Meet the Graduates
Brent Robertson
MAOL Graduate - Executive Creative Director, Fathom
As Executive Creative Director of a design, marketing and interactive firm, Brent Robertson is accustomed to working outside of the confines of tradition to meet business and design challenges. When Robertson first encountered the MAOL and its unconventional approach to inciting breakthroughs through leadership, he knew that it was the program to help him evolve into a leader capable of helping his business realize its full potential.
In working toward his degree Robertson has found that the new thinking he encounters in course material, cohort discussions and sessions with faculty is allowing him to make highly applicable, surprising connections. He explains that because the MAOL is so customizable and defined by the individual learner, he is able to absorb material, then make it his own and apply the new learning in ways that will make the most difference to his organization. Robertson says that the MAOL is also giving him an entirely new way to think about his business and the people who comprise it.
“One of the things that I’m learning is that there’s a complete new vocabulary when it comes to talking about organizations. They are organisms made of the indivisible, or the humans within the system,” he explains. “When you start to look at things from that point of view, it changes the way you fundamentally think.”
As part of his breakthrough initiative, Robertson is engaging his entire team to reconfigure how the organization functions and who it professes to be. He’s split the company into teams that work together to analyze the present, create new possibilities for the future, then collaborate to forge a path for the collective. For Robertson’s business, this has been a completely new approach, one of which he has been able to conceive thanks to the methodologies he’s learning in the MAOL.
“There are things to leave behind as you work toward the degree,” Robertson explains. “And what I find that you’re leaving behind is convention of what a business looks like, how a business operates, and what a leader does in business. You remove the rigidity of it, you acquiesce to the fact that you’re working on something that you have no idea what the result is going to be. And that is incredibly freeing.”
Since beginning his studies Robertson has noted a shift in his business, in the way he thinks about his professional life, and the way in which he moves through the world. He cites feeling much more confident in his own leadership and living with greater authenticity.
“Part of the way MAOL works is that it unlearns you. It starts from your own personal development, and once you understand and are comfortable with where you’re coming from, you’re on much better footing to take what you’re learning and make it matter in the world.”
Brent Robertson holds a BFA in Graphic Design and has won the 40 Under 40 Award from the Hartford business Journal in addition to a Business Champion Award. Brent is a member of the national arts community, is on the board of directors at his Alma Mater and is a prolific speaker on social media and networking in the online space.