© 2024 by Beth Luketic in Birmingham, AL

Educational Experience

Undergraduate Education

Birmingham-Southern College

Go Panthers! As you may have guessed, I went to Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) for my undergraduate degree – Bachelor of Science in Accounting with a minor in Business Administration. It was here where I fell in love with the world of business. This may sound a little bit nerdy, but I absolutely loved my Accounting I and Accounting II classes. My teacher was amazing and made it seem so simple… at first. It got a lot harder as time went on! The structure and balance of debits and credits appealed to me the most and I decided to make a career within the accounting field.

Internship

In addition to accounting theory and academia, BSC required us to acquire real world experience during our senior year. Holding the position of Panhellenic President (click here for more information) inspired me to venture into the world of governmental accounting. My senior internship was with Lucy Baxley, Alabama’s State Treasurer at that time. I moved to Montgomery to be closer to work – which is in itself an experience. I was able to spend time in each department managed by the treasury and learned the ins and outs of money in Alabama. This was also the first time I experienced politics. Which eventually inspired me to move to Washington, D.C. Although, I enjoyed my time working in governmental accounting, I didn’t enjoy the bureaucracy of it. Things moved too slowly for me. And frankly, there’s not much creativity involved.     

Graduate School

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Go Blazers! Sixteen years after receiving my undergraduate degree I enrolled in the Masters in Business Administration (MBA) program at the Collat School of Business at The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). To learn what I was doing those sixteen years, click here. There were several reasons why I went to graduate school at this time. 1) I had always wanted to get an MBA. 2) My experience at Shannon Forest, taught me I needed more quantitative and qualitative skills to be a more effective employee and take my career to the next level. 3) I thought I failed as an entrepreneur. I wanted to figure out what went wrong and how I could fix it. Ironically, I learned the opposite was true.

The MBA at UAB

Even though my entrepreneur experience was a success, I still felt as if I had failed because I closed my business before I was ready to. I probably would still feel this way if it weren’t for the MBA program at UAB. Each class of the program focused on a different aspect of the Strategic Management Process which is a well-known business theory.

The definition from the textbook in my Strategic Management class is, “the full set of commitments, decisions, and actions required for a firm to achieve strategic competitiveness and earn above-average returns.” 

The shorthand definition: every step in the process of running a successful business. Yes, I gained an in-depth knowledge of finance, statistics, economics, marketing, information technology strategy and supply chain operations among other subjects. However, the most fulfilling aspect of this program was the reassurance that I did run a successful business.

Without fully knowing what I was doing, I instinctively followed the strategic management process to fun my company. However, the MBA program taught me words for the strategy I had already employed. They taught me the theory behind doing a market analysis (i.e. SWOT), the product, pricing, promotion, and place strategies, Michael Porter’s 5-forces competitor analysis, data analytics, branding, and the importance of flexibility. Essentially, the MBA program allowed me to confirm that this decision-making model actually works in a business setting.

Forensic Accounting And Fraud Examination

In addition to the standard MBA business classes, I decided to direct my concentration in Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigation. Learning about this aspect of accounting made it more interesting and a lot less dry. One of the things that appealed to me most was the importance of having proper internal controls. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2018 Report to the Nations, “In 30% of [fraud] cases, a simple lack of controls was the main factor that enabled the fraud to occur, while another 19% of cases occurred because the perpetrator was able to override the controls that had been put in place.” In other words, nearly 50% of frauds occur due to a lack of operations control. This is ultimately why I’m interested in becoming a financial analyst of operations. A position like this will give me the ability to look at the big picture of strategic operations and efficiency within a company, but from a financial perspective. And having the mindset to detect fraud in this capacity is simply a bonus to make it a little more exciting!        

Mentoring and Leadership Studies

In recent years, research has shown that employers demand an emphasis on job candidates with both math and social skills. Whereas in previous years, employers were looking for candidates that possessed either math or social skills. Additionally, a Harvard business Review article suggests the most valuable skills an employee can have are problem solving, collaboration, customer service [which I term Emotional Intelligence], and communication. These skills, as well as leadership and mentoring are the focus of this graduate program. Quantitative skills are great, but it’s the qualitative skills that can make or break a proposal, project, customer and employee relationships, and countless other facets of successful businesses. Throughout this program, I’ve studied and applied critical thinking and decision making, emotional intelligence, ethical leadership, logical argument and positive influence persuasion, managing and leading teams, and improvisational communication. In addition to these classes, we were tasked to create a personal leadership and mentoring portfolio. This website is essentially a compilation of my final portfolio for this program.  

To learn more about the research behind quantitative and qualitative skills, click on these links.

https://bit.ly/37cVGVZ

https://bit.ly/32Xbvwu

© 2024 by Beth Luketic in Birmingham, AL