Jose Castillo
Program: Full-Time
Graduation: MBA 2019
Organization/Current title: Senior Vice President of Health Analytics, Alera Health
Q: Why did you choose the NC State Jenkins MBA program for your graduate education?
A: I chose Jenkins for three reasons:
- It was a top-ranked program, with a strong curriculum in my areas of interest (finance, supply chain and analytics), hands-on approach and small class setting.
- They have a super-friendly approach for the admission process, and waivers for the GMAT for people with significant professional experience (my case!)
- Raleigh. What an incredible city, especially if you have children. Great place to live!
Q: How did your experience in the program contribute to your professional achievements and successes?
A: I was able to secure a very good position as VP of Analytics for a small consulting firm in the area. I think having not only the exposure to real-world analytics problem, but the ability to use these skills and translate very complex, unstructured data into real, actionable insights for companies, gave me the confidence to switch my career from engineering to the consulting world. Again, the approach the Jenkins MBA program has with the “Think and Do” motto allows you to find solutions to real problems companies are facing today. It is a key component and differentiator of the program.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your time in the Jenkins MBA Program?
A: Getting to know people from totally different backgrounds and learn from their experiences.
Q: What are a few of the most impactful classes/lessons you learned during your time at NC State?
A: Though question, as I had the privilege of being in class with amazing professors, but if I need to pick: Dr. Heese’s Analytical Supply Chain class is a must (even if you are not in the Supply Chain concentration), Dr. Bamford’s strategy class (I use what I learned from him every day in my job), Dr. Mitchell’s introductory finance class (after taking her class, I decided to change my main concentration to Finance!), Dr. Ellis finance practicum (tough, but incredibly useful), Dr. Woods’ Consumer Behavior class (it will change the way you think about everything), and Dr. Beasly’s ERM class
Q: What advice do you have for prospective Jenkins MBA students?
A: Contact a current student or alumni to learn more. It will provide you a completely different perspective about the program
Q: Could you give a brief explanation of your current line of work, and what has led you to it?
A: In a nutshell, I’m responsible for the oversight of the analytics component in every project. In Healthcare, we deal with tons of data from multiple sources. However, data is usually non-structured, disperse and “dirty”. My job is to make sure we can extract insights from it and provide to our clients with data-driven solutions to the problems they face everyday. Working in analytics gives me the opportunity to learn something new everyday, since it is a field that’s evolving so quickly that you need to be on top of everything, which is very cool.
Q: What do you believe is your most interesting accomplishment since graduation?
A: I’ve had the opportunity to work/collaborate in several projects since I started my job. New technology implementation to provide better care to seniors, the development of a enterprise data warehouse, the deployment of a clinically integrated network in other state or a pilot to implement an early detection of patient’s with rising risk of opioids use disorders, which I think will help hospitals in the current battle against the opioids epidemic