Business Plan Competition, NUVC and others. Linda Darragh and Sunny Russell of the Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative were very helpful in letting me know about opportunities inside and outside of Northwestern. Thankfully, we won a handful of these competitions and had a decent seed fund to start prototyping in December 2015.

Around that same time, Megan Kashner, the current director of Social Impact, joined Kellogg. Megan has an outstanding background in the nonprofit space and is one of the most approachable people I have met at Kellogg. After she heard I wanted to pursue Kheyti over the summer, she connected connected with Jennifer Mayer, manager of the Project Impact program. I have worked with Jennifer over the past 1.5 years through Project Impact and then through Zell Fellows. She is the reason Kheyti became the inaugural recipient of the Resnick Family Social Impact Award given by ISEN. When Jennifer sent me the application for the award, and I saw it was focused on sustainability, my knee-jerk reaction was that Kheyti wouldn’t be eligible since we were an impact-focused company and sustainability was just a byproduct of our work. But Jennifer encouraged me to go for the first meeting, and, by the second meeting, ISEN decided to award us a $25,000 grant!

Trina Ntamere, the current senior program administrator for the Kellogg Public-Private Interface, has also played a big part in allowing me to stay connected with my team back in India through Project Impact. Over the past 1.5 years, I have been to India four times, which includes a three-month summer stint with Kheyti. All of these trips have been almost entirely funded through Project Impact, which has enabled me to stay in touch with ground operations. In addition to KPPI, KIEI has provided support in applying for business-plan competitions and pitching Kheyti at various forums. The vote of confidence the administration has had in my passion is a huge deal for me.

In my second year, I was selected as a Zell Fellow, which isn’t a “social impact” program per se, but has given me substantial funding for Kheyti and a set of excellent mentors such as David Schonthal and Gregg Latterman. Through Zell, I have met exceptionally inspiring entrepreneurs, including Sam Zell of EGII, Jai Shekhawat of SAP FieldGlass and Dhani Jones, a former NFL linebacker. I also met a cohort of fellow entrepreneurs at Kellogg who are daring to walk the path of entrepreneurship alongside me.

The best part about my experience of building Kheyti at Kellogg has been seeing so many doors open. All I had to do was ask and people made sure I had it, whether it was funding for going to India or traveling to pitch competitions or trying to increase potential loan forgiveness assistance. I remember in one of our first meetings Megan told me she knew that the financial resources for social entrepreneurs at the time were limited, but she also promised that she would do whatever it takes to make it better. A year later, I learned that Kellogg had increased their cap for the loan forgiveness program to up to $15,000 per year. I never expected this change would happen so soon, especially with the number of stakeholders involved in a massive institution like Kellogg.

The other thing that differentiates Kellogg from all other business schools is that they let students focus on their businesses while being at school. Most other programs believe that students are at school to study and not work. While ideation is welcomed, executing your idea during school is actually discouraged. At Kellogg, I have only felt supported from all sides, including professors who have gone out of their way to let me submit make-up assignments or even record classes when I was traveling to India.

Kellogg also has a generous Social Entrepreneurship Award of $70,000 startup funding and a newly introduced scholarship of $60,000 for students joining their social enterprises full-time after Kellogg. What impressed me is that these awards were continuously updated after listening to the needs of student entrepreneurs. The $60,000 scholarship was introduced after entrepreneurs such as Tiffany Smith (of Tiltas) and I talked to the administration about how challenging it could be to launch a nonprofit with significant debt burden. I was lucky enough to get $110,000 from both the award and the scholarship right before graduating and joining my startup full-time. This is something I haven’t seen in any other school.

Kellogg is still refining and improving its entrepreneurial offering but even in its early stages it has given me a wonderful experience. I would like to leave you with my advice, if you choose to take this route at Kellogg:

1. Just ask. Anything is possible, so don’t assume things are set in stone. It is very important to work hard on your pitch and then make your needs known.
2. Entrepreneurship is not about having things served on a platter. You need to open doors for yourself instead of waiting for others to do it for you.
3. Know that you are your biggest strength. Investors and funders are looking to support you as an individual more than your idea. Make sure you show them your passion and enthusiasm to get them on board.
4. Know the risks. Your startup, whether for- or nonprofit will require a lot of sacrifices, including family, relationships, social life, weekends, vacations and more. Evaluate the best and worst that could happen and see whether the small chance of success is worth risking all these things.

Saumya is a second-year student in Kellogg’s Two-Year MBA Program. She is currently incubating her agri-tech social enterprise Kheyti and has been an entrepreneur in the Indian social enterprise space for the past four years. Prior to Kellogg, she was running her startup, YellowLeaf, which saved migrant blue-collar workers from exploitation.

A New Essay Question on the Kellogg Full-Time MBA Application

June was a busy month for us at The Kellogg School of Management. We said goodbye to the  class of 2017, welcomed our latest one-year and MMM students to campus, and continue to work with our two-year and JD-MBA admitted students on their arrival in August. Now that our incoming students have started to arrive, we are getting ready to hit the road and meet the applicants all around the world.

Our application for the Full-Time MBA program goes live in mid-July, kicking off our admissions season. We love seeing the unique and exciting ways our prospective students express themselves and demonstrate their amazing backgrounds throughout the application process.

Every year, we review our application and look for ways to get to know our applicants even better. As the 2017 application is about to go live, we are excited to share an update to our essay questions and give you insight into how you can best showcase your accomplishments in your response.

Changing Question #1 on the Kellogg Full-Time MBA Application

The evolution of the new essay question

We have long asked our applicants to reflect on their leadership experiences and impact on others, which are key aspects of the Kellogg experience. The latest version of this question takes this same focus on leadership and expands it to call out another longstanding Kellogg commitment: creating lasting value in organizations. We are looking forward to your response to the following:

Kellogg’s purpose is to educate, equip and inspire brave leaders who create lasting value. Tell us about a time you have demonstrated leadership and created lasting value. What challenges did you face, and what did you learn?

The goal of creating lasting value in organizations is not something new to Kellogg. In fact, it’s an integral facet of our purpose statement. We are calling you to show us how you have spearheaded change, strived for excellence and created legacies in your organizations. This is an opportunity to dive deep into a strong example; we want to understand the challenges you faced and what you learned from that experience to develop you into the leader you are today. We want our students to be the kind of people who aim to leave a lasting mark wherever they go, both before Kellogg and throughout the rest of their careers.

As you prepare your application, we recommend you visit the Full-Time MBA application page to find more information about all of our essay questions and start your Kellogg journey. We are so eager to meet you and learn more about your accomplishments.

Growth, Scaling, and Life Lessons from Jimmy John Liautaud, Founder, Owner & Chairman of Jimmy John’s

By Lauren Davis ’18

Every week at Kellogg there is an impressive schedule of lunch & learns, panels, and events with leaders from all industries and sizes of companies. These events are in addition to the business leaders who are brought in as guest lecturers in courses like New Venture Discovery, as clients for courses like Analytical Consulting Lab, or as judges in case competitions like the Kellogg Business Design Challenge. Since starting here in the Fall, I have heard from several accomplished entrepreneurs and professionals, including:

• Founder of OkCupid, Sam Yagan
• Co-Founder of Bucketfeet, Raaja Nemani
• President of Red Lobster, Salli Setta
• Founder & Managing Partner of TEN35, Sherman Wright
• Former VP Operations at eBay, John Courtney
• And so many others!

These events have quickly become one of my favorite parts of the Kellogg experience. I find myself looking at the calendar months in advance to be sure I get a seat at every speaker event that looks interesting. So, when I saw that the founder and Chairman of Jimmy Johns was coming to campus, I signed up immediately.

Facilitated by Professor Karin O’Connor, the scheduled 1-hour roundtable with Jimmy John Liautaud turned into almost 2 hours of engaging story telling. It felt like we circled the world with him and got a firsthand account of his journey, from the initial loan his dad gave him at age 18 to the upcoming plans he has for the franchise.

Many of his lessons complemented the tools taught in the core curriculum. From my Business Strategy and Operations Management classes, I saw the Assets and Activities framework coming to life as he explained his use of high quality ingredients and superior service, combined with a laser-focus on efficient operations, to achieve competitive advantage in the marketplace. As the small group of ~15 students went around the room asking questions, a few key growth & scaling lessons stood out in the stories he told:

Be Disciplined

• Find what you are good at and take time to perfect it.
• Avoid chasing passing fads to make a quick buck.
• Know your risk tolerance and resist the temptation to take on more debt than you need.
• Do not rush growth. Be meticulous and only grow in the right locations at the right time.

Recruit Good Leaders

• Hire eagles, not ducks. Eagles will hire other eagles, because they’re not afraid of being eaten, but a duck will never hire an eagle.

Play Where You Can Win

• Both in your business and charitable endeavors, choose organizations and opportunities where your expertise, skills, or contributions will result in a real and lasting impact.

As the discussion drew to a close, I was last around the table to ask a question. I had so many I wanted to ask, but when it was my turn only one thing came to mind. I asked if he had ever been afraid. It was a question with an obvious answer – of course he had. Everyone is afraid at some point in their career. But earlier that week I had gone to an event called Hear My Story, where a panel of students shared their experiences on a theme, which that week happened to be “Failure Stories.”  The openness and vulnerability of those classmates is likely what inspired my question of Mr. Liautaud, and the response he gave was unexpectedly moving.

Mr. Liautaud opened up about the mistakes he made in managing money early on, and the anguish he felt when he had to borrow money from a friend to make payroll. He talked about how this affected him as a leader and how he made it a priority from then on to do right by his employees. He then told us about a particularly painful time when he lost a partner and good friend on the eve of their second store opening, and the struggle it was to keep moving forward in the face of tragedy.

When you read about peoples’ staggering successes, it can be easy to forget the real emotion and daily struggle that comes with the journey. The raw honesty and open dialogue we had throughout the roundtable made for an incredibly powerful discussion. These moments where I can immerse myself in someone else’s story are what make my experience at Kellogg so much more than just the pursuit of a degree. The tactical skills I learn in the classroom will help me excel at my next job, but stories like these will help me get through challenges I cannot yet anticipate.

Lauren Davis ’18 is a 2Y student at Kellogg.

 

Harnessing the Real Magic by Marrying Your Passions and Skills for Impact

Two Social Impact alumni share key takeaways with Kellogg students in a fireside chat.  

By Allison Weller Dale ’18 and Stephanie Lio ’18

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With the generous sponsorship by the GM Foundation, Kellogg’s Net Impact Club recently hosted alumni Carmita Vaughan Semaan (MBA ‘04) and Camille Y. Lilly (EMBA ‘12) for an intimate “fireside chat” with students interested in careers in social impact and the public sector.

Vaughan Semaan is Founder and President of The Surge Institute. The Surge Fellowship, the Institute’s signature program, is transforming education by training, supporting, connecting and elevating emerging education leaders of color. Surge strengthens the pipeline of diverse talent and ensures a next wave of leaders that represent the populations that education reform and equity efforts seek to serve. Lilly is State Representative of the 78th Illinois House District. A lifelong Chicago resident, she is an active voice for improving health care, creating stronger schools, and creating jobs. As State Rep., Lilly works for the community’s needs by fighting for educational assistance, boosting job creation and business development, making healthcare affordable and accessible, and expanding mental health services.

Both alumna have a passion for the city and residents of Chicago. Vaughan Semaan noted that education was her pathway out of poverty.  Having access to a high quality education and a strong family gave her the opportunity to have the trajectory she has today. She feels strongly that she couldn’t live in Chicago and see what’s happening to young people here and not be part of the solution, so she made the transition from corporate America to Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 2005.  While there, she noticed that the residents CPS served — the communities, families and students — were woefully underrepresented in places where decisions about their lives were being made.  Additionally, she noted that she was surrounded by people who had amazing content expertise, but who did not have the executive skill development to take what they’d done on a small scale to change real systems. She referenced an example of someone who was handling half a billion dollars who didn’t know the difference between a net income statement and a balance sheet, and that wasn’t their fault, they didn’t have access to development opportunities that would teach them. The combination of those factors is the impetus of Surge. Vaughan Semaan strongly believes we need people in places of influence who represent the communities that are being served. However,  it’s not just getting them in the room, it’s getting them the skills needed to make change.

Lilly similarly noted the importance of education to her career success.  She grew up on the west side of Chicago, both of her parents are graduates, and she emphasized how important her mom was in pushing her to pursue education and follow her passions. While in school, Lilly felt she understood the content, but scored poorly on tests. Only when she was in graduate school was she diagnosed with dyslexia. After being diagnosed, she found an academic  path that suited her passion and skillset: business. After finding her stride academically, and after graduating from Kellogg with an EMBA, Camille decided to return to the community where she was raised.  She noted that not many people have the opportunity to see the evolution of your community and explore where your talents can fit to help. Her experiences with dyslexia, and experiencing first-hand the realities of growing up on the west side of Chicago, prompted her to become a legislator who impacts regular people. “I have a swag like no other,” she says, and attributes that to her drive to enact real change as a legislator. “It really is an honor to represent and make policy that impacts people, regular people.”

 

The discussion focused on a few key takeaways for students seeking opportunities or influence in social impact endeavors:

• Self-reflection is key to identifying your passions. Vaughan Semaanconsiders herself “a reluctant entrepreneur,” but recognized early on that she was always “a problem solver and a builder–the engineer in me won’t die.” While she did not come to Kellogg with the intent of starting her own organization, she realized she was passionate about addressing issues of importance to her, especially increasing representation of people who reflect and represent the communities they serve. “It’s inextricably linked to my personal narrative,” she said.
• Bring your whole self to work. Lilly shared a personal experience in graduate school when, for the first time in her education, she discovered that she had dyslexia. Her experience working with the school’s administration to accommodate  students with dyslexia inspires her to fight for legislation that impacts “regular people.” She also described the prominent role that her faith, family, and church community plays in her ability to make courageous decisions as a state legislator. She encouraged students that “once you have a firm foundation, you feel you can do just about anything, even with the mistakes.”
• Avoid paralysis and burnout by focusing on personal impact. Both alumni commented on rising interest in civic engagement as a reason for hope. Vaughan Semaannoted that “whether people agree or not, the fact that they are learning more about how to turn their angst, anxiety, and anger into real action is powerful. That’s how a democracy is supposed to work.” For both leaders, the current political climate is also a call to action. For Vaughan Semaan , she focuses on “what happens in Springfield or on Clark Street–rather than getting stuck in a spiral of discontent and fear that I’ve seen among a lot of my peers.” Lilly added that she sees great opportunities to educate people on local politics and the need for civic education. Her advice: “When you see the littlest thing that you can do to help a person, it helps you push through the politics, the challenges, things you don’t even know are hurdles.”
• Surround yourself with people with same definition of excellence. Both alumni mentioned influential people in their lives who provided mentorship and support. For Lilly, it was often her mother or her pastor. For Vaughan Semaan, she described peers from her time at Kellogg who became accountability partners: “Surround yourself people who actually have the same bar for excellence and the same work ethic.”

Closing the discussion, Vaughan Semaan reminded students that the most important thing they can do is to remember why they came to Kellogg: “The real magic is finding out how to use the latent genius within you. There’s a real magic to be able to marry what you love, what you can’t stop thinking about, with the things you do better than most other people. When you do that, you operate in excellence, and excellence pays for itself. Don’t start from a deficit mentality of what you can’t do. Do the introspective and reflective work around the things that bring you joy, and find your genius.  I promise when you marry that genius with what brings you joy, it’ll start illuminate a path for you.  And that path may not be like everyone else’s path.”

Allison Dale ’18 joined Kellogg to pursue her MBA after working as an Implementation Manager of mobile apps at McMaster-Carr Supply Company, and previously was a corps member with Teach for America in the Mississippi Delta.  

Stephanie Lio ’18, joined Kellogg to pursue her MBA after working in Deloitte Consulting’s Public Sector practice in Washington D.C. An alumna of Georgetown University, she is interested in the intersection of tech, design, and public service.

 

Exploring Brexit from the Perspective of Echo Chambers

Faculty and students engage in a discussion on the economic history and policy that led to Brexit, and its expected global impact. 

By Charity Hemphill-Frierson ’17 and Luke Murphy ‘17

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Last fall, over 50 Kellogg students attended an insightful analysis of the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union and the significant impact that “Brexit” would have on the future of the geopolitical climate of the E.U. and the Western world. Coincidentally, the event occurred on the same day as the U.S. presidential election, which parallels “Brexit” in terms of voter priorities and demographics. The discussion, led by Professors Sergio Rebello and David Austen-Smith and hosted by the Public Policy Club, European Business Club, and Kellogg Public-Private Interface (KPPI) was designed to help students make sense of the economic history and the communication tactics that those for and against the “leave” vote used to push their vision of the United Kingdom.

Exploring the European economic pie prior to the Industrial Revolution

Professor Rebello grounded the discussion in background on the 14^th through 17th centuries, explaining how prior to the Industrial Revolution, the economic pie was a “constant, with war serving as the main industry” as the British built an empire where the ‘sun never set.’ One of the key features of the British economy before the 19^th century included ongoing conflicts with France. Things began to change, however, with both the Industrial Revolution and Pax Britannica, a 100-year period of relative peace in Europe after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. These developments gave way to the emergence of a prosperous middle class and an economy that transitioned from industrial to knowledge-based. During this time, the significant growth in the U.K. economy was mostly attributed to the growth in London.

This flattening of the GDP per capita outside of London later coincided with the country’s participation in the European Union, which, among other things, made it easier for individuals from other parts of Europe to come to the U.K. and work. Though the British Empire had long included people from around the world, the timing left many feeling as if their economic stability was compromised by the ability of those from across the E.U. and the world to obtain employment. These factors all converged to create an environment that was primed for Brexit.

Understanding Brexit voter demographics

In hindsight, it’s easy to segment those who voted for and against Brexit: the majority of those who live in London as well as upper income, younger, and foreign-born voted to remain in the European Union. While 52% of British voted to leave, only 40% of Londoners voted to leave. London, the historical financial center of Europe, had the most to lose from the uncertainty around Brexit. The effects are already palpable – in December, the 328-year-old Lloyd’s of London insurance giant became one of the first major U.K.-businesses to announce that it will move part of its operations to the European continent in 2017.

On the other hand, those living in rural areas, the working class, and those over 65 felt that the policies of the E.U. had been most detrimental to them. Another large group of proponents included older males who had fought in the war against Germany and saw the U.K. as taking orders from the E.U. (and by extension Germany) as a form of weakness. Still, it remains unclear if the vote to leave the E.U. will provide those who supported the leave campaign with the results they seek.

Avoiding ‘echo chambers’

The talk left us in deep thought about the importance of avoiding echo chambers – networks of people who share similar backgrounds and experiences and thus share similar, self-reinforcing perspectives. As MBAs, many of us would have related to the London educated class who were content with employment opportunities and free trade with the continent. In London, as in Evanston, it can be difficult to understand the personal impact of immigration policies and a shift from manufacturing to services economy. While debating the merits of each position does not always lead to constructive or tangible outcomes, it is important for us as leaders to acknowledge the perspectives of others. It is critical that we understand how these sometimes competing perspectives impact the way in which decisions are made, how our own perspectives affect the setup of organizational structures, and how a healthy dose of conflict can make ourselves, companies, and countries stronger.

Charity Hemphill-Frierson is a second-year student in the 2Y program. Prior to Kellogg, Charity was a financial performance analyst for the Mayor of Indianapolis’ Office of Education Innovation.

Luke Murphy is a second-year student in the 2Y program. Prior to Kellogg, Luke was a Sales Director at Nasdaq covering public and private companies on the West Coast.

Three Key Lessons to Understanding the Healthcare Tech Industry

 

Professor Pete McNerney led a lecture series in November 2016 called Health “Tech” and Startups – the sixth and final installment of the Healthcare 101 lunch and learn series sponsored by the Healthcare Club and professors who align with the Health Enterprise Management pathway. The objective of the Healthcare 101 series is to give students exposure to a variety of healthcare topics, ranging from Biopharma to Payers. Professors David Dranove and Craig Garthwaite were among the presenters during Fall Quarter. In the Health Tech and Startups session, Professor McNerney walked nearly 60 first- and second-year Kellogg students through several key lessons on the health tech industry, including:

1. Know the environment – What’s the scale of the U.S. healthcare industry? How is it changing? Where do startups fit into the landscape?
2. Know the market – Where is the need for new technology innovations? What’s “hot”? What’s likely to fail?
3. Follow the money – What health tech business models have been successful? Where’s venture capital most active?

Know the environment.

Healthcare is big business in the United States, and constantly growing in size and complexity. The U.S. has the highest per capita healthcare cost of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, with five percent of patients comprising more than half of the total expenditures. The government is still a major player in terms of regulating and paying for care (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid). Many of us attending the workshop were already familiar with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its efforts to reduce the number of uninsured Americans through legislation. Even with the ACA rules in place, there are tens of millions still uninsured. Care providers like hospitals and clinics are consolidating, pushing for fewer beds and shorter stays in an effort to reduce the cost of caring for patient populations.

In the midst of this context, much is changing. insurers are shifting from fee-for-service care to value-based care, which compensates healthcare providers based on a positive outcome, rather than accumulating a total bill based on the number of types of procedures in a visit. Additionally, providers’ focus is shifting from expensive acute care and to chronic care, which supports those with chronic conditions continually and not just when they require hospitalization. All of these factors point to opportunities for health tech to meet some of these needs in the healthcare space.

Know the market.

It’s not difficult to identify areas for improvement in healthcare, but it is much harder to pinpoint: a) which of these needs presents the greatest opportunity, b) if that part of the market is growing and  c) whether there’s enough potential value to make the endeavor a successful business model. Traditionally, healthcare players have been hesitant to change, so for a new technology or innovation to truly “stick,” it must add significant value. Not surprisingly, there are several hot trends in medical technology (which includes both medical devices and healthcare IT), like wearable devices, implantable monitors, as well as other solutions that address “trunk of the tree”  (direct problems stemming from chronic illnesses) issues like obesity or hypertension.

The hottest trends in digital health are looking at many pressing needs, including: understanding and reducing cost, identifying efficient and high-quality providers, improving clinical practices, managing and minimizing risk, and ensuring compliance from patients. Patient-driven healthcare is an extension on this theme: patients can take greater ownership over their health status and decisions around care if given visibility to the right information. Consumers of healthcare value price transparency – this goes for patients receiving care as well those paying the final bills, such as an employer. Conversely, medical technology for a higher-cost therapy or in an over-invested category (e.g., a “me-too” option, or a niche solution that may be redundant with other available therapies) would be more likely to fall short in the current environment.

Follow the money.

A startup’s success depends on the ability to manage two major risk factors: the business model – how it makes money and scales – and marketing – how to reach customers. As the healthcare environment changes, the transactions around healthcare innovation shift as well. . Because of the increased focus on cost, hospital systems are more involved with medical device investment decisions that were previously left to their clinicians. Additionally, healthcare IT is leveraged by healthcare administrators – both those providing care and those paying for care – in order to better forecast and manage costs.

Venture capital (VC) and non-VC capital are flowing into healthcare, and increasingly, transactions occur at earlier stages, such as more activity in software development and less in healthcare services. According to Rock Health, a major healthcare-focused VC fund and startup incubator, some of the hottest areas of investment include consumer engagement, wearables and biometrics. “Big data” is also becoming a major priority: payers generate a huge amount of data and all healthcare stakeholders are looking to use data more effectively. Reviewing exits from healthcare investments give us insight to profitability of this industry, and merger & acquisition (M&A) activity is growing, as are initial public offerings (IPOs), or money coming in through public markets.

How Kellogg students are pursuing healthcare tech startup opportunities

During the last portion of the session, two second-year (2Y) students discussed how they found their summer internships in health tech by leveraging the student and alumni network, staying in touch with connections, and participating in the Kellogg Healthcare Trek.  Read more about a recent healthcare trek.

Interested in learning more about healthcare at Kellogg?

Check out the Healthcare Club and Health Enterprise Management pathway sites. Health and Wellness Week, the Business of Healthcare Conference, and the Kellogg Biotech & Healthcare Case Competition will be held January 21, 2017. Events will be held on the Evanston Campus and will feature speakers and panels from various sectors of healthcare. Tickets to the Business of Healthcare Conference are available for purchase online.

Natalie Marks is a first-year student in the 2Y program. Prior to Kellogg, Natalie was a management consultant and recently completed an internship with a healthcare startup in the Bay Area.