Alumni Spotlight
Alumna’s Professional Transition from Nigeria to America Accelerated by Crummer Experience
Omonigho (Omo) Adebiyi came straight to Crummer from her home country of Nigeria and says the enriching MBA experience was largely responsible for her ascent to becoming the Director of Global Strategy for Philips.
Nigerian born and raised, Omo Adebiyi laughs when she recalls her first “winter in Florida” experience during her first semester as an international student at Crummer.
“I remember one of my classmates laughing because I was wearing gloves. They thought it was cute that I thought it was cold,” she said.
Thankfully for her, the brief little Florida cold snap was about the toughest adversity she faced as an international student coming straight to Crummer from her home country of Nigeria.
Now the Director of Global Strategy for Philips, a Fortune 500 multinational conglomerate, Adebiyi is thankful for her Crummer experience that garnered her the connections to build a career in the United States.
“Crummer gave me an environment where there was so much structure,” she said. “I had access to advisors, directors, professors and great opportunities to engage with alumni and in social activities; it made the transition much smoother for me.”
Adebiyi, trained as a medical doctor in Nigeria, decided she did not want to practice clinically and was thinking about how to make the transition from clinical practice to business when she started exploring MBA programs in the United States.
Intrigued by Crummer’s ranking as the #1 MBA in Florida according to Forbes, charmed by Winter Park’s beautiful landscape, and encouraged by Florida’s climate, Adebiyi pursued Crummer as her top MBA option in the United States.
As an immigrant, she was surrounded by a diverse cohort that gave her a great perspective on life in America.
“My class was quite diverse, with people who had 3-5 years of work experience and people straight out of undergrad,” she said. “It was a diverse group of people in terms of work experience, so it was an interesting opportunity to see what life in the U.S. was like. I particularly appreciated the openness of teachers and the broader Crummer community; that made things easier.”
During Adebiyi’s time at Crummer, she focused heavy on leveraging the Crummer network to build her connections in the United States. Coming to a new country where she didn’t know anybody, the networking events were particularly valuable for her.
Nearing the end of her second year in the program, she was introduced to a connection who was working at Deloitte.
“That connection resulted in me getting a referral for Deloitte, which resulted in me getting into the recruiting process, and then it ultimately landed me my first job coming out of Crummer,” said Adebiyi.
After spending 7+ years at Deloitte, Adebiyi accepted her current position as the Director of Global Strategy for Philips.
At Philips, she is part of an internal pool of strategists that report directly to the c-suite or top company leaders, solving high-priority problems for the company.
“I am deployed on a project-by-project basis, leading a team that works very closely for months with a business unit within Philips to solve a particular problem,” she said.
Philips, which is known for a diverse product mix including toothbrushes, food mixers, blender and even ultrasound equipment, gives Adebiyi a unique set of problems to solve for nearly every project.
“I do everything from exploring a new market opportunity, thinking about transforming existing business processes, or it could be looking at new technologies and thinking about what we should do to position ourselves better,” said Adebiyi.
Working in a dream consulting job after less than a decade of living in America, Adebiyi says if the Crummer network can build her the connections to land a great career, it can for anybody.
“You learn a lot in the classroom, but you learn a ton more on the job and by getting real-world experience. The more you can gain real-world experience, the stronger you can become as a candidate,” she said. “Now that Crummer has an wide variety of opportunities, students should definitely take advantage of that to make their resumes that much more attractive to potential employers.”