Brian Sinta
Vice President of Sales
VERTIS
Three years ago, Brian Sinta found himself in the middle of his career as a sales manager. He was making good money, he had achieved a lot of success, but he felt it was time to pursue an MBA. "I wasn't sure that an MBA would help me all that much at this point in my career, so I asked for and got a lot of advice. A professor at Harvard Business School recommended the executive approach, rather than an MBA. That way, I could focus on what I wanted to take, on the things that could really help me immediately. I wanted classes that would deal with challenges I had at work right now and those I would confront shortly, and I thought that Kellogg could be the place."
"What I liked about the classes was that the professors stimulated and facilitated conversations," Sinta says. "They were more interested in finding out what has worked for others rather than just getting through the content. There were thirty to forty executives with a wealth of experience in each class. The professors facilitated conversations during class, and that led to some great sidebar conversations in the evening."
Sinta soon realized that his requirement that the courses relate to his immediate work concerns was actually one of the foundations of the Kellogg School approach. "I found that every class helped immediately. I took the Accelerating Sales Force Performance course at a time when our company was going through changes in our compensation program, and I could and did sit down with executives who threw out four or five ideas about compensation programs."
The combination of professors with real business experience and a class filled with executives encouraged to share their experiences made the Executive Scholars Program an incredibly valuable time for Sinta. "What's great about the whole process is that you're hearing about what's out there, what really happens in the real world, rather than what should happen, as you often get from consultants," he says. "Just as one example, in Energizing People for Performance, the professor had us work in breakout sessions in the evening with three or four other people. And when you do that, you get advice based on real life. It was very powerful."
And, best of all, Kellogg has had a dramatic effect on Sinta's career. "When I started the Executive Scholars Program, I was a line-level sales manager, and now I'm vice president of sales for the company," Sinta says. "That's what Kellogg has done for me."
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