John Ippolito (MBA 1983), senior vice president of strategic development at MKS Instruments, is responsible for strategic planning and corporate development at the manufacturing firm. He recently attended the Driving Profitable Growth program at Harvard Business School (HBS) Executive Education to better prepare for growth opportunities at his firm. He shares his thoughts about the program.
Part of my core function is figuring out how our organization can grow and identify the best areas for growth. The alignment between strategy and growth is fundamental to what I do. The top level strategic initiative at MKS is achieving sustainable, profitable growth. Our CEO suggested that our COO and I attend this program.
I was amazed at the international mix of participants in the classroom. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience with a few of the case studies. I didn't always like the organizations' approaches to strategy and growth. I didn't see them as more efficient or better ways to manage. But when Professor Gino led the discussions, I'd find there were lots of benefits to those methods. She brought clarity to the cases, and the discussions brought out how many positive attributes there really are in different systems. The experience prompted me to think about which of those methods I could bring back to our organization.
The creative thinking at HBS is simply excellent. As I reflect on my experience here, I realize that almost all of my best friends came from my experiences at Harvard. I've returned to campus twice for Executive Education, and both programs were intensely interesting. Driving Profitable Growth hit a nerve because it's really important to our company. I'm always looking for ways to bring new thinking to what we do, so I value the opportunity to interact with a collection of smart people who are interested in the same topic. The faculty is exceptional, and they did a great job leading the discussions. I attended with the hope and expectation that I might take three or four valuable things home with me, but I got much more than that.
This program will expose you to the best practices and thinking of top organizations around the world. You will benefit from access to state-of-the-art facilities, industry-leading fellow participants, highly accomplished faculty, and cutting-edge thinking. When you attend a program at HBS, you get everything you expect and much more.
