Annual Report 2003
Foundation for the Future
Student Profile:
Natasha Goncharova '03 MBA
“As a Russian-trained financial manager, there were gaps in my understanding of American and international business culture. After two years in the Isenberg School’s MBA program, I feel ready for anything,” observes graduating MBA candidate Natasha Goncharova ’03 MBA. After graduation, Goncharova will join IntelliCoat, a South Hadley coated paper manufacturer, with four offices in the United States, two manufacturing plants in the UK, and sales offices in Australia and The Netherlands. “I’ll be doing financial forecasting and modeling, looking at our past performance in the overall market, and consolidating currencies for financial management,” she explains.
Natasha is from Uzbekistan, one of the former Central Asian Soviet republics. In 1999, she earned MBA and BA degrees in the republic’s capital, Tashkent. The MBA was from the University of World Economy and Diplomacy’s International MBA Program; the BA was from the Tashkent Financial Institute. After graduation she worked for nine months as an assistant project manager with a US AID consulting contractor, focusing on a banking supervision project involving the National Bank of Kazakhstan. Next, she was a project manager, conference planner, and financial analyst in Moscow in an organization that attracts international investments to Russian industry. “Moscow was very dynamic. About 85% of all the money in Russia circulates there,” she observes. “It didn’t take me long, however, to realize the career value of a Western business education.”
For Goncharova, joining the Isenberg School put the missing pieces into place. During her first year, she got a rigorous general business education in the MBA program’s intense quartermester curriculum, which comprises four seven-week blocks of four courses each. “My professors were extremely dedicated; their doors were always open to us students,” emphasizes Natasha, who was especially appreciative of courses by Eric Berkowitz in marketing and Ben Branch in investments. Goncharova, in fact, joined Branch as a coauthor in a paper examining bankruptcies and leasing in Russia.
“My class was extremely culturally diverse: forty percent of us were from overseas. We were like a big family—there was a premium on student cooperation inside and outside the classroom,” she continues. “During my two years at UMass, I participated in seven or eight team projects.” The final one was an extensive practicum with Hardigg Industries, a South Deerfield manufacturer of high-end plastic cases. “My team focused on the outbound logistics of Hardigg’s international exports,” Goncharova recalls. “I am confident that experiences like these, combined with my previous business background, will help make me an asset to my employer after graduation.”