Has answering the telephone ever changed your life? For entrepreneur and Full-time UST MBA alumna Kate Herzog, it did. Herzog had recently visited the University of St. Thomas’ Full-time MBA website and had requested to learn more about the program. Having worked at Target Corporation for nearly a decade, she was contemplating putting her career on hold to pursue her MBA full time. Kate had many questions, ranging from the time commitment of the program to how it could prepare her to give back to her home country of Ghana.
After graduating from the Full-time UST MBA program in 2009, Kate Herzog founded House of Talents. House of Talents is a small company that works with the craftspeople of Ghana to produce hand-made soaps, woven baskets, and jewelry. She is currently selling her products at stores such as JV & Company in the Minneapolis Gaviidae Commons.
Kate’s story was recently featured on KSTP 5 Eyewitness News. When I spoke with Kate about it, she said that the media neglected to mention one key factor in her success. Without the skills, business methodologies, and knowledge attained in UST's Full-time MBA program, none of this would have been possible. That phone call she received on a cold February afternoon in 2006 changed her life forever. Coming into the Full-time UST MBA community afforded Kate with the opportunity to learn key business concepts, build working relationships with her classmates (and now business supporters) and ultimately gave her the extra “push” needed to follow her heart.
As Kate states on her website, “I am also grateful to the University of St. Thomas for providing a wonderful office space and to my classmates and professors for allowing me to use them as sounding boards. All these pieces had to come together to provide the momentum to launch the House of Talents."
