What Does a B.C. MBA Look Like: Jessica Oman
Apr 11, 2012
The following article was published by BC Business Magazine on April 2, 2012 as part of their MBA guide.
BY KRISTEN HILDERMAN, BC BUSINESS MAGAZINE
Jessica Oman, Owner | Write Ahead Consulting
Where did you get your MBA?
SFU Beedie School of Business
What year did you graduate?
2009
Why did you want to get your MBA?
I felt I needed a graduate degree to move my career forward. I had been working at Okanagan College and became interested in business when I started looking at ways to run academic departments more efficiently. I took a few undergrad courses at OC before deciding to pursue an MBA.
What do you think clinched your position when applying to your MBA program?
As a professional writer, I would like to think it was my essay! I also had substantial and progressive work experience in public education, and my previous grades and GMAT score were fairly high too.
What did you learn from doing your MBA that has most helped you in your career?
The MBA gave me the confidence I needed to pursue starting my own business. After the program I felt like I knew what I had to do to run an organization on my own.
What was your first job after you graduated?
I worked as an associate dean at a local private business college.
Tell me a bit about your job now.
I’m the owner of Write Ahead Consulting. We are a small team of experts who write business plans for start-up companies and also provide copy writing and editing services, often to those same customers who come back to us for help with their writing once they’ve launched their businesses. I’ve had the business since July 2010. I do about 60 per cent of the work and my team does the rest. I spend the remainder of my time on marketing, PR and other business development activities.
Is your current career what you had envisioned when you started your MBA?
When I started the program, I thought I would take a management position in a small to medium organization focused on sustainability. At first, I didn’t envision myself running my own business, but that all changed a few months after graduation when I sat down and began to articulate how I could help foster local economies and help small businesses grow. I looked at what was needed, and saw that the writing process really bogged a lot of people down. I thought if I could remove that barrier, entrepreneurs could move forward faster and focus on running their businesses more than writing about them.
See the full article at www.bcbusinessonline.ca/careers-and-employment/what-does-bc-mba-look