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<\/a>Is it the bustling economy? Beautiful lakes? Great quality of life? All that, and more<\/h2>\nBy Susannah Felts<\/span><\/p>\n Photos by Steve Woit<\/p>\n Minneapolis may surprise you. Sixteen Fortune 500 companies call the area home. The economy is diverse and strong. Housing is affordable. The population skews younger than the U.S. average. Then there\u2019s the beautiful lakes\u2014more than a dozen inside city limits\u2014and the top-rated parks system. Three major-league teams. It\u2019s second only to New York City in the number of theater seats per resident. At No. 17, it\u2019s the top-ranked Midwestern city in U.S. News & World Report\u2019s<\/i> latest edition of best places to live.<\/p>\n The evidence is unassailable: Minneapolis has a lot going for it.<\/p>\n Increasingly, Vanderbilt\u2019s Owen School graduates are answering the city\u2019s siren call, pursuing careers in the City of Lakes, each adding to the thriving alumni network in the area. While their professional roles vary widely, they uniformly voice a newfound appreciation for this Midwestern metropolis and a gratitude for the MBA program that prepared them. Meet five Vanderbilt MBA grads who call Minneapolis home.<\/p>\n The Consumer Goods Buyer<\/b><\/p>\n Originally planning to go into marketing, Rosario found her interest in brand management piqued once she started at Vanderbilt. Coaches at the Career Management Center urged her to explore the world of career conferences. It was at one such gathering where she first explored merchandising. \u201cGoing into business school, I hadn\u2019t thought of that as an option I could have after getting my MBA,\u201d she says. But the career path met a lot of her interests.<\/p>\n Rosario enjoys the breadth of involvement her role buying seasonal toys at Target requires. This spring, she planned the company\u2019s product transition to fall, focused on what licensed properties might be hot six months into the future. Her work keeps her up on cultural trends and takes her to the annual New York Toy Fair, where innovators attempt to shake up the marketplace.<\/p>\n Back at the office, she keeps an eye on product margins and plans for how new products will appear in Target stores. \u201cStrategy is a big piece of it,\u201d she notes, \u201cand I like that I\u2019ve taken things I learned in all my courses at Owen and applied them to my career.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosario lives in downtown Minneapolis, where she can walk to the Twins and Vikings stadiums and to work\u2014even in the deep freeze of winter. \u201cDowntown has miles of indoor skyways that connect the buildings,\u201d she says. \u201cI can pretty much walk everywhere. I don\u2019t use my car much.\u201d<\/p>\n Not that she hasn\u2019t learned to embrace the (cold) outdoors. She and several friends tried ice fishing last winter, sleeping overnight in a cabin on a frozen lake. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the things I just had to experience while I\u2019m here,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The Cereal Marketer<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be here if I didn\u2019t go to Owen,\u201d he says. \u201cA Vanderbilt MBA is pretty much a chance to learn how to think about business in a new way, a chance to develop leadership skills and critical thinking skills, and Owen did a great job of that.\u201d Kunysz found that projects he worked on at Vanderbilt, such as a revamp of the school\u2019s social media strategy, gave him strong strategic thinking and leadership skills to put to use at General Mills. \u201cIt\u2019s all about thinking about a problem, solving that problem and executing the solve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Before accepting the job at General Mills, Kunysz considered several other states\u2014Texas, Georgia, Ohio and California were all on the table. But Minneapolis was the one location that checked all his boxes. \u201cThere had to be major sports, a great food scene and a good network of young professionals, and Minneapolis has all of those,\u201d he says. He loves the many lakes, parks and greenways, and he wasted no time purchasing an annual pass for Minnesota\u2019s beautiful state park system. Just as appealing is a dining scene that\u2019s high on quality but not necessarily on expense and long waits. \u201cI can walk into a great restaurant and be seated in 20 minutes,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an easy place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n The Health Care Product Developer<\/strong><\/p>\n Originally from Virginia, Kendall Bram, MBA\u201914, had very little in the way of expectations for Midwestern living when she moved to Minneapolis after earning her business degree. She joined a leadership development program at 3M, a huge science company with five business groups (including, yes, the consumer one, responsible for Scotch tape and Post-its). During the program, Bram worked on projects across the company as an internal consultant, giving her grounding in the range of industries where 3M operates. The diverse business landscape presented unique challenges, says Bram, \u201cbut Owen prepares you really well to embrace that ambiguity and find ways to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanks to the leadership program, Bram has put down roots in Minneapolis with a group of friends already in place. Her network feels established and growing. Today as a global procedure marketer, she handles new product marketing in the health care business group, helping develop and bring to market new materials used in dental fillings and restorative procedures. The position requires Bram to communicate regularly with global teams, adapting to and interpreting a range of business practices and working styles. In navigating these worlds, she\u2019s found her business school training invaluable.<\/p>\n \u201cI looked to Owen to round out my knowledge of marketing and strategy, but also the core business competencies. It also opened the door to industries and businesses I hadn\u2019t had exposure to,\u201d she says. \u201cI continue to take lessons from Owen on working with groups and how to influence and understand ambiguous business challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n Bram cites Vanderbilt\u2019s emphasis on collaboration as a particular boon. \u201cA lot of that is represented here in my role, which is largely of a team nature, learning from the technical side of our organization and translating that knowledge to marketing to meet the needs of our customers,\u201d she says. Bram notes that her training in how to influence others has also come in handy.<\/p>\n Echoing Rosario and Kunysz, Bram has found much to love about her adopted city. Living in the downtown neighborhood of the North Loop, she enjoys easy access to paths and green spaces along the Mississippi River, as well as plenty of nearby coffee shops and restaurants. No ice fishing yet\u2014but Bram has dabbled in some cross-country skiing. \u201cI hadn\u2019t done much winter stuff before,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople here are really into the outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mission-Driven Manager<\/b><\/p>\n<\/a>Armed with a mechanical engineering degree from Vanderbilt, Vanessa Rosario, BE\u201905, MBA\u201916, spent eight years at General Electric before coming back to campus for a business degree. The Cincinnati native thought, like many MBA grads before her, she\u2019d settle in the South after business school\u2014perhaps Nashville or Atlanta. But after completing a summer internship at Target halfway through graduate school, she couldn\u2019t say no to Target\u2019s offer of a role as senior buyer and a return to the Midwest. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like running your own business within the business,\u201d she says of her position.<\/p>\n<\/a>As a senior associate marketing manager at General Mills, Devin Kunysz, MBA\u201915, manages a $400 million\u2013dollar business: all the chocolate cereals produced by the company, including Cocoa Puffs, Reese\u2019s Puffs and Cookie Crisp. The job involves a lot of marketing strategy, but Kunysz also works closely with the technological teams that develop products for the next generation. While he looks toward the future, there\u2019s a long history of cereals in the marketplace to consider. Recently, Kunysz developed a campaign around the 60th birthday of Cocoa Puffs\u2019 mascot, Sonny the Cuckoo Bird.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n