Knowledge, Network & New Experiences: How My MBA Prepared Me For A Career At A Fortune 500 Company

Back when Maya Dantzler was knocking on North Carolina doors encouraging people to vote, she probably couldn’t have foreseen the direction her career would take. But that doesn’t mean her time as a canvasser went to waste.

“That was still, to this day, the hardest job I ever had,” she explains. “No days off when you're campaigning, and you also have to figure out ways to get people interested in your candidate when there's a lot going against them. So that was incredible work experience.”

Fast forward a few years, and Maya now leads brand strategy for a Fortune 500 company. BusinessBecause caught up with her to hear about her journey from political campaigning in North Carolina to earning an MBA degree, and how the Emory network helped her land a dream role at Lowe’s.

From politics to business school

Maya’s time as a campaigner sharpened her political instincts, leading to a role at the Senate Education Committee in Washington DC. But the slow-moving nature of politics convinced her to pursue a different career avenue.

“While I loved being in that space, I felt like there was a lot of red tape, a lot of bureaucracy,” she says. “I just wanted to feel the effects of what I was giving to the work.” 

Seeking greater impact, she moved to New York City: first to L’Oreal, where she led a corporate social responsibility program, then to consulting firm Medici, where she leveraged DEI to drive innovation. 

Never one to stand still, after four years Maya decided she needed to take action to make the next leap up the career ladder: “I decided that I wanted to broaden my skill set. And so that's how I came to the decision that I wanted to go to business school.”

Opting to pursue an MBA, Maya considered a number of options, though her head was turned after a chat with a student at Emory University Goizueta Business School. She heard about the tight-knit nature of the school’s smaller cohort and liked the idea of getting a more personal experience. 

“He completely reframed how I thought about my business school experience,” she says.

A crash course in business in the Goizueta MBA

The Goizueta MBA turned out to be the perfect program for Maya to enhance her business skills. Her first semester introduced her to a wide range of business topics, with classes ranging from economics to data analytics and organizational management. 

Maya also undertook a number of career classes, allowing her to explore her career ambitions as well as sharpen her business acumen. 

Alongside the course content, Maya enjoyed the Goizueta MBA’s focus on practical, group-based learning, which helped develop her teamwork skills and allowed her to learn from others who came from different cultural and professional backgrounds. 

“I had a really just phenomenal group of people who were excited to learn. They were excited to do the work, they wanted us to do well, and I learned from each of these individuals,” she explains. 

After a summer internship with Accenture convinced Maya that consulting wasn’t the right path for her, a chat with a visiting executive proved to be the spark for the next stage of her career.

The value of the Goizueta MBA network

Marvin Ellison is the CEO of Fortune 500 company Lowe’s and a graduate of Goizueta’s Executive MBA program. When he returned to the school for a fireside chat, Maya was asked to welcome him to campus. At the end of his visit, Ellison struck up a conversation with Maya about her career goals. It proved to be life-changing. 

The very next day, Lowe’s VP of human resources got in touch about finding a role for her at the company. This helped her land a role as brand strategy manager for the firm. For Maya, it reaffirmed the value of a strong MBA network.

“It still blows my mind,” recalls Maya. “And that's something that people often talk about—that it's your network that's going to get you your next role.”

But she maintains it wasn’t just the Goizueta connection that helped her progress into a new career path. Those early crash courses in business during the MBA meant she was more than ready for a job at a Fortune 500 company.

“Emory and Goizueta prepared me for this role. I know how to put my slides together, I know how to present, I know how to talk to executive leadership. I know how to do the data analysis. I had no imposter syndrome,” Maya says.

How to get the most from your MBA experience

Although Maya’s chat with the CEO of Lowe’s seems like a chance encounter, it came about because of the work she had done during Goizueta’s IMPACT project—a strategic problem solving course requiring students to collaborate on consulting projects for real companies. 

Maya and her team worked with Lowe’s during the project. Their excellent performance ultimately resulted in her being selected as student liason for Ellison's visit. 

Maya feels this is an example of how being proactive is one of the best ways of maximizing your MBA experience.

“Go to those sessions. Show up. Don't just sit back and chill. Ask questions. Raise your hand. Talk to your professors. You can’t just expect things to land on your lap,” she says.

“How you land in a big company is that you're a good student, you're a good person, and you let people know what your intentions are. Just be very explicit about what you hope to achieve, and it'll eventually follow you. You'll get there.”