Overcoming Barriers: How An MBA Can Open Doors For Women In Business

Even in today's modern world, there continues to be a large discrepancy between the sexes in business—whether that’s the gender pay gap or the number of women represented in executive roles. 

Only 8.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are female, and even at executive level, women earn 95 cents for every dollar earned by men.

That said, an MBA has been shown to elevate salary opportunities, and female grads see pay gains of 55-65% on their pre-MBA salaries within five years of graduation.

But there are personal gains from the experience, too. Meet three women who took unconventional paths to business school, to find out how their MBAs have been an opportunity to reassert themselves in the world—and to rekindle their career passions. 

Making a difference in healthcare by expanding her skillset

After a nursing degree, Ola Kotun (pictured) has worked in various roles throughout the healthcare industry from nursing, to startup founder, to working as a health advisor at KPMG. 

Throughout her career, she has been driven by a desire to make a positive impact in the healthcare industry. 

“I realized that I could make more of an impact outside of clinical delivery,” she says. “There are so many problems in the way hospitals are run and their ability to create change.”

Ola noticed healthcare was lagging many other industries in terms of innovation and quality improvement, and saw the need for people with management qualifications to drive improvements in healthcare.   

“To become a hospital director, you would need decades of experience, which is why we have a huge leadership gap, especially with women.”

Ola noticed that women had fewer opportunities to gain leadership roles since commitments such as children prohibited them from working the long hours, and gaining management positions. 

These experiences inspired Ola to pursue an Executive MBA, to gain skills, and to close gaps in her experience. 

Ola found the Warwick Business School EMBA perfectly fit her criteria. The support Warwick gave, such as night-classes and a flexible end date, allowed her to work full-time while also raising her son. 

Warwick expanded her technical skill set, with classes such as accounting and financial modeling, but what she valued most from her time is the bond she made with her cohort. 

“We're from different parts of the world and different industries but we’re all like-minded in we all wanted to change—not just our lives, but impact the world and work,” she explains. 

To secure their bond the group even got matching Egyptian hieroglyphic tattoos. 

Now working at the charity Nuffield Health as head of clinical operating model, Ola impresses on future business school graduates the need for believing in yourself and your qualifications. 

“One thing I would say to women doing an MBA who might feel like an imposter is to really think about how you got there. You didn’t get it handed to you, so you should never feel like you're an imposter in that room.”

Realizing her entrepreneurial dreams through her MBA 

Kathryn Moser (pictured) had a diverse career—from finance to fitness to entrepreneurship—before her Global Online MBA at Warwick, which she is currently completing. 

After studying French and History at the University of Oxford, she started her career in finance as a credit risk specialist at Goldman Sachs in London. 

There, Kathryn never sensed a difference between men and women’s ability to succeed, but recognized that the intrinsic nature of her job meant women weren’t often seen in executive level positions. 

“You are working long hours. You are working weekends and a lot of women choose to have families and spend time with their kids. Flexibility isn't permitted.”

While she enjoyed parts of the role, she found herself doubting her passion for the job and decided it was the wrong career for her. 

Kathryn moved to Australia to travel and work, and to explore her passion for sport—eventually running a gym, which wasn’t what she expected.

“It was the least glamorous experience you can imagine,” she says. “It was like blocked toilets and egotistical personal trainers.”

Deciding against remaining in her second career, she moved to Switzerland with her now-husband. There she gained a Master’s in Translation and worked at the translation company Supertext where she was inspired by the startup environment. 

“[In a startup] you have your job title, but you can explore other things if you're interested,” says Kathryn. “I ran their language operations for a while, and I was running their strategy, as we were really structuring the company.”

However, when the rise of AI disrupted the translation industry, she decided it was time to leave her job. She knew she wanted to start her own business but lacked skills, so she decided to pursue an Online MBA, and found Warwick. 

“I had a niche exposure to finance, but it was derivatives and hedge funds. It wasn't like accounting, and how to manage your own business budget, and marketing,” she explains. 

She was immediately struck by the flexibility and community at Warwick. The hybrid learning model has given her valuable in-person networking benefits and collaboration opportunities, she says.

The in-person elements are comprised of two residential weeks at the Warwick campus or the Shard in London and one in-person module. 

“The networking benefits are huge, and the social aspect. You can be more collaborative, it makes problem solving easier,” she says. “My favorite part of the Warwick experience has been the residential weeks.”

Working to drive universal positive change through leadership 

Jané Cilliers (pictured) traveled a winding career path before her Warwick MBA, which she is currently studying.

She grew up in South Africa during apartheid, and her upbringing in a conservative community shaped her understanding of privilege and inequality that has driven her throughout her life. 

Jané moved to the US and started thinking about how she could enact real change in the world. 

“It's all about leadership. That's how I'm going to change the world. So I searched online for the  ‘best leadership academy in the world’.”

This led Jané to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in the UK. 

After years working day and night to fund her bachelor’s degree, to get into Sandhurst, she eventually graduated and joined the medical corps.

However, Jané quickly realized the military was the wrong path for her, and joined Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), working as an emergency infrastructure engineer and then project coordinator in countries such as Haiti, Northern Uganda, Bangladesh and the Central African Republic.

Her work was making real change, but it felt short term and she wanted to make a more long-lasting difference. 

“There's no economic, sustainable way for a good quality of life. I couldn’t just keep putting a Band-Aid on the problem,” she explains. 

After moving back to the UK and working at the NHS she felt there was a gap in her knowledge that would help her enact real change: she needed a better understanding of business. 

“I get the private sector, I get the military, I get the public sector. I don't get business. The entities with the highest revenue in the world are all corporations, not countries. They are the people that can change things.”

This understanding led her to Warwick’s MBA, where she felt she could gain business skills and influence sustainable change through entrepreneurship and social impact.

As a woman, wife and mother, she continues to face challenges balancing her academic study with her wife’s work as a palliative nurse, and caring for her daughter. 

Jané is involved in Warwick’s Women in Business group, a professional network that meets to discuss issues such as imposter syndrome and societal expectations.

“Impostor syndrome never really goes away,” she says. “It's a lot of fighting the internal noises, and then you have to deal with external noises. And, somewhere between that you have to learn and be yourself.”

As with her career before, Jané is open to exploring different career paths after her MBA, including sustainable energy and private equity, but will continue on her journey to make a positive impact in the world.