| Anil Asrani, '09 MBA
Background (where are you from, etc.
I was born in Bangalore, India but was raised primarily in the States in Blacksburg, VA. I attended the College of William and Mary in Virginia, majoring in Biology and minoring in Psychology. From there I worked in a Cell Biology lab at the University of Virginia (UVA) studying extra-cellular membrane proteins with Dr. Gordon Laurie, then worked in a Perceptual/Cognitive Psychology lab at UVA studying Virtual Reality under Dr. Dennis Proffitt. Having been exposed to the sciences and Virginia for a while I thought I'd try out the arts and Minnesota by pursuing Film Production and Sound Arts at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (one of the few places you can actually make 16mm films in the Twin Cities) with Bruce Mamer, and made a few mildly successful short films. After being a poor 'artist', I decided to work for Merrill Lynch as a Financial Consultant during the tech crash of 2001 and fallout of trust in Merrill's analysts-needless to say, not a great time to be in this field. After that experience, I returned to molecular biology research at the University of Minnesota, studying HIV for the Departments of Medicine and Diagnostic and Biological Sciences and have been doing that since July of 2001. I've
published a few papers and I also started my own business in real estate in 2001 as well. I¹ve been doing HIV research and managing my properties for the past 7+ years. Apparently, I wasn¹t busy enough, so I started pursuing my MBA in Fall of 2006, with emphases in Marketing and Finance with a Medical Industry Specialization (MILI).
Why Carlson?
Working for the University of Minnesota, all of my tuition at Carlson is paid for, so I can go through the program at whatever pace I want to. That¹s really hard to turn down. Also, Carlson has an excellent reputation and is the only internationally accredited program in town. Additionally, with the Medical Industry Specialization, I'm able to learns the tenets of business school while learning about the Medical Industry and the relevant stakeholders that exist within it. The personal network and connections that exist within Carlson, both in terms of the caliber of the students and faculty, as well as within the deep resources of the GBCC are unmatched.
Why MBA/MILI?
This answer will tie in with my future plans and dream job: I want to capitalize on my passion for science and business, and with the Medical Device nexus that exists here in Minnesota the MBA/MILI is hands down the best opportunity that I can pursue. With our existing ties to our Industry Council and the passion that Steve Parente brings to MILI, I can only imagine what the future of this degree will bring. It's really assuring to know that large corporations recognize the value that this specialization affords. So far, I've participated in the Healthcare Marketplace class and the Medical Technology Evaluation class and had a great experience learning from our corporate sponsors: Medtronic, United Health and the Mayo Clinic about what goes into a well-thought-out evaluation.
Future plans
I will be graduating in the Spring of 2009. At that point I would like to pursue opportunities in business development in medical device firms. Having almost 10 years of combined research experience, I look forward to managing the research and development process. Currently, I'm taking the New Product Design and Business Development class (ENTR 6041-6042), which is a year long class where you actually get to create a new product for a participating corporate sponsor. All I can legally say about this project at this time is that I'm working on the Medtronic team, which comprises MBAs, mechanical and biomedical engineers. We will work to create prototypes that will hopefully become a next-generation product for a particular market segment. It's everything I could hope to do in a new job. The real future dream, of course, is to create a medical device business around a new product(s) and potentially sell it, learning everything there is to know about that whole experience.
Recommendations to prospective students
Get in, get serious and get going. Seriously, this is a rare opportunity to meet a ton of really motivated and interesting people, whether they are your classmates, your professors or the GBCC staff. Every single person within Carlson wants you to be all that you can be. Don¹t complain if something isn¹t the way you want it to be. Work to change it by getting involved in extracurricular clubs/activities, etc. If you're a part-time student like myself, I recommend getting active in the Leadership Advisory Board, the MILI Student Association and Ventures Plus. With those three groups, you'll be all set to be a leader/entrepreneur in the medical industry. If you¹re background is non-traditional, as mine was, and you¹re nervous you won¹t be prepared for this, read about my biggest surprise at Carlson.
What do you do when not in class?
I spend time with my beautiful wife and my friends, improve my properties, and attempt to run a 5k faster and faster. I also really enjoy being creative but haven’t had as much time for that as I hope to in the future.
Greatest accomplishment so far
Working with the Leadership Advisory Board, the GBCC, and the Dean to increase the accessibility of all the career resources here at Carlson to the Part-Time MBA students. Essentially, we worked to get Academic Advisors/Career Coaches hired and expand the hours of the GBCC so PT students can take advantage of the great resources within.
What do you see as greatest need in medical industry?
Cohesion and collaboration. So many great people and organizations are all trying separately to change the face of health-care to make it more accessible, more personalized, etc. but as we continue to value what pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and insurance providers, etc. can do individually, we need to see past this into how they could be even better if they were more integrative. It will certainly be interesting to see how healthcare changes with the upcoming change in the administration, as Obama and McCain certainly have very different views on what it should look like. The question of what the greatest short-term need is in the medical industry may ultimately depend on who is in the White House.
Most rewarding MILI experience
Working with the great group of people in the MILI Student Association to get students aware of and involved in MILI by marketing ourselves to our fellow students and staff. This year (08-09) we had a kick-off town-hall style meeting with renowned medical device entrepreneur Michael Berman. It was really astonishing to see Carlson students, engineering graduate students, Healthcare MBA professors from St. Thomas, etc. all in one room, asking Mike about his variety of experiences and expertise in this field for 2+ hours straight! I certainly hope to be able to contribute to the effort of providing more of these kinds of events, as people really seem to be
passionate about this here at Carlson.
Biggest surprise about Carlson
That, coming in as a science nerd, I wasn¹t completely overwhelmed learning completely new fields of study. I hope that, if anyone is reading this, they take this away: if you can learn about engineering concepts or molecular biology, then you have the capacity to learn the material being taught at Carlson. You may have to work harder than some people who have been exposed to these ideas in their undergraduate but you can do it. There are numerous resources and generous people who will help you become the success you want
to be. Dream big and work hard!
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