Chika Bedu-Addo

MBA Class of 2005
Born in Washington, D.C., came to Chapel Hill area from New Jersey

My internship: "I was an assistant brand manager for Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals in Mason, Ohio. My job was to help develop a plan for launching a new product (Intrinsa), educating patients about the best way to use it and marketing it."

Background

• BS in computer science, Seton Hall University, 1994
• Senior programmer analyst for Merrill Lynch in Plainfield, N.J. (1993 to 1997)
• V.P. of information technology at Business Integrated Technology Systems, Inc., in Princeton, N.J. (1997 to 1999)
• Director of wireless product development at BuildNet, Inc. in Durham, N.C. (2000 to 2001)
• Director of product development at Wireless Multimedia Solutions, Inc. in Durham, N.C. (2001 to 2002)

• Supply-chain faculty are best in the country if not the world
• Friendly, candid students
• Professional ambience

Student life

"I'll be honest, the amount of core work in the first year is outrageous. However, in the second year, the work load became light, especially since we could now take the electives of our interest. I'm into sports, so I played flag football, tennis and basketball. It's all paid off. What I've been exposed to and what I've learned in the classroom in two years of school would have taken me five to 10 years to get in the business world working in multiple departments."

My experience of the MBA program at UNC

• "I've really enjoyed the diversity of students and have learned a lot about other countries from my various classes. For instance, in negotiation class (taught by one of the best professors in the school, Bob Adler) we had a session in which we discussed different negotiation norms and tactics across the globe."
• "What's surprising is how willing professors are to give you time and attention. Professor Jennifer Conrad, who won the best teacher award in 2004, is a good example. She would respond to you at odd hours of the day such as 11:30 p.m. This is when most first-years were awake preparing for her class the next day."
• "The knowledge and expertise of the professors brought me to UNC Kenan-Flagler. It is amazing what you can learn from some of the professors by just having a few minutes to converse with them. They are willing to discuss their research, and they do it in ways that you make you want to drop everything you are doing to work with them."

The UNC Kenan-Flagler network

"Things just fell into place for my internship at P & G, but Professor Kyle Cattani helped a classmate and friend, Sergio Gutierrez, with getting his internship last year at Amazon.com. He basically wrote a letter of recommendation for Sergio and sent it to the COO and the hiring manager. Also, he prepared Sergio for interviews by extensively explaining Amazon's business model and operation advantages."

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