For Joy Ananyi, EMBA ’24, an executive education provided the confidence she needed to step into a higher role, as well as the skills and network to support this new phase of her career journey.

“I credit Ivey with giving me the confidence that I have now, allowing me to be more, and to have an understanding of what kind of leader I want to be,” says, Ananyi, Director Data Risk Dashboard and Reporting at CIBC.

“It has allowed me to be more strategic in the way I think about and analyze problems, and helped create connections with hiring managers.”

Ananyi decided to embark on her EMBA journey both to advance her career and to build connections in Canada after moving to Toronto from Lagos, Nigeria, in 2018.

“When you come as an immigrant, you leave behind your family, you leave behind all the connections you've built,” she says. “I saw the EMBA as a way to get myself into the Canadian system and explore what kinds of options could be open to me.”

She picked Ivey specifically because of its high ranking among MBA schools and because of the Case Method of learning.

“An MBA was always a life goal, and I wanted it to be at a school that was highly recognized,” she says.

Among the Ivey curriculum, the course on sustainability is one that stood out, especially when Ananyi and her classmates were asked to identify leaders that they looked up to and craft an explanation of their own leadership style.

“That's sort of life-changing because it guides me now in terms of who I want to be in the business world,” she says.

“Just being able to write it down and say, ‘This is the type of leader I am’ – that stands out for me. I was able to define my purpose and find that I'm more strategic than I realized; I can see the whole picture better than before.”

For Ananyi, the preparation and participation required for all Ivey classes have also translated into her everyday work.

“Contribution marks are so important, and you have to have a point of view. And I now approach the business world the same way I approached classes – I come in prepared, ready to debate, to look at the pros and cons,” she says.

“But what is so useful is the confidence that I gained being able to speak up in class all the time.”

For anyone considering the Ivey EMBA, Ananyi recommends doing your due diligence.

“I knew what I wanted to achieve; the options of what I wanted to do post-MBA,” she says.

“That’s important to think about so you can begin to consider where you want to end up, what the gaps in your skills are, and what the return on investment would look like.

For me, I was very clear about what my ROI was: I had to get the director role afterwards, which I did. I'm a hundred percent happy with the program, and with how quickly I was able to advance my career.”