In late 2021, Gima Harrell and her family took a bucket list tour of United States national parks. The extended road trip took them to such spectacular locales as Zion National Park, Yosemite National Park, and the Grand Canyon. At each stop, in addition to taking in the incredible scenery with her beloved family, Harrell also took time to do something she never expected to do during the journey: study.
“I would tell my family, ‘I need a few hours.’ Then I would open up my laptop, do some homework, or, depending what time zone we were in, listen in on a class or talk with my classmates,” recalls Harrell, who earned her Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation, and Technology (ACE) in March of 2022. “That was the beauty of the whole experience. I really made it work for me.”
Pursuing an Executive Certificate actually was not something Harrell planned for at all prior to taking her first MIT Sloan course. In April of 2021, her job as a technical, business, and operations leader in the inflight entertainment avionic space was impacted by the ongoing Covid pandemic. While initially surprised by the layoff, she decided to look at the unforeseen event as an opportunity and do a deep self-assessment about her career and what the next chapter may hold for her. A self-described lifelong learner, she decided to see what Executive Education had to offer as she considered her future path.
“I’m a nerd at heart,” Harrell muses. “I’m a chemical engineer by degree, and I’ve always loved MIT. I wanted to go to the place that’s essentially the origin of technology, where it all started. I wanted to attend the best university globally recognized as the leader in applying business, mathematics, science, and technology to a digital economy.”
An Eclectic Career Path
Over the years, Harrell has built an impressive and rather eclectic resume, which includes positions in the oil and gas industry, the financial sector, the supply chain space, software development, quality assurance, operations, and more. She has worked for such notable companies as Exxon Energy Chemicals, Merrill Lynch, Spafax, and Thales. She has been a specialty engineer, managed teams of software developers, and handled licensing for onboard flight entertainment systems, among other responsibilities. And as she began to consider which Executive Education courses to pursue, she looked at what she did and did not have in her professional background and began to develop a plan.
"I’m one of those people that loves to do a deep dive. I don’t just want to know a theory, but also how it is applicable today. I want to know how it translates into what I’m doing,"
“I’ve been involved with management and leadership and technology and operations, but I didn’t really have strategy and innovation in my portfolio,” says Harrell, who launched her MIT Sloan experience with Applied Business Analytics. She followed that up with courses like Internet of Things: Business Implications and Opportunities, Digital Business Strategy: Harnessing our Digital Future, and Cybersecurity for Managers: A Playbook. Soon, she realized that she had enough courses to complete her Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership. With her new, more open schedule, she decided to keep going and secured enough courses in both strategy and innovation and technology and operations to achieve the ACE, adding such options as Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation and Application. She often took three overlapping courses to complete the process in just over one year.
“I’m one of those people that loves to do a deep dive. I don’t just want to know a theory, but also how it is applicable today. I want to know how it translates into what I’m doing,” Harrell notes. “And the way I was able to take these courses allowed me to see how all of these topics tie in with the economy of today. I could see overlap between them and was able to develop a really systemic viewpoint.”
A New Adventure
Harrell spent months boosting her knowledge base and considering her next steps. She found herself drawn to cybersecurity and the technical side of operations and began searching for new opportunities. By July of 2022, she secured a position as Operations Manager in Information Technology (Genpact) at Airbnb. And she recognizes that the time she took to reassess her professional experience and boost her understanding and skills in an array of new areas with the help of MIT Sloan Executive Education opened the door to this new career adventure. She also looks forward to keeping the momentum going.
“I’m always in a state of learning, and I took this opportunity to pivot,” Harrell concludes. “I’m never hesitant to jump in and just learn as much as I can. That’s what I did with MIT Sloan Executive Education. MIT fit me perfectly in terms of my curiosity and the hands-on application that I needed. They say that learning at MIT is like drinking water from a fire hose. That’s true, and I love it. That’s the way I do things.”
Learn more about MIT Sloan Executive Certificates.