For Bruce Welch (IMBA-MSF ’07, BBA ’05), multi-tasking is a way of life. Currently a financial analyst at Cargill Latin America—whose parent company has sales exceeding $120 billion—he faces tasks that span the daily calculation of the business unit’s multi-million dollar commodity futures trading exposure to overseeing weekly sales of structured financial products with investment banks. He’s also responsible for analyzing and reporting the monthly consolidated financials of the business unit’s 11 subsidiaries while simultaneously working on multiple ad-hoc projects.
“Cargill is the ultimate multi-tasking company, where performing your daily duties plus working on six to seven projects simultaneously is the norm,” he said. “Although there are times when it is inevitable to feel overwhelmed, the academic pressures and time constraints I experienced in my graduate work at Florida International University (FIU) closely mirrored the real world job demands I face and enabled me to make a smooth transition.”
Crediting many professors at both the undergraduate and graduate levels with helping him learn “the analytical and time management skills that enable me to do what I do,” he particularly values the joint International MBA-Master of Science in Finance (IMBA-MSF) offered in FIU’s Chapman Graduate School in the College of Business Administration.
According to Welch, “The new working demands in the business environment, combined with the current pressures of the economy, require strong productivity output. You have to be able to perform two to three positions at once and the joint degree helped prepare me to do that.”
Multi-tasking offers path to the future.
Welch plans to push his ability to multi-task to the next level.
“I enjoy cross-functional multi-tasking and see myself transitioning to various distinct functions in which I can leverage my academic background and business experience while exploiting my innate creativity,” he said.
