Matthew McNally, MS, EMTM'04

World-Class Leadership and Decision-Making

Matt McNally has been with Procter & Gamble since 1992. Prior to joining P&G, Matt completed a BA in chemistry from Benedictine College, and then served for five years with the U.S. Army as an ordnance officer, working with missiles and munitions. After leaving the military, Matt earned his BS and MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri at Columbia. At P&G, Matt headed up an R&D group which worked on the processes and materials involved in the production of Pampers® and Luvs®.

While P&G is widely recognized as a gold standard company in terms of marketing, many are surprised by the tremendous depth and scope of its capabilities in science and technology. As a leader in the disposable diaper category, P&G continues to make major capital investments to generate continuous product innovations.

Given the significance of this product line, the international nature of the work, and the exceptional quality of the team reporting to him, Matt felt that he needed world-class management and leadership skills to achieve the required level of performance.

Why EMTM?

When Matt started thinking about additional graduate education, he did not consider getting an MBA degree. He knew that he wanted to stay focused on the technology side of the firm. His prime goal was to be better able to bridge the gaps between brand management and technology/production. Matt was aware of the category of "Management of Technology" programs. He conducted a web search and discovered the EMTM program at Penn. He was attracted by the combination of Penn Engineering and Wharton, as well as the fact that he could continue to work while completing his degree. During a visit to campus, he was also impressed by the faculty and students he met.

Career Impact / Benefits to Procter & Gamble

Matt characterizes three major areas of benefit to P&G from EMTM:

First, he cites the major impact of acquiring an overall awareness and understanding of how business gets done and how companies operate. He sees his role in a holistic sense, and not merely from a straight functional perspective. This enhanced insight has enabled him to communicate complex issues to senior management more cogently and confidently. "I now know what aspects of the decision each player is interested in."

Secondly, he credits the EMTM program with increasing his efficiency and effectiveness in conducting research.

Finally, Matt knows that he benefited from his exposure to best practices from other industries. From his classmates in pharmaceuticals, he learned "how to dimension and handle schedule and technology risk." From classmates in telecom, he acquired "smart ways to develop underlying standards that can be used across the industry to create increased efficiency and reduce technology overhead through lowered development costs."

Matt, whose participation was sponsored by Procter &Gamble, sees this investment has having a "very positive ROI for P&G — I have guided my team to effectively make millions of dollars of decisions using the tools I gained from EMTM."

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