Victoria G. Sanchez, EMTM’06

From Planning to Strategy

Vicky Sanchez completed dual degrees in electrical engineering and managerial studies from Rice University in Houston in 1991. Her initial jobs during and immediately after college focused on industrial controls and automation in supply chain for Conoco, The Clorox Company and ultimately Johnson & Johnson. Vicky characterizes herself as a "planner." She knew that she would ultimately pursue a master's degree, but did not fully realize the impact that decision would have.

Why EMTM?

When Vicky started looking at graduate schools, she was spending 75% of her time traveling internationally for Johnson & Johnson. A project engineer, she was leading the industrial automation controls implementation of an $8 million global project to standardize manufacturing and packaging equipment for J&J's markets in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and Latin America. She knew that she wanted to continue working while she attended grad school and recognized that she needed a top program that would also provide scheduling flexibility.

"Having completed my undergraduate degree at Rice, I knew the value of an education at a highly competitive and well respected university. Given my home base in the tri-state area, one of my colleagues (Karen Benkovich, EMTM'99) suggested that EMTM might be of interest. Vicky believed that the combination of Penn Engineering and Wharton would be hard to beat in achieving her goals, and she liked the program's inherent flexibility. "I was able to plot what was coming up at work and register on a full or part time basis each semester. That was invaluable."

Career Impact

The impact of EMTM on Vicky's career was "almost immediate." She made an essential shift from being primarily tactical in her approach to operating in a strategic mode. "Through EMTM, I was able to move from a technical professional capacity to a strategic managerial role." And since starting EMTM she has earned two promotions — to Franchise Project Manager, leading a cross-company/cross-functional supply chain team to commercial launch new products and then to Associate Director, Customer Service, with JOM Pharmaceutical Services, which distributes the pharmaceutical products of various affiliates within the J&J Family of Companies.

"Drawing on courses like Management of Technology, Organizational Behavior and Design, Leadership, Negotiations and Decision Models," she says, "I learned to go beyond a project management orientation to being 'fixed on a strategic focus', while staying fluid and flexible. I've been able to help my team to address business needs by identifying systematic and technological solutions and own our Information Management (IM) strategic goals. Recently, our Customer Service organization successfully partnered with IM to gain approval of a multi-million dollar information management system solution to enhance services to our customers and provide us with data analytical capabilities to meet business requirements. The first phase of the project is being highlighted at J&J's corporate IM annual conference."

In addition to the strength of the faculty and the program content, Vicky credits the diversity of her classmates as a tremendous benefit. "In my classes, there are people from all over the world, many of whom work at the frontiers of emerging technologies. Not only did I learn about operating globally, but I was able to evaluate the potential of new technologies for J&J's very established operations area. One of my classmates was from Korea and worked for IBM. We had extensive conversations about information networking and supply chain infrastructures that might best work in a supply chain environment that is highly regulated. Another of my classmates with international experience was an SAP Technical Subject Matter Expert, who during our IT Strategies class, discussed with me his recommendations on how to best deploy SAP capabilities in a highly regulated pharmaceutical environment. I also heavily debriefed some of my classmates that went on the Supply Chain Logistics focused Global Immersion trip last summer for ideas and concepts they learned that might be applicable to the distribution and logistics environment that I currently work in."

For Vicky, her plan for a master's degree turned into a strategic success.

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