CN Rail, Market Manager - Calgary, Canada
I manage the marketing and pricing strategy for commodities related to asphalt and alternative fuels in North America for CN Rail's petroleum and chemical division.
Fletcher Thesis: Post-Cold War Defense Contracting Consolidation: Leadership and Survival Strategies of Today’s Largest Defense Contractors
How the MIB prepared me for my job: The bio-diesel industry is a fairly new, fast-paced, and regulatory driven world. My job as a market manager is to be aware of all the market forces pushing on the industry, so that I can be in a position to predict trends and forecast commodity movements. My hybrid international affairs and business masters not only helps me understand the market from a Canada US regulatory viewpoint, but I also get to pull on theories learned in my economics classes to put together strategies to test the elasticity of my portfolio.
The Fletcher experience helped me develop the skillset to approach work issues on a multi-dimensional level. The rigor of the curriculum anchored a habit of being granular in my analysis and thinking process and the school's multidisciplinary and global outlook on the world reminds me to always look beyond quarterly results.
Why I chose Fletcher:
In Asian emerging markets where I spent the last five years, typical
successful firms share a common attribute: they are masters at juggling
the political, economical, and legal components of their environment to
create value and wealth. As I was going through the process of
selecting a school for my graduate studies, I wanted to find an
institution that not only appreciated the importance of the
geopolitical mix in today’s global business transactions, but also
offered a program that would reflect this reality. At Fletcher, I
followed a rigorous hybrid curriculum that I tailored to my career
interests. In addition to the typical strategy, accounting, finance,
and marketing classes offered at business schools, I took classes on
privatization and deregulation, international negotiation, the global
political economy and even had the option to take elective regional
topics taught in the language of the region studied. From the classroom
to a pub in Davis Square, the learning environment transcended school
boundaries, and a good conversation always awaited.