One-Year MBA was ‘perfect fit’ for J.P. Morgan’s Bob Berkus

By Deb Soriano

Bob Berkus ’10 MBA knew he wanted to attend a full-time MBA program at a top university. But with a 12-month-old daughter and a family to support, being out of the workforce for two years felt like a daunting proposition. 

Then, a visit to Evanston made his choice suddenly seem simple. The One-Year MBA at Kellogg provided the best of both worlds: an M7 education with curriculum on an accelerated timeline. 

“It was a perfect fit,” he says.

At the time, Berkus was working at Johnson Capital, a boutique commercial real estate banking firm, and was getting interested in private equity and investment banking. The 2008 financial crisis hit, upending commercial real estate, banking and finance industries. He quickly began rethinking his career trajectory.

“I realized at that point that I loved finance and wanted to have a career in the field, but I didn't know how to get there,” he says. “I wasn’t going to be able to make that jump on my own.” 

Kellogg would boost his leap by providing a place to hone his technical skills and, just as importantly, build the relationships to move to a premier investment banking firm. 

The school’s alumni network would provide critical connections early in his career transition. Shortly after graduation, Berkus connected with an alumnus who oversaw hiring at J.P. Morgan’s Chicago office. Berkus was offered the position and has spent more than a decade ascending into different roles.

Now a managing director and co-head of Consumer & Retail Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan in Los Angeles, Berkus still points to those early connections as critical.

“I’ve been here 16 years, so I can say the ROI on my one year at Kellogg has been fantastic,” he says.

Students enrolled in the One-Year MBA Program arrive in Evanston in the summer; a time Berkus describes as memorable. It’s an opportunity to get acclimated to Kellogg and develop relationships while new Two-Year Program students have yet to arrive, and enrolled students are completing their summer internships. 

“You get to know your classmates so intimately during that period,” he recalls. “We became such a tight-knit group, and it was only us on campus.” 

When other students arrived in the fall, Berkus said it was easy to assimilate into the same learning environment. He even joined the investment banking club, becoming good friends with students who had interned at J.P. Morgan over the summer.

“When the Two-Year MBA students came back to campus, they were very welcoming, and they had a lot of knowledge from having just done an internship,” he says. “They provided a lot of mentorship, especially for those of us interested in finance.”

Kellogg provided Berkus with many of the tools he would need to advance at J.P. Morgan. He felt confident that he now had the technical expertise required to step into an associate role right out of business school. He’d also gained the strategic perspective required to grow into a senior associate and vice president.

Now, as a managing director, he draws on that same foundation in a leadership capacity — shaping team culture and mentoring the next generation within the firm.

“As I reflect back on where I gathered those skills and how my leadership style has evolved, Kellogg was a big steppingstone,” he says. 

Surrounded by “incredibly smart people and great professors,” Kellogg also gave him a needed confidence boost. He recalls Professor Mitchell Peterson’s financial strategy and tax planning course as especially impactful, helping him build the deep technical knowledge required for his career in finance.

Feeling a debt of gratitude to Kellogg, Berkus has recently reconnected with his alma mater, including participating in a webinar for newly admitted students and coming back to campus as a featured guest for an alumni speaker series. The latter discussion was hosted by Peterson, and Berkus said he was “thrilled to get to interact with him again.”

For Berkus, connecting with Kellogg again has been deeply rewarding — and it has come with an added benefit: He was able to introduce his 14-year-old son — who is already interested in finance and business — to the school that helped launch his career. 

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