Charisse Clarke: Communicating with Confidence
Charisse Clarke
Senior Manager, Fannie Mae
M.S. in MIT ’05
“How to think strategically about IT, how to talk about IT to different audiences—to me, that is the heart of the M.S. in MIT Program.”
Initially, what attracted Charisse Clarke (M.S. in MIT ’05) to the M.S. in MIT Program was the University of Virginia brand. “I knew that getting my master’s from UVA would have a significant return on investment for me,” says Clarke. “The course structure was very appealing, and it seemed to make effective use of time. Then I looked at the curriculum, the learning opportunities, and the program’s overall applicability to my current job and career aspirations. After meeting the McIntire faculty and staff, I came away thinking that the program was the complete package.”
Clarke was immediately able to leverage what she’d learned in the program by focusing on improving the hiring strategy at her company. “During Module 2 we started looking at things such as why employees left, why they stayed, and the value of non-monetary benefits,” Clarke says. “I took that lesson and showed it to our HR director, because it addressed some of the issues we were going through at the time. It had a very positive effect on how we hired both full-time and contract employees.”
Shortly after completing the program, Clarke decided to start her own company—a move which the M.S. in MIT Program, in part, enabled her to make. “How to think strategically about IT, how to talk about IT to different audiences—to me, that is the heart of the M.S. in MIT Program,” Clarke says. I think that understanding those things really helped me to prosper in my new position, and ultimately have the wherewithal to do my own thing.”
Another benefit of the program, Clarke says, was an increased confidence in her ability to communicate with potential clients on a variety of subjects. “I feel that I am able to speak to anyone about IT architecture, the benefits of enterprise architecture and data warehousing, and financial topics. I even refined my definition of contact relationship management (CRM), which is my area of expertise. When you are pursuing contracts, you need to be well versed in these areas—and the program definitely helped in terms of boosting my comfort level.”