By Susie Ho – WIL Ottawa Chair

Have you been thinking about doing an MBA but can’t step away from your current role to go back to school full time? With Ivey Business School’s Executive MBA program, you don’t have to! This 15-month program was designed for busy professionals and is structured so that you can do both.

I can remember my thought process when I had decided to finally take the EMBA journey. I had been putting it off for so long telling myself how now just wasn’t the right time. Then I had a baby and decided that the right time was during my maternity leave (read about it in my blog) and the experience transformed me.

Let me tell you how:

1. Gave me confidence and helped me find my voice – An MBA truly empowers you to speak with confidence and command an audience. The EMBA program pushes you to break out of your comfort zone to participate in classroom discussions, provide countless presentations to your peers, and engage in hands on learning though the Ivey Case-Study Method. This fun and interactive way of learning taught us about real life examples and helped us navigate through critical decisions as a leader. You also quickly learn what leadership style you lean on and the importance of being your authentic self.

2. Opened up career opportunities – Not every business leader has or needs and MBA, but it certainly helps you climb higher and faster. This is especially true for women. The MBA signals to your employer (and the world) that you have crucial business skills and should be considered for roles that require strategy and leadership. For me, it allowed me to make a career jump from being a technical advisor in the nuclear industry to a business leader at a large publicly traded company.

3. Increased my value – There is no question that the EMBA fills your toolbox with new critical skills that make you more valuable to your organization, but I (like many others) was able to translate that into a 20% pay raise. This is the kind of ROI that makes this investment attractive.

4. Grew my network with the most incredible people – Probably the most valuable takeaway, and most impossible to quantify, are the relationships that you forge during the program. I am now connected with the most amazing people who hail from every sector and from all walks of life. There is no doubt that my growth during the program is directly attributed to everything I’ve learned from these business leaders, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, academics…the list goes on and on. I am truly honored and humbled to have taken this wonderful journey with them. Their friendship is my greatest takeaway. (Click here to watch our epic grad video!)