Curtis Harding came to Vanderbilt’s Executive MBA program with significant experience in building and managing sales teams; co-ownership in a San Antonio-based franchise; and real estate investments in New Mexico and Florida, serving student and adult renters. “I’d spent 13 years building a sales organization, I had a steady residual income, and I was exploring other investments, but I wasn’t passionate about anything,” he says.

Vanderbilt’s EMBA program enabled Curtis to expand his knowledge and explore new career opportunities in Central and South America while continuing to work full-time. He’d lived in Peru for 2 years and was eager to take advantage of the many opportunities he’d observed. “I fell in love with Latin America,” he says. “I love the people, the food, and the culture, and I already did business there and wanted to expand.”

He chose Vanderbilt’s EMBA program “specifically for their Americas [Global] Immersion track. I wanted to learn more about the region and connect with Latin American business students.”

An experienced sales professional, Curtis appreciated the myriad ways the EMBA program increased his business skills and his ability to analyze investment opportunities. “I learned that some of my previous investments were not as good as I thought they were—and how to make better investment decisions moving forward,” he says.

In addition to new skills, Curtis values the connections he made with other students and alumni. “My fellow students have had a great impact on me, as a student and a person,” he says. “My classmates were extremely competent professionals who all had different strengths, and their level of skill quickly became evident when we worked together. It was enriching, and we balanced each other out nicely.”

The program’s smaller classes enhanced his ability to connect with the material—and with other students. “The small class size allowed us to develop deeper relationships with fellow students,” he says, “and once that trust was established, it enabled better classroom discussions.”

Curtis urges incoming students to “be willing to make mistakes and ready to learn from them. You’ll feel like everyone in the room is smarter than you, and many of them will be. But isn’t that exactly what you want?”

Fun Fact: Curtis has lived on 3 continents—North America, South America (Peru), and Asia (China). He trained for and ran a marathon in Rio de Janeiro while earning his EMBA.

The program has changed the way I approach problems. I learned how to make better decisions based on data, rather than gut instinct.