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When Tom finished up his MBA at the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington in 1993, the offers came pouring in. After much due diligence and weighing of the pros and cons, he decided to go with the offer that topped out at $240. Not $240K, not $24,000, but two hundred and forty dollars – per year. It was a teaching job (of course) at a university in the largest city in the newly independent country of Kazakhstan. Before you laugh… think about it: A large city (more than 1 million people), the transportation, agriculture and finance hub of a country that was about to re-enter the fray that is a free market economy, after becoming independent from the Soviet Union. Tom does not shy from excitement. Tom knows that the language and core principles of business transcend language – and can communicate them in any situation. Tom can go macro. Tom knows the devil is in the micro. After he had collected his full $240 and given his first-year free-marketers a solid platform to build businesses, Tom got another offer – this time from Andersen, where he spent nine years working on high-tech, consumer products, financial services and nonprofit projects, focusing on strategic planning and project leadership during his Big 5 career stint. He eventually decided to practice what he preached to the eager Kazakhs by joining a startup medical products company, where he was the COO. Along with his MBA, Tom has a BA in economics from Northwestern University (1986), and has spent time on the floor of the United States Senate, where as an intern he learned the finer (and rougher) points of give-and-take that make for real leadership. Tom moved back to his native Portland in 2004, where he now does his best not to embarrass any of his three daughters in front of their friends. |
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