Smith EMBAs among Poets & Quants’ 2018 Best and Brightest

Poets & Quants’ “Best & Brightest Executive MBAs: Class of 2018” features Chintan Fafadia and Maurice Andrew Malcolm representing the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Fafadia, who grew up in Mumbai, India, is PCTEL’s director of product management for RF solutions. Malcolm, raised by Jamaican-immigrant parents in Columbia, Maryland, is managing principal of the healthcare division at Dasidual Management Services in Columbia.

The overview of the profilees from programs worldwide includes: “The University of Maryland’s Chintan Fafadia shares a byline in the Journal of Applied Physics with Dr. Alan MacDiarmid, a Nobel Prize winner.”

Read both Fafadia’s profile and Malcolm’s profile Poets&Quants, where they give career insights and reflect on their Smith EMBA experiences.

Here are samples:

What was your favorite MBA course and what was the biggest insight you gained about business from it? Malcolm: Among the multiple executive MBA courses I experienced and value greatly, Corporate Finance prepared me to more confidently practice accounting, strategize, evaluate a company’s qualitative and quantitative inputs, and present to a board. When evaluating a business as an MBA, it is assumed you do so primarily by looking at the balance sheet and the income statement. However, Corporate Finance broadened my awareness to see that ‘”good will and efficiencies” can make the difference between closing a deal or having it fall apart.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Fafadia: Pinpointing a favorite is tough, as I have always focused on finding and take the best from each professor, individually. For example, I have truly learned a lot at UMD from the likes of Dr. Michael Faulkender (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy nominee) for subject matter expertise and course style; Dr. David Godes for engaging delivery; Dr. Paulo Prochno for methodology; and Dr. Charles Olsen for the no-nonsense lectures focused both on the subject at hand and real-life attributes needed for leading. But I give most credit to Dr. Ann Herd in her executive coach role here at UMD. She takes strong personal interest, going ‘above and beyond,’ to help her coaches and connects everything from values to acumen in the process. In conversation, her point of view comes across as ‘if I don’t know you as a person, how will you I help you as an executive coach?’ She approaches teaching holistically. She gets you to reflect on ‘What I am as a person? What are my values?’ Subsequently, she’s helped me connect back to myself — to find and explore my own values and, ultimately, improve myself.