Susan Shantz Fargason

BA, Mathematical Economic Analysis, 1999 ; BA, French, 1999; MBA, 2003

Susan Fargason joined Boston Consulting Group in Dallas after earning a BA at Rice. She figured project work would be the best way to determine what she wanted to do with her career.

Susan Fargason joined Boston Consulting Group in Dallas after earning a BA at Rice. She figured project work would be the best way to determine what she wanted to do with her career.

“I spent the majority of my time on a project for a packaged goods company working with their brand manager,” she says. “I discovered that is what I wanted to be. I also determined that in order to be in brand, you have to have an MBA.”

To Fargason, the MBA background is necessary because running a brand is just like running a business. “If you think of running a business like a wheel,” she explains, “the brand manager is the hub and all the other departments are like spokes. You have a variety of partners in the company who don’t report to you, but the brand team still coordinates and gives direction. You need to understand what’s going on.”

During the summer between her two years of business school, Fargason worked for Kellogg’s in Chicago, a position she landed at a campus interview. She assisted with the launches of Special K Bars and Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops cereal and milk bars. “The Special K bar launched in July, and the cereal bars were scheduled to launch the following February,” Fargason says. “So that summer I experienced all aspects of launching a new product into the marketplace.”

The experience confirmed Fargason’s desire to build her career in brand. “I got to try it and see that it was a right fit,” she says. Her business experience that summer and before graduate school had made a big difference. “A lot of the MBA learning is in talking about situations you have been in or seen and how you would handle it better or differently now.”

After earning an MBA, Fargason was offered a position in brand at Quaker State Motor Oil in Houston. But her husband, also a Rice alum, accepted a job in New York, and Fargason began interviewing there immediately after they moved. She finally accepted a position with Cadbury-Adams as assistant brand manager for Trident and Trident White chewing gum. “I’m learning all the things you need to know to be successful in brand,” she says. “There’s a team of us on that brand. We work on operations, marketing, and all aspects of the supply chain.”

Fargason and her team currently are busy working on several new product launches for 2005. While she cannot divulge what they are, she is excited about the products and their impact on an already very successful brand.