Chatham University’s Business and Entrepreneurship Department is pleased to feature Jessica Pachuta, MBA Project Management, and Entrepreneurial Leadership and Strategy, ‘16.

Jessica Pachuta, an MBA alumna with two concentrations – Project Management and Entrepreneurial Leadership and Strategy, is currently working at the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Jessica completed her undergraduate degree in film production at a large university.  And although that was a good experience, she decided to get her MBA from a smaller university to allow her to get to know her classmates and professors more easily. Chatham University met that criteria.  Jessica appreciated Chatham’s personal touch, as well as its diversity, and being a place where women are well-represented in the MBA program.

Jessica chose the Project Management concentration because it was relevant for her job function at CMU. She considers it to be a science and language of effectively communicating in the workplace. At her workplace, Jessica has been able to to put her Project Management skills to use as she was assigned to take on a central role as the Project Manager for one of their flagship projects.. Jessica also took coursework in the MBA’s Entrepreneurial Leadership and Strategy concentration because she believes that it is important to learn about how teams really function and work in competitive industries and entrepreneurial environments.

Kit Needham’s “Strategic Performance for Women Executives” course was the most transformative class for Jessica. The course “Leading Organizations and Projects”, taught by Dr. Tom Macagno,  helped Jessica understand how to navigate workplace culture, which she considers to be the biggest skill to take-away from any graduate program. Another course that is memorable for Jessica is Strategy and Entrepreneurship, which was taught by Dr. Stephan Liozu. “I regularly reference my coursework and take-aways from Dr. Liozu’s class where we worked through the business model generation canvas – that type of thinking works in many more places”.

While a student at Chatham, Jessica was involved in Chatham University’s Net Impact Student Chapter and its launch. Net Impact focuses on addressing social challenges, while protecting the environment and orienting businesses and products toward the greater good.  Jessica thinks Net Impact has extraordinary promise and that the people involved are visionary.

Chatham University’s MBA program pushes students to think beyond traditional ways of doing business to better prepare them for the opportunities that lay ahead. Chatham’s MBA with a concentration in Project Management is designed to educate future leaders by cultivating expertise in advanced techniques with a solid grounding in foundational management principles. Project management, as one of the fastest growing fields in management, is ideal for business professionals who enjoy creative applications of both quantitative and soft skills. We are glad to know that Jessica was able to apply her Business and Project Management skills learned at Chatham in her workplace. Good luck in your future endeavors, Jessica!