Solu Nwanze, MBA ’12, is a certified executive coach with her own practice, Expanded Impact, and is an organizational effectiveness executive in Tech/SaaS. In both capacities, she works with executives and their teams to create and implement strategies that expand leadership capabilities, promote team engagement, and drive organizational effectiveness. In addition, she recently served on the Board of Directors for HERA, a legal services non-profit in California, and has architected award-winning leadership development programs for women and people of color at work.

At McCombs, she served as co-chair of the MBA admission committee during her MBA studies, president of the Graduate Business Technology Group, and helped form Sigma Fellows, now known as Operations Fellows. She continues to serve the alumni network in multiple capacities, most recently with her summer series webinar, “Promote a Learning and Growth Culture in This Brave New Hybrid World.” We spoke with Solu about her experiences in the business realm of technology, about her time at McCombs, and about her continued aspirations to serve the McCombs community. 

Please talk about your experience as a student here at McCombs. 

During my search for the right graduate school, I wanted a top business school surrounded by a strong technology school. I was in Tech prior to business school and planned to return to the Tech industry after business school. What truly solidified McCombs as a top choice for me was my experience during Explore McCombs, a weekend program for prospective students to interact with current students, professors, and staff. During that weekend, I felt the McCombs culture come alive – deep collaboration, academic excellence, and community impact. The icing on the cake was seeing Tina Mabley, a McCombs alumna and then Director of Admissions, come to the weekend event with her two-week old baby (who is probably over 10 years old now) simply to help make an impact in our life decisions.

At McCombs I was involved in several professional development activities. I was the co-chair of the McCombs admission committee, and helped in bringing in two sets of MBA students along-side 80+ classmates on the Committee and the McCombs Admissions staff. I was also the president of the Graduate Business Technology Group (GBTG), leading a couple technology symposiums for our classmates with the IROM department and corporate sponsors. Through GBTG, I worked with the leaders of the Graduate Operations Group and we formed Sigma Fellows, now known as Operations Fellows, a selective program for students to deepen their experience and skills in Operations and Technology.

My favorite moment was at graduation, where Fernando Gonzalez, our classmate known for documenting many of our experiences through pictures, captured a shot of the entire class as he walked the graduation stage. It was truly amazing, and was another showcase of the McCombs culture.

I had many memorable professors whose lessons I still carry with me several years later. One lecture that stood out was the last class of our high-tech marketing course. In that class, Kevin Williams gave us a life lesson that has stayed with me. The gist of it was to focus on building enough savings first, so that you are always in control of your decisions and can live in alignment with your personal values. Integrity is a core value of mine, and this lesson resonates strongly, even to this day.

How did your educational experience change you?

My educational experience gave me a more rounded view of business and people. Prior to business school I was a software engineer building multimedia communication platforms. I chose to go to business school, instead of continuing in engineering, because I wanted to understand the interconnection among various systems across business functions. I have always been a systems thinker, and my engineering background certainly fed that systems thinking mindset. McCombs gave me rich knowledge of even more systems, and that has helped me succeed in highly cross-functional roles where I thrive at the center of various functions and contexts.

The study group teams we are placed in at McCombs, coupled with the leadership skills I gained through various professional development activities, gave me a deeper understanding of people’s motivations, which helped me hone my ability to lead through influence. I have continued on with my passion in developing myself and others since McCombs, so much so that my career is focused on Organizational effectiveness and Operational excellence.

Please provide a brief summary of your career path since graduating.

After business school, I led information management strategy at Adobe during the business model shift from perpetual to subscriptions. I was lucky to have been at the center of figuring out how to capture and report the right KPIs needed to run this new business model. I got to lead several SCRUM teams creating business analytics and intelligence solutions for various leaders in Product, Sales, and Services.

Next, I shifted to designing business processes and programs, and took a role in Business Operations for Creative Cloud. I designed Product and Marketing processes that allowed us to prioritize what was most important for the then $5B business, release products with the right customer experience and marketing support, and implement pricing strategies across various product offerings. I worked with several senior leaders as a chief of staff, and observed their leadership in action. This experience accelerated my learning of business and leadership.

The third shift I made was to Zendesk to build the Business Operations function, initially in Marketing, and then globally for the company, to help accelerate growth at a pivotal part of our journey from $500M to $1B. I am now in my third role at Zendesk, leading the Office of the President function, and helping us scale our Go-To-Market strategy and operations as we head towards $3B. My time at Zendesk has definitely scaled and optimized my approach to leading global teams and dynamic business functions.

Along the way, I continued my involvement in professional development activities, including co-leading the Adobe Women’s Executive Shadow Program, founding the Adobe Speed Coaching Program, and founding the Zendesk ERG Professional Development Program. Through these activities, I attended a conference where I experienced executive coaching; and I decided to train and become certified as an Executive Coach. Finding coaching helped me unleash the current phase of my career journey.

A few years ago, I launched Expanded Impact, an integrated organizational effectiveness solution provider for organizations and teams. Today, I operate at the intersection of strategy, people, and process; designing leadership experiences and implementing effective strategies that help executives and their teams thrive through change and complexity while accelerating better business outcomes.

What are you most proud of in your career so far?

What I am most proud of is that I am following the spark that makes me truly come alive! I get to work with C-Suite executives and teams across various industries as an executive coach. I learn from my coachees just as much as they learn from me. In addition, my coaching informs my leadership and my leadership informs my coaching. I am truly blessed.

I am proud of the difficult moments in my career when I chose Integrity, and followed that wise teaching from Kevin Williams. I am proud of the moments where I showed up to make an impact for others, like Tina Mabley. When I left the shores of home in Nigeria, two decades ago, I did not dream of all that I have now accomplished. I am immensely grateful to the Grace I have experienced, my family’s unflinching support, and the people along my journey that have lit the path for me, and I am honored to hold the torch out for others around me.

At every step of my journey, the seemingly insurmountable mountains that were before me turned to beautiful landscapes behind me reminding me that my capacity is bigger than I can imagine.

How have you stayed involved with the school as an alumnus?

I have been an alumni interviewer for prospective students interested in McCombs since graduation. I have worked with various MBA staff to help host Tech Trip visits to the San Francisco bay area. Those Jan Tech trips were the highlights of my year as I got to interact with current students and catch up with McCombs staff. I participate in our alumni career series, and recently hosted a webinar titled, “Promote a Learning and Growth Culture in This Brave New Hybrid World” (view the recording here).

I am excited to be back in Texas and closer to McCombs. I visited campus over the Labor Day weekend with a few friends from my class year, and it was a fun, nostalgic and refreshing trip.

What are your goals for the future, career wise, and in relation to McCombs?

My future has Organizational Effectiveness continuing to take the center stage in my career. I see myself leading global org effectiveness at scale – impacting leaders, teams, organizations, and systems.

I also hope to be engaged in faculty opportunities at McCombs, teaching executive development and organizational leadership classes, and I will continue to be engaged in leadership development conversations within the McCombs community.

Michael Cisarik, MBA ’20, is a part of the Corporate Finance and Investor Relations team at Enterprise Products Partners LP, one of the largest publicly traded partnerships and a leading North American provider of midstream energy services. He is most recently the founder and artist associated with what he calls “Michael James Art”. Michael launched this new hobby turned business during the COVID pandemic and has since sold over 100 commissioned art works to clients across the US. We spoke with Michael about his time at McCombs and how he utilized his skillset from the program to launch and market his new business.

Please talk about your experience as a student here at McCombs. Why you came here, favorite class/teacher, etc.

Having attended UT for undergrad, the decision to apply to UT once again for my MBA was a no brainer – just from a personality perspective, the energy and drive that the UT MBA program exuded was a perfect fit. One of the key factors that I was looking for was a part-time MBA program that didn’t sacrifice curriculum or exposure just because I was working a full time job (and in UT’s case, not in the “home base” location). What resonated with me about the McCombs MBA is that the same professors that taught the Austin program would be teaching us in Houston – each class session, they would drive down from Austin to ensure that we were obtaining the same “McCombs experience” that the full time students were receiving in Austin. Each professor was of course world renowned and extremely knowledgeable and personable but my favorite classes were probably either Macroeconomics with Dr. Julia Coronado or Marketing Strategy with Dr. Jade DeKinder. I will always remember working at my office, a few weeks after beginning Dr. Coronado’s class, looking up at the TV and seeing her face on CNBC guest speaking on U.S. federal treasury expectations.  Her lectures were always intriguing experiences since she always tied “macro” level policies or theories to her own research.  Especially since I majored in Economics myself in undergrad at UT, this class really resonated with me and added a new layer of depth and understanding – something I could apply to my everyday life. On the other hand, Dr. DeKinder taught me valuable skills and methods to properly launch and market my new art business (of course at the time, I had no idea I would be in the art business!). Her classes were always extremely interactive, usually focused on some of her past student’s success (and challenges) in starting their own businesses.

How did your educational experience change you?

Attending and graduating from McCombs taught me more than just book-based curriculum and theories. The dedication, focus, and commitment it took to work full time alongside class every weekend taught me discipline and furthered my work ethic. I truly didn’t realize how much I could accomplish in a set time frame until having to study or complete assignments every night for 2 years after a long day at work. Many times I would work 6 am to 6 pm and then do homework until 12-1 am. After going through that challenging yet rewarding experience, you become more efficient, more focused, and find yourself troubleshooting day-to-day “shortcuts” to solutions that you normally would not think of – regardless of relation to work or your personal life.

How has your career path evolved since graduating and did it play out the way you expected?

It definitely did not turn out the way I expected. After I graduated, I realized how much I enjoyed our finance classes so when I had the opportunity to move into my company’s finance and investor relations group, I jumped at the opportunity. Shortly after that, our world was shattered when COVID hit and I started painting as a hobby and as a means to furnish the apartment I had recently moved into. After painting for a few weeks, friends had reached out wanting pieces of their own. I quickly realized that people had an interest for art – despite the pandemic and looming recession – and I really wanted to see where it could go. While this obviously was not an “ideal” time to launch a new business, I didn’t want to look back in a few years and feel like I missed out on an opportunity – or worse, wonder what this could have been. Using the skills that I learned in our marketing, analytics, finance, and strategy classes, I could market and position myself and my skillset and monetize it.  After only about a year, I had sold over 100 paintings to clients across the country – from New York, to Chicago, to Los Angeles. Today, I am thrilled that the business keeps attracting new clients, including interest from interior designers and galleries.

What are you most proud of in your career so far?

I think I am most proud of taking a risk and seeing if something I found I had a passion for could also be a legitimate business. Having never painted prior to this past year, I definitely was proud of myself for having the confidence to quite literally throw myself head first into this venture that was completely opposite from my prior experience. I think there is still a lot of potential long term, especially based upon both the quick establishment and with it launching during a global pandemic.

How can we follow your progress?

My website, www.MichaelJamesArt.com, is always up to date and includes a comprehensive portfolio of my past work as well as details on processes and pricing. For day-to-day informal communication, my Instagram handle, “@MichaelJames_Art” is where I post events and other news like giveaways so feel free to follow along if you are interested!