It took several years in the working world after graduation from college, but Noey Neumark developed a very clear idea about where she wants to go: to become a creative leader/producer/marketing director at a health-focused startup.

She also understood that, lacking any prior experience in that field, she would need to work for a few years in a corporate health care setting to get a more thorough understanding of the industry. And to get that corporate experience, along with the skills to lead a small company someday, she would need an MBA.

One of her experiences during Mod 4 of her first year exemplified the supportive environment, tailored approach and “lack of red tape” that had led Noey to choose Vanderbilt in the first place. “I wanted to have an independent study project involving innovation and health care, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to look like,” the San Francisco native recalls. “I went to Professor Dave Owens, whose Innovation Strategies course I had taken in Mod 2, and I told him the vague things I was thinking about.

“Within 10 minutes he had about five ideas of what I could do, and he immediately connected me with some contacts of his at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. (I had similar and equally fruitful conversations with Professors Germain Boer and Burch Wood.) The project with Children’s came through rather quickly. It was a perfect fit for my academic and career goals. It was just incredible to see how much support I got from Owen faculty in pulling together an admittedly last-minute independent study project."

That was far from the only support Noey got in that first year. She credits the program with helping her land an internship that was exactly the type of corporate experience she was looking for — with Cardinal Health in Columbus, OH. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that,” she says, “without the Owen network.”

Fun Fact: Before coming to Vanderbilt, Noey worked as a marketing manager and freelance writer in Hanoi, Vietnam.

“It was just incredible to see how much support I got from Owen faculty.”