Ella Juarez is a person of many talents. Not only is she an integrated marketing communications practitioner, she is also a W.E.L.L (Wholistic Health and Well-being, Executive Effectiveness, Leadership that Empowers and Living Intentionally, Fully, and Extraordinarily) Coach, Human Capital Consultant, and a plant-based lifestyle blogger. Despite having all these under her belt, she still endeavored to further her studies with a Master’s degree, although at the time, she was still undecided as to her area of concentration.
During her post-university gap year, she was inspired by Mark Zuckerberg’s exhortation to “find the courage to make one’s life a blessing”. And after a short stint with a non-government organization focused on youth empowerment and sustainable development goals, Ella was driven to be a proponent of change and knew she wanted to pursue a career in nation-building and development.
Knowing her intentions, a family member shared a Facebook advertisement on the Master in Development Management degree program being offered by the Stephen Zuellig Graduate School of Development Management (ZSDM) at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). The serendipity struck Ella and gave her the firm resolve to finally seek her degree.
Joining the program as part of the Class of 2022, Ella was confident of the curriculum’s alignment with her personal goals. She is delighted that the course equips her with the knowledge, wisdom, and tools to make an impact on the lives of others, and was further enthused by the profile of the classes at AIM. The diversity in educational backgrounds and experience, as well as the wide range of age and rank, make for an interesting mix of students who can effortlessly share their special areas of expertise and training with the rest of the class. Being working professionals, the cohorts can also immediately apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to their businesses the very next day.
Ella shares that engaging in development management requires selflessness and empathy as the focus of one’s world immediately turns to others and the improvement of the human condition. She finds that the degree program at AIM helps to further develop this innate attribute by looking inward, opening hearts and minds, and strengthening wills to serve as able leaders in this essential field. Envisioning a world of mindful living, one of her goals is to enlighten others about the advantages and benefits of plant-based diets possibly leading to early school-based diet education.
She adds, “Regardless of our intentions for utilizing the course towards the fulfillment of our careers, the Master in Development Management program is designed to empower us to be great leaders and changemakers. I challenge you to look inward; there you will start your journey to discover your reason for being.”
The Master in Development Management program at the Asian Institute of Management is an intensive twelve-month program conducted by the Stephen Zuellig Graduate School of Development Management with the goal of honing future leaders in creating solutions and policies for the management of challenging development environments. After 32 years, the program was redesigned to address the demands of a rapidly changing world by educating its cohorts to scale social impact through social entrepreneurship, transformative policy implementation, and impact-first investing.
