Tessa Densing

Tessa is an expert accounting and finance specialist with a global perspective. And someone who isn’t afraid of new challenges.

Tessa rose through the ranks at Proctor & Gamble in her native Philippines, working with colleagues of many different nationalities, from Asia Pacific to Europe to the Middle East and Africa. But after more than ten years, she was ready for something new. In a bold move, she relocated to the United States two years ago to take on a new role at New Jersey-based Janssen, the pharmaceutical companies of Johnson and Johnson.

The opportunity to continue to work with a diverse group of professionals is one of the aspects of her new job Tessa enjoys the most. “Even though my day-to-day work is the same,” she says, “it’s not boring because I get to work with different people from different backgrounds in different organizations doing all kinds of different stuff.”

Tessa expects to find the same opportunities in Questrom’s Online MBA (OMBA). As one of the four-hundred students enrolled in the inaugural class, she’s eager to collaborate with her classmates and leverage their thinking and experiences, especially those from outside of her field of business expertise. “I’m excited to hear about the perspective of people from non-finance because, so far, I’ve worked mostly with finance people,” Tessa says. “I’m excited to hear how they look at things, how they approach or attack things since their training is not finance-driven.”

Tessa started thinking about earning an MBA more than six years ago, back in the Philippines. She wanted to study outside of her home country, but at that point, she wasn’t ready to leave her job. After she moved to the United States, she re-started her search, looking for a part-time program. Since Tessa didn’t grow up in the United States and wasn’t familiar with US business schools, her progress was slow—until her boss suggested Questrom.

“I had to do research from scratch and read every article and go through every website of every school and every program,” Tessa says. “So it was nice when my boss recommended I look into Questrom. That’s when I found out about the new online MBA, and it was just really like a heaven-sent kind of opportunity.”

Tessa’s view of business is global. She likes the diversity of backgrounds and experiences of the students enrolled in the OMBA. “I don’t have one single approach or one single perspective to everything,” she says. “I’ve developed a perspective that is really open and diverse, and not related to any cultural boundaries. I will be able to bring that kind of thinking to class discussions.”

The program’s module approach, based on integrated themes, is also of particular interest. “I’m really looking forward to the module on strategic thinking because that’s something I think you cannot learn just from reading textbooks.”

Being part of a brand new, disruptive program specifically tailored to online learners might scare off some people. But not Tessa. She’s ready to dare convention.

“I don’t know what to expect,” she says, “but I’m very excited.”