Anyone who has ever watched a high school phys-ed teacher in action knows how leadership, strategy and coaching can make the difference between a winning and losing team.

John Hanrahan, MBA '22, loved that part of his former job the best. So when he wanted to widen his horizons, Hanrahan launched his Calgary high school’s first student leadership training program to enrich the learning experience for all students. Next, he took on the challenge of helping at-risk students graduate. Yet something was missing.

“I loved all of that, but I felt like I had reached a point in my career where I’d plateaued,” says Hanrahan. “Unless you become a principal or VP, you can’t grow your career. I didn’t want to do that and I wasn’t seeing a path forward for growth in education.”

As Hanrahan cast about for a different plan, he began to wonder about a career in business. He talked to friends who had gone through Ivey’s MBA program and had come out the other end with significant business skills and a renewed sense of purpose.

“I had so many friends vouching for Ivey. I kept hearing great things and I knew it was a super well-regarded program,” he says.

His time at Ivey would prove pivotal. “I met my wife in the MBA program, so that was probably the most interesting part,” Hanrahan says with a smile.

He’s also grateful for how Ivey made him better at managing the people side of an organization and a better leader in extremely difficult conditions during the “leadership under fire” program.

Hanrahan especially enjoyed learning from his classmates’ expertise, which was often quite different from his own.

“We had a bunch of engineers in the program who were technical thinkers and looked at things from a defined problem-solving perspective. Others had a background in medicine and they cared more about the stakeholders involved than the process,” he says.

That experience helped him widen his expertise and land a position after graduation at Ernst & Young as a senior consultant in people advisory services, helping clients manage change in areas ranging from municipal public works to mining and insurance.

“For example, if there’s a new billing system, the person managing the invoices will experience change. How do we train them and communicate that the new system is coming?” he says. “Leadership and organizational design are strategic and I like that best.”

Hanrahan has recently accepted a position which melds his expertise in human capital with his love of sports. As manager of strategy and operations at Toronto-based GGA Partners, he will be part of a team offering consulting services to private fitness and golf clubs.

“The Ivey program was the most impactful thing I’ve ever done. It gave me a change of career, a change of perspective and a best friend and partner for life,” he says. “It’s hard to understate the impact it’s had.”