When Mike Brandt (ICP '13) first came to the University of Minnesota, he wanted to study both economics and finance. However, he found it challenging to build a double major across colleges without fully belonging to one or the other. Then a professor told him about the Inter-College Program.
The Inter-College Program major was developed for students like Mike. “The beauty of the program,” Mike says, “is that you can take the best of different majors and really do a custom degree. That's amazing, because I think the world is moving more towards people who can understand multiple domains really well versus just being a deep specialist in any given thing.”
According to Forbes, “In other words, T-shaped employees excel in their core responsibilities and also perform other tasks effectively. In addition to technical skills—like proficiency in programming or design expertise—T-shaped folks also possess cognitive skills like emotional intelligence and creativity. Their ability to contribute, pinch-hit and problem-solve makes them high-performers who can boost an organization’s overall productivity.”
Mike says that, “The ICP program is the only thing that I found at the University of Minnesota that allowed you to have a T-shaped education.”
A Launchpad for Young Professionals
“If you want to get a business-oriented degree I think, hands down, go to a college that operates in the same area that businesses operate,” Mike says. The University of Minnesota is located in the Twin Cities—which is home to Fortune 500 companies like Target, Cargill, Best Buy, and General Mills—and is a perfect incubator for innovation and entrepreneurship.
A perfect example of this is the Minnesota Cup, a start-up competition run by Dan Mallin and Scott Litman from the Carlson School of Management. Mike met the duo at a campus event, and they later invited him to work for one of their companies, Magnet 360, a digital technology consulting firm.
“We’ve hired a lot of young people, particularly from the U,” Scott Litman says, “and we are so proud of all of the success stories we’ve had through that–young individuals that through their contributions help build up our ventures and have developed amazing professional experiences.”
Scott remembers Mike being an incredibly hard worker. “He absolutely poured himself into the role,” he says, “working both longer hours and more efficiently than his older peers. He became both a student of the business and the role and didn’t hold back from testing and experimenting to see what would work best.”
Going Above and Beyond
Mike credits much of his confidence and ambition to the environment that Dan and Scott fostered at Magnet 360. “There was something beautiful that they had created in the culture that just encouraged people to go way beyond their normal ceiling,” he says. “They were willing to take bets on young people like me, who had aptitude but no experience, and they gave me all the experience I could possibly have asked for.”
Some of that experience involved presenting in front of executives at companies like Valspar and Pentair, running workshops or pitching digital transformation. “(Dan and Scott) give you a lot of those opportunities. I can't thank those guys enough.”
Scott says that Mike showed a maturity that garnered trust from clients when it would have been easy for them to dismiss him. “He demonstrated both an innate and learned acumen in business that gained rapid respect. It was easy to see that Mike was very special and would achieve great things in his career.“
When Salesforce approached Mike with a job offer, Scott encouraged him to take it. “It's kind of hard to wrap your brain around someone who is so selfless that they would encourage you to go, not expecting anything in return,” Mike says. “And they've done that for dozens of people, not just me. I don't claim to be anything special. Who is special are those two gentlemen who started the Minnesota Cup.”
A Connector and Advocate
That first serendipitous meeting over ten years ago launched Mike on a professional trajectory that would take him from Magnet 360 to Salesforce, then on to Snowflake, a company that provides data storage via cloud computing. He leads a team that sells cloud technology to healthcare life sciences customers.
He loves the variety his role affords, where he gets to work with customers with a wide range of technology problems. “I have lots of experience, but sometimes that experience doesn't amount to anything because I see new problems all the time,” he says. “So there's a lot of excitement trying to find solutions.”
Above all, Mike sees himself as a connector and advocate for his customers. “I put a heavy emphasis on—and this is something I credit Scott and Dan with—always doing the right thing for the customer, because that career network will far transcend any given company I work with and any product that I'm selling. One of the things I love about being in the sales world is developing those lifelong relationships with other leaders in the market.”
Mia Boos is a writer and content strategist with the College of Continuing and Professional Studies, covering the College’s graduate programs and undergraduate individualized degree programs. She joined the CCAPS Marketing team in 2014 and has worked for Thomson Reuters and New York University. Connect with her via LinkedIn.
