In this episode, Lesley shares her journey from Korea to HBS, discussing her unique background in blockchain and international relations. She reflects on her decision to pursue an MBA, the application process, and the importance of self-reflection. Lesley highlights her experiences at HBS, the challenges of being an international student, and how her education has shaped her career in corporate finance. She offers valuable advice for prospective MBA students, emphasizing the need for thorough preparation and self-awareness.
I was born in Korea. I moved to Canada, went to middle school and high school in Toronto, and then I moved to Boston and went to Tufts University, majored in international relations. Then I went back to Korea and worked for Samsung SDS, which is a software solutions arm of Samsung, for about six years before coming back to Boston for my MBA.
With an international relations background, what did you learn in the span between undergrad and the MBA that got you interested in pursuing one?
As a software solutions consultant, I felt like I had gotten enough project management, product management, and global business development experience and knowledge over the six years I was at Samsung, but I really didn't have any exposure to finance. After being six years at Samsung, I realized that everything really boils down to the numbers - it's about the P&L of the company. I really wanted to get more structured, systematic learning of finance, and what better way is there than an MBA? That's why I decided to apply and then came to HBS.
Did you see people around you at Samsung going the MBA route, or was it unusual?
Samsung actually has a structured program where they select about six employees throughout the entire Samsung group - out of something like 400,000 employees - and they send them off to MBA programs, sponsor them, and they come back and rejoin Samsung. But around me at that time I didn't really have anyone who was applying to an MBA. I was actually the first one within our group to apply.
When did the idea of an MBA first come into your mind, and how did you start thinking about what schools to apply to?
I've always had the idea of an MBA on the back of my mind. I actually started preparing for the GRE about two years after I joined Samsung and didn't do well, so I gave up. Two years went by, and that's when I really realized I needed to do something if I wanted to advance my career or go up the corporate ladder. I needed that network, that learning, and that broad exposure to different people from different industries - and that's when I finally sat down and started studying for the GRE again.
Were you looking to move beyond Samsung specifically, or were you wanting other doors to open?
I really wanted to work in the States, because my job at Samsung was mostly dealing with global business partners, and I wanted the chance to actually move here and work in the States. I was also in blockchain for the last year at Samsung, so I wanted to pivot toward the fintech industry.
What did you do differently the second time around with the GRE?
Honestly, I was more desperate. I also learned that I didn't have that much time - five or six years of work experience is more than enough to get into an MBA program, and I felt like anything after that would be too late. It was that desperation. What I did differently was take a more structured study plan: I gave myself six months, divided each month into the specific quant and verbal areas I wanted to focus on, and really worked through practice questions. Before, it was just me sitting down without any real framework.
My approach was organized and disorganized in a way. I thought it was organized in my mind until I actually started it. Then I was like, okay, there are so many things I want to talk about. I don't actually know what I want to do. I don't have a clear vision of my short-term and long-term goals. So in that way, it was very disorganized, and I needed to really go through multiple rounds of writing essays to come down to eventually what I really wanted to pursue or convey to the schools. I didn't do enough self-reflection to really see how everything fits into my overall journey - my career journey and personal journey. I did have a structured plan in terms of timeline, but in terms of what I really wanted to say, it was very disorganized.
You mentioned having a bad experience with an admissions consultant. What happened?
I had no resources around me. I was the first one to apply within my Samsung cohort, so I felt like I needed some kind of structured help to guide me through the entire process. I didn't know what I needed to talk about. I didn't know what strengths I wanted to highlight on my application, or what weaknesses I wanted to address by going to an MBA. I thought someone who had been through that process could provide me with that information, so I went to an MBA consultant. She went through my application background and told me that the best school I could get into with my profile was Darden. At the time, my dream school was Columbia Business School, and she made it sound like I didn't have a chance of getting in there. That's when I realized I needed to back off and do things on my own - and I got into HBS.
How did you nail down your narrative and identify the key points in your story?
I did a lot of self-reflection on my own, but I also reached out to my friends from Samsung to see what strengths they saw in me. It's always nice to have that fresh perspective. You think you're good at certain things, but when other people see you, there might be 40 other different things you are good at and could contribute to a community. I had deep conversations with my friends and colleagues, and then I wrote about 20 different versions answering questions like: what are your long-term and short-term goals, what are you trying to achieve by going to an MBA, why an MBA now? I had the same people read over all those versions and help me identify which ones were most authentic to me. That's how I came down to the three things I talked about throughout all my essays.
It is not a one-and-done for 99% of people. We all have that V20, V30 saved.
I got lucky in a way that it came down to three versions - everyone selected the exact same three versions. So it was easy for me in that way. But then you really have to build on your case. You have just a framework, and then you have to add on these details and what you really want to talk about in your essay. That was 10% of the work, and then the 90% began.
What do you think helped you stand out from the rest?
Being in blockchain when it was at its hottest, as a female in Korea - that really made me stand out. Blockchain experience questions were asked during all of my interviews, so I know they were very interested. Also, my role as Chief of Staff to the COO when I was at Samsung - that was something all the schools found very interesting. I had a lot of stories from working as Chief of Staff, so that was one of the main prompts in my application and my essays.
Looking back, were there any weak spots in your application you would do differently?
It's been about five years since I wrote my essays, but I think I would be more specific about how I could contribute to each school's community. I was providing very generic answers by going through their websites and trying to match my strengths with the unique experiences each school offers. It should be connecting the dots, but if I had talked to more students, I would have been able to provide more personalized stories around how I could contribute to those communities and what I hoped to gain from the schools.
I applied to five schools in total: HBS, MIT Sloan, Wharton, CBS, and NYU Stern. Location was a big thing for me - I knew I wanted to come back to New England, preferably within Boston, so HBS and MIT were my top choices.
These schools' values and visions are very different. For example, Yale SOM focuses more on nonprofit, while Wharton is very finance - private equity, investment banking, anything finance. HBS's mission, "be a leader to make a difference in the world," really resonated with me.
So I was looking at locations, looking at the visions and the overall message of each school. And as an international student, you also have to think about the loans you have access to - I didn't have a Social Security number, so I couldn't get any federal loans or loans available to permanent residents or US citizens. Beyond that, the housing options, the visa process, and what kind of support the career center provides in terms of securing a job on your visa after graduation - those are all things I had to consider that US students normally wouldn't. A lot of different factors went into narrowing down to those five schools, and eventually selecting HBS.
Having a very diverse background - front office, back office, non-engineering to engineering, working with engineers, living in Panama for six months, living in the States, Canada, Korea - really helped build a more diverse picture of who I am. My friends who are male, in finance, or Asian talk about how their chances of getting into an MBA are lower because there are so many of them. Coming in as an Asian female in tech, with an international relations major rather than an engineering background, and with global experiences across multiple countries, gave me a very different profile.
If you have a different background than the average, some people are concerned if they're not from consulting or finance - and yes, those do make up a large body of applicants - but if you spin it really well, you can lean into not having a more traditional background. Factoring in all of those different elements is a really good thing to lean into.
Going to an MBA is a big investment. You have the opportunity cost of not working anymore and coming back to school, and then you have your tuition, your living expenses, and also days where you travel with your classmates - that is part of the experience, so you do spend a lot.
HBS was different in that Harvard is a very big institution. Harvard actually has a student loan program that is run and funded by the Harvard office, and the interest rates are obviously lower than the private loans you can get. That was a plus for me - I didn't really need to burden myself with crazy expensive interest rates without a US co-signer. It just made the process a little easier in terms of the finances.
HBS is also very generous in that they give financial aid on a need-based basis - it's not merit-based, it's need-based. At that time, the US dollar was so much stronger compared to the Korean won, so what I was earning in Korean won really didn't translate that much into US dollars. There are different macroeconomic factors that HBS considers when selecting need-based financial aid, but they're very generous. They make sure that the students who got in have the opportunity to really take full advantage of the MBA experience. HBS and Harvard have amazing financial aid and loan programs.
HBS is a very unique school. It's very stressful, but you do have the resources around you to not just survive but thrive within this competitive environment. The case method is very scary, but I think it's very effective. It's not like a normal classroom where you have a textbook and you learn about, say, how to build a WACC. Instead, they slide that WACC calculation into a case study where you really have to approach it from different perspectives, and you need to reach out to your classmates who've been in finance before to really come up with the answers before class, in case a professor asks you to build on someone else's thesis. That's what makes HBS so unique. That's something I remember so vividly - being put on the spot, but also it's very effective that they make you practice coming up with a conclusion based on your learnings or your data that you feel confident enough to present to your classmates, and give them something to build on from your ideas and opinions.
All the support you get from your classmates is very unique. You have your section mates - that's your home. You build very deep relationships with your section mates, but then you also have access to 1,000 other classmates from different perspectives and different backgrounds. It's very diverse, and you can tap into that at any time, even after you graduate. That's something that makes HBS very unique. It's not a small school - it's big - but you also have that cohort of 90 people that you know deeply.
With finance cases specifically, you basically have to rely on your finance classmates to help you through it. In a way, the combination of applying it to a very specific case, remembering the business, having to hunt for the right answer, and having to work with other people - it's a lesson in figuring it out on the job, which ultimately we all have to end up doing at a certain point. It's a different type of prep, and more applicable prep to what your realistic job is afterwards, versus just doing problem sets that may build the muscle better, but teach you different skills.
At a very competitive environment like HBS, you feel like you really have to be involved with everything, be at every event, be friends with everyone, and it's really overwhelming. Everyone does start off thinking that they're going to be able to be part of everything, and then there are times when they're not feeling well and can't go to an event. Really, at the end of the day, it doesn't impact your MBA experience. Sometimes it's just nice to take a step back and take care of yourself and distance yourself from that competitive environment. You don't have to go to every single event, and you don't have to get a one in every single class to make the most out of your MBA experience. Especially at HBS, you can go on your own pace, but at the same time, you really have to open yourself up to different perspectives, very diverse opinions and ideas, to really find out what matters to you and also how this whole experience relates back to your long-term and short-term career goals.
After graduation, I've become even more international. I joined American Tower's leadership development program, which is a rotational program for two years. We rotate through four different teams every six months, and it's required that we do international assignments. Because of COVID I wasn't able to actually move to Miami, but I worked with the global supply chain management team in Miami. Then I worked with the finance team in Boston. Then I was in Singapore for about a year working as chief of staff to the president of APAC. Then I was in Germany for seven months doing service delivery. Now I'm back in Boston for my full-time job in corporate finance with American Tower. I've been going everywhere, working with different teams, building my network within the company to really understand the ins and outs of the business.
The HBS MBA really did prep me for both the hard finance skills and the soft skills. Going from not knowing anything about numbers, income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, to now being in charge of financial planning, forecasting, reporting, producing earnings materials, and managing our company's WACs - our regional WACs, our country-level WACs - that transition speaks to what the program built in me.
Going back to the case study method and what was mentioned before: it's one thing to do all the work, but it's another to really be able to present your work to your senior management and your colleagues and be effective in your communications. That's something that has genuinely helped me in my role.
One cool thing we always talk about is how we're all at that stage where we're getting married or having children. We have these free meals every year where we get to go to different countries - we were in India, we were in Brazil, I have my wedding next year hosting everyone in Korea. It's really cool that we have this very international group of ladies where we get to go visit their countries and actually experience their cultures by going to these weddings or important events of their lives. Even though we're in different places, we have these regular reunions where we get to see each other again in person, which is really nice.
At work, after graduating from HBS, you're in this really weird position - at least that's how I felt. People are always testing you: "Oh, you went to HBS, let's see how good you are," or "You went to HBS, I'm sure you have other more valuable things to add." Personally, I've been struggling to not think about what my education or this pedigree might mean to other people, and to just really focus on my work and what I can do. That's something I've talked to other people about after graduating - people have also been dealing with those perceptions. I'm sure not that many people actually think about it that way, but in my mind, I feel like I'm getting challenged, like people are watching to see how well I do because I went to HBS.
With relationships, I get a lot of calls from people who are graduating from HBS about job opportunities, and whenever I need input from people in Africa finance, private equity, or people who've done it for multiple years, I go to them for their advice or just to pick their brain on what they're thinking. It's nice to have that diverse community of people I can always reach out to in tech and finance and all these different industries. It's been very helpful.
If you have an MBA in mind, take the GMAT or the GRE and just get it out of the way. It's valid for five years, so you can always come back and think about whether it's actually right for you in terms of your career path, but it's one less thing to worry about. When you're actually ready, you can just dive right into the actual application process.
You have to do a lot of self-reflection to see how an MBA really fits into your overall career, because coming to an MBA is not only going to change your career projections but also your personal life. You have to relocate sometimes to go to a school. So you have to think about whether this is the right time, why you really want to come to an MBA, and what you hope to gain. Those are things you really have to do some serious thinking about - to see if you're willing to invest all that time, that money, that effort to step away from work for two years and then have to go back. It is a big change.
Any additional specific advice for international students?
If you did not go to school in the States, get the TOEFL out of the way along with your GRE or GMAT, because the schools do require it. There are so many different things you have to worry about as an international student - your visa situation, and even little things like getting your transcript translated and notarized by an official company. Those are details that are so much easier to handle if you just get them out of the way before you start your application process. You need to do roughly twice as much research as a domestic applicant, but those are the details that will matter in your application.