Mohamed Shawky (EMBA’21) on Leveraging Business Frameworks to Improve Productivity and Career Satisfaction
Through his time in the Executive MBA (EMBA) program at Georgetown McDonough, Mohamed Shawky (EMBA’21) was able to supplement his engineering degree with leading business frameworks to improve his decision-making skills, streamline processes through digital technologies, and better align his personal and professional objectives. Shawky recently shared his favorite memories and lessons from the EMBA program and how those experiences helped him improve business processes as a leader in his field.
What influenced your decision to pursue the EMBA program at Georgetown McDonough?
My career predominantly involved managing and leading a number of functions and global businesses. While my engineering education helped set the foundation for self-learning, my leadership skillsets were largely shaped by my experiences, trial-and-error, structured reflection on success, and more importantly, failures. In an effort to unlock the next layer of productivity, I was looking to reconcile my learnings against leading academic frameworks. Georgetown McDonough was my primary target due to the educational approach – a program that seeks to enrich on multiple fronts: business, ethical, and spiritual.
How has the EMBA program helped you achieve your professional goals?
The frameworks and mental models I learned have allowed me to be significantly more effective in making decisions that impact resource allocation. They also have enabled me to have more productive discussions with business leaders across multiple sectors, most notably on the topic of adapting their organizational strategies and structures to capture opportunities enabled by digital technologies.
What is one of the most important lessons you learned during your time at Georgetown?
I have learned how to create more meaningful satisfaction by aligning my personal and professional objectives and looking at resource allocation more holistically.
Who in the Georgetown community has made the greatest impact in your professional career?
It was my entire cohort who most significantly shaped my experience. One of the benefits of the EMBA program is the ability to tap into the collective experience of executives across multiple sectors and functions. Each individual – with their talents, strengths, unique perspectives, and life experiences – taught me a great deal in learning how to collaborate with and highlight the best in people, including myself, within group initiatives.
What is your favorite memory or your proudest moment from your time at Georgetown?
My favorite memory involved a group project where we collaborated with a leading pharmaceutical company to reinvent how they delivered their products and services while leveraging digital technologies. No one on my team had prior experience in this sector, but through interviews, joint working sessions, and a healthy dose of debate, I was proud of the value we were able to deliver to the company.