Having worked as an in-house lawyer at three major companies, Cameron Clark, EMBA ‘22, was already comfortable in the boardroom. But despite his years of on-the-job business experience, he felt an Executive MBA would be the best way to round out his skills and allow him to speak to overall strategy with more authority.

“I was really enjoying giving advice and trying to structure things beyond the strict parameters of my job, and I thought if I wanted to continue on that path, I needed to expand my business knowledge,” says Clark, Director of Legal at lululemon and a former in-house counsel for Kellogg Canada and MasterCard.

“I was beginning to spend more time in strategy meetings and I wanted to ensure I could speak not only to the legal issues but bring a unique perspective to the business aspects of each question as well.”

A trained lawyer who was used to working his way through cases, Clark quickly took to Ivey’s Case Method Learning. What he found surprising about the Ivey MBA was just collaborative the program was.

“It’s not competitive; we’re not all working toward a recruitment day – people genuinely help each other,” Clark says.

“It’s been very collegiate, but I also found I could learn a lot from my classmates, even if they’re in different roles or different industries. Before I went, I had a fear of impostor syndrome because I didn’t have a commerce degree, but I haven’t felt like I’m a fish out of water.

A huge component of that is how they structure the program and the support they give you.”

And while navigating a full-time job, an MBA and home schooling two young kids during a pandemic was at times been challenging, Ivey also provided Clark with something new and exciting to focus on.

“I really enjoyed the learning process and being a student again. It’s been great to have a challenge during this time, and to go through it with other people,” he says.

“It’s also a safe space to try anything; it doesn’t impact my livelihood if I think of, or try something, in a different way.”

Learning to prioritize, make decisions when timelines are tight and manage workloads have also been useful skills honed during the Ivey learning process.

As he begins to get more involved in the commercial component of law and continues to look for ways to help lululemon achieve its strategic goals, Clark says his Ivey education is already translating into how he thinks about various aspects of his job.

“I would never create the space to learn these things if I wasn’t in the program,” he says.

“It really felt like I was doing something for myself, so it’s been really rewarding.”