How the Carlson Executive MBA Shaped 3 Leaders

By Joel Hoekstra

Every year, outstanding leaders hone their skills and abilities in the Carlson Executive MBA (EMBA) program. The benefits go well beyond the classroom, fostering tight-knit cohort connections that often propel participants’ careers in unexpected ways. Here, three recent graduates explain what made them join the program — and how the experience propelled them forward.

An Rx for Healthy Career Growth

Dr. Roopa Sharma, ’24 MBA, began medical school in India at age 18. Like many students just starting out, she was focused on becoming a physician. But another idea also kept surfacing: obtaining an MBA.

“Having a business degree seemed very stylish to me,” she recalls, with a laugh. “Not that I knew what it involved, or really what the benefits were.”

Years later, after establishing herself as a pediatrician with HealthPartners in Minnesota, Sharma found herself in several leadership roles, participating in committees and administrative discussions that shaped how care was delivered. Such experiences exposed her to a side of healthcare she had rarely encountered as a clinician: policy decisions, administrative structures and the operational realities behind patient care. The work was fascinating — and it raised new questions about how healthcare organizations function. Her interest in pursuing an MBA resurfaced.

Carlson’s EMBA program, which she joined in 2022, quickly broadened her understanding of the healthcare system, particularly the financial and operational dynamics that shape patient care. The courses in finance, statistics and data analysis proved especially useful as she began connecting classroom concepts with real-world challenges in her organization.

Around the same time, Sharma stepped into a new role as a clinic medical director — an experience that allowed her to apply lessons learned at Carlson within the context of her daily work. “I was able to learn so much and actually live through this new leadership role,” she says. “It was almost like a live classroom at my workplace.”

Equally important were the relationships she built with classmates. Her EMBA cohort included professionals from industries ranging from engineering to finance to technology, giving her a much broader view of how businesses operate.

“Because there are so many perspectives, you hear very different takes on the same topic,” she says. 

Since the program’s end, Sharma remains in regular contact with many members of her cohort and is currently collaborating with one classmate on a startup venture.

At the same time, the program helped accelerate her leadership trajectory within healthcare. Under her leadership, her clinic has expanded, added new clinicians and significantly improved engagement scores. 

The Carlson experience had both practical and personal impact, Sharma says. It sharpened her management skills and made her bolder. “I've become way more confident,” Sharma says. “At the same time, I’ve learned to listen to others’ perspectives and learn from them.”

A Recipe for Brewing Up Skills

One recent afternoon, Sergio Manancero, ’24 MBA, stopped by La Doña Cervecería Brewery in Minneapolis to see how construction was progressing on its new commercial kitchen. Manancero, who launched the Latin-inspired beer-making business out of the back of a truck with a friend in 2016 and now serves as general manager of its brick-and-mortar location, had just come from his day job working at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). He was headed home soon to spend time with his wife and their newborn.

Manancero didn’t learn time management at Carlson (the Marine Corps taught him that), but he certainly leveraged his ability to juggle priorities during his time in the program. “The program fit with working full-time,” he says. “That made it attractive to me.”
A Marine who did two tours in Afghanistan, Manancero earned a sociology degree from the University of Minnesota in 2017 before enrolling in the Carlson EMBA in 2022. “I used the GI Bill to go to undergrad,” he says, “so when I found out there was another program that would pay for grad school too, I applied.”

But the thing that appealed most to him about the program was that most participants were older and had significant career experience. “I wanted to be connected to people in leadership and people seeking more responsibility,” he says.

Manancero hoped the MBA would help him advance his career and La Doña’s business. “In the last 10 years, I’ve gone from never running a business to owning a brewery, moving into a bricks-and-mortar location, and managing people and budgets,” he says. The Carlson experience honed his skills as a leader, equipped him with better management strategies and helped spark ideas for growing the business even as the craft-brewing trend crested. “Adding a full kitchen will allow us to expand our foodservice options and grow our overall revenues,” Manancero says, adding that conversations with fellow EMBA participants helped him hatch and refine his brewpub development plans.

Shortly before finishing the program, Manancero landed a job with the State of Minnesota. A year later, he was named DEED’s facility and physical security director. Carlson connections opened doors to those opportunities, he says. “It all happened because of somebody I met in my cohort,” he says. “Taking that job led to getting this job, which is the best job that I’ve ever had. That cohort was one of the most amazing groups of people I think I’ve ever been connected to.”

Commitment Fuels a Career — and a Modern Dairy Industry

Two years into her first corporate job, with Land O’Lakes, Corey Scott, ’23 MBA, decided she wanted an MBA. The degree, she believed, would help her change tracks (from supply-chain logistics to marketing), expand her grasp of business, and prime her for leadership roles.

But when opportunity knocked to enroll in the EMBA program, Scott initially froze. She had recently switched jobs within the company, and the new position came with a steep learning curve. “I remember telling my executive coach, ‘It’s a terrible time right now. I have too many things going on. I don’t even know how I’d use the degree,’” she recalls. “He looked at me and said, ‘Are you crazy? You’re going to use this for the rest of your life.’”

The Carlson classroom experiences helped Scott hone new management skills and fill in knowledge gaps. But what Scott didn’t expect was how much she’d learn from her fellow students. “The most underestimated piece of the program is your class cohort,” Scott says. “When you walk into the room, you suddenly realize that you’re surrounded by smart, super-talented people from 20 other organizations. Everyone has different skills, which allows you to glimpse everyone’s unique abilities and skills and use that as a model for your own development. That value can’t be captured in any ROI metrics.”

In 2024, Scott was named CEO of Midwest Dairy, a Twin Cities-based nonprofit organization that represents and promotes the interests of 3,600 dairy farms across 10 states. Since taking the reins of the association, Scott has slowly been updating its operations, replacing outdated technologies and introducing new processes and practices. Her chief priority, she says, has been on building a healthy culture where people want to work. Lessons learned at Carlson have helped inform and shape that effort, she says: “I credit Carlson with making me brave enough to make change. And our success has been really gratifying.”

Scott concedes that earning her MBA while working full-time was stressful. But she says she would do it again in a heartbeat. “No time is a good time to do an MBA,” she notes. “If you wait for the perfect time, it will never ever come. Now is the best time to do it.”