CIA To Silicon Valley Through The Oxford 1-Year MBA Route

Christopher Schildt had an interesting 15-year-long career with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), working in various capacities before deciding to enrol in the 1-year MBA program at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. He led a 14-member students team to Silicon Valley, on an exploratory tour of the world’s most famous tech companies.

The trip was part of the treks across the globe undertaken by the MBA students every year with support from the Careers team. The students form into groups and select a particular region. The careers team help connect them with companies to visit and also put them in touch with alumni who can help them on their journey.

Tom Lawrance, Head of Global Industries considers treks important for MBAs because of the insights they get, ranging from real and tangible business perspectives to personal stories.

“Cisco develops some of the underlying infrastructure that will connect the smart cities of the future.  And Tesla’s employees truly believe their mission is to help save the environment by reducing our consumption of fossil fuels.  For these companies, technology is a means to a better future,”

“As well as networking with alumni in those regions, students get to hear about current employer requirements directly from the companies themselves. They also get a flavor of work-life balance in each country and city they visit,” he says.

The tour included visits to Tesla, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Facebook, Cisco, and Amazon. Schildt says exploring the Facebook campus in a tour led by alumnus Hunter Sheetz was one of the highlights of the trek.

“Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook’s COO) sat on the board of Disney, so when she was hired she brought in Disney Imagineers to create the campus. Our guide pointed out that as you walk down the sidewalks it has what you could describe as a “Magic Kingdom” feel to it, which makes it unlike any other work environment I’ve experienced,” he says.

The team also enjoyed a couple of free days for exploring San Francisco. Later, at Airbnb, Srin Madipalli, former CEO of Accomable (recently bought by Airbnb in a deal that made global headlines) and now Airbnb product manager, took them on a rare tour of the offices.

“Srin was so humble and welcoming. He said we should not hesitate to contact him if he could be of any help.  In fact, this was the reception we received from every SBS alum we met on the trek – it showed what a strong and supportive alumni community we have here, says Schildt.

He found it inspiring to get a first-hand look at these tech companies. “Facebook has more than 2 billion unique active users each month—almost one-third of the world’s population—which makes Facebook’s reach far greater than any other company in history,” he points out.

“Cisco develops some of the underlying infrastructure that will connect the smart cities of the future.  And Tesla’s employees truly believe their mission is to help save the environment by reducing our consumption of fossil fuels.  For these companies, technology is a means to a better future,” he says.

Schildt had signed up for the MBA at Oxford intending to make a career shift into technology domain. He chose the school for its global perspective. “I wanted to move into the private sector, but I didn’t know the lingo, and I didn’t know how what I did was valued in the market.

“The MBA has helped me realise that my time at the CIA gave me a huge amount of transferable skills – but it was the language of business that I needed to learn,” he says.

Schildt had another 20 years to go before retirement if he had stayed on at the Agency. While he had what he termed as “an amazing 15-year career”, he says it got to a point “where it was either leave now and pursue my passion for technology and the future of transportation… It was now or never, and I saw the Oxford MBA as providing a perfect runway to what I want to do next.”