I have always been interested in operations—so much so that I majored in transportation and logistics management in undergrad. When I enrolled in Fuqua’s MQM: Business Analytics program, my goal was to combine data with supply chain concepts to apply to my future career. I chose the Strategy track because it aligned most closely to this goal.

Fast forward to the future, and I’ve started my analytics career in Seattle as an instock manager at the Amazon Fresh and Prime Now subsidiaries, which are both time-critical because we offer one- or two-hour delivery. My role includes a lot of demand forecasting, inventory control, vendor management, and communication.

What I like the most about my job is that there are new challenges every day, such as limited data for new products, which makes forecasting more challenging, and cross-team communication. However, the things I learned at Fuqua and through my strategy coursework really help me push through challenges such as these and help move my team toward our goal of being a customer-obsessed company that focuses on continuous improvement.

Although I wrote some code in a job I had before the MQM program, my classes at Fuqua really advanced my SQL skills. I now use SQL and Excel regularly at Amazon. I also frequently use Tableau, a skill I learned in my favorite course, Data Visualization, to create visualizations to highlight certain data points and help persuade stakeholders. I feel like a holistic skillset of business, supply chain, and data analytics capabilities is where I can really add value.

I also use other intangibles that I gained in my classes. For example, in Operations Analytics, we learned about inventory control, capacity analysis, and process improvement, which I think of often at Amazon as we’re constantly striving for innovation and improvement.

My Business Communication classes also helped me learn to communicate clearly and confidently. Now, I am not afraid to challenge my colleagues if I see a more efficient way of doing things, and I also appreciate the opportunities when my coworkers challenge me with better ideas.

While at Fuqua, I heard a lot about the Fuqua network, but it is truly widespread and impressive. For instance, one of my colleagues is a graduate of the Daytime MBA program!

Strategy is a broad field that allows you to enter almost any industry upon graduation, and the Strategy track ended up being a great choice for me. If you are interested in operations, consulting, or using logic to solve a wide variety of problems, then it may be the best choice for you, too.