Jared Bouis
Class of 2019
Hometown: White Stone, VA
Undergraduate University: Randolph-Macon College
Class Year: 2014
Major/Minor: Biology/Pre-Med
Specialization: Marketing
Current Employer: Stryker Neurovascular
After working three years as a medical sales rep in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jared Bouis found himself at a crossroads in his career: remain in operations or pivot to strategy. Ultimately, he decided to pursue the path of strategy in the medical device and healthcare sectors, but he realized that he needed to acquire some integral skills and knowledge in order to be successful in a role with a strategic focus.
"The full-time MBA program at William & Mary is the center of the business school. I came from a really small high school and a really small college, so I know the value of smaller classes and getting to know your classmates. I wanted that same sort of learning environment for my MBA experience, and William & Mary offered that," he says.
His academic experience at the business school has been complemented by the professional development he's received through the Executive Partner program, an exclusive and unique opportunity for full-time MBA students to be paired with former C-suite-level executives for one-on-one coaching.
"I sat down with Executive Partners from different fields and had them engage with me and talk through what kind of passion you need to be in various industries and what it's like working in those industries," he says. "I recognize the importance and the impact that mentors can have, and so to have them as a resource is just incredible."
The summer following his first year in the full-time MBA program, Jared interned with Stryker Neurovascular in Fremont, California. His choices to both attend William & Mary and again to accept an internship with Stryker led to Jared securing a full-time offer from the company upon his completion of the MBA program.
As a product manager for Stryker, Jared will be responsible for every piece of the product life cycle, from forecasting to collaborating the downstream commercialization of the product to serving as the intermediary between supply chain and logistics to production and anticipating global demand. He is an advocate of Stryker's vision to move away from fee-for-service models into value-based healthcare, where his focus will be on developing products that diagnose and treat strokes as well as prevent recurrent strokes.
"Part of the reason I'm so drawn to medical devices and healthcare is because it's an industry where change is actually tangible, it's so innovative," he explains. "I personally think the healthcare system is broken. One of the reasons I came here to the business school is to be an agent of change in the healthcare system. How do I see myself doing that? By pushing the boundaries of medical technology and working with Stryker to improve patient outcomes and fix the healthcare system."
Jared credits the full-time MBA program's focus on ambiguity to his success both at school and now in the workplace.
"You're given this problem, but there's no one solution. Those were skills I had learned in a marketing management and other case-based classes," he explains. "A global products manager is responsible for the long-term vitality of their product globally. I'll be the center of that hub working with engineering of products upstream and taking those products downstream to the physicians around the world to test them, then working with engineering to make improvements."
