Maya Byrd-Couch, MBA ’24

Maya Byrd-Couch, MBA ’24, has a deep passion for human resources, but she didn’t always know it would be her career path.

She first fell in love with the field of hospitality, which was initially her undergraduate major at Howard University in Washington, D.C. At Howard, hospitality fell under the umbrella of topics taught at the business school, which exposed Maya to various aspects of business as she completed classes for her major. She learned that she really enjoyed the subject and decided to explore it as she began to map out what she wanted her career to look like.

“I decided that I wanted to do something in business and something that allowed me to spend a good portion of my time interacting with people,” Maya said.

With this in mind, Maya eventually switched her major to international business with a concentration in management. Her new business background helped her land an internship at Eli Lilly and Co. That internship experience eventually led to a full-time position, where Maya explored a new role in HR and never looked back.

Choosing Michigan Ross

After graduating from Howard, Maya worked in HR for nine years at Eli Lilly and Co. Wanting to advance in her career and step into a leadership role, Maya decided to go back to school to get her MBA and gain the skills she would need to succeed as an HR leader. 

“As I was looking at different programs, it was really important to me to choose a school that had a lot of offerings for those who were interested in HR. The school’s community was also important to me. Culture was certainly at the very top of my list,” Maya said.

When I visited the Ross School of Business, I just knew that the people and the culture were something I was excited about and ready to contribute to. That made it a no-brainer for me to choose Ross.

Having grown up in the Metro Detroit area, Maya says the opportunity to go to Michigan Ross also appealed to her because she could see her family often, something she hadn’t been able to do since she left for Washington D.C. to attend college. So, she applied — and got accepted.

When Maya started her classes in the fall, she was immediately impressed by how approachable her professors were.

“I was very surprised by how much the professors were looking to really be partners with us in learning,” Maya said. “They were so receptive and proactive in asking for feedback. They made sure we knew that if there were things we wanted to learn more about that weren’t in the syllabus, we could bring those topics up, and if they were not approaching things in the best way for us, they wanted that feedback.”

Her favorite classes are Incentives and Productivity (BE 619), taught by Jagadeesh Sivadasan, Buzz and Judy Newton Professor of Business Administration, and the Power of Prestige: How Status and Reputation Confer Competitive Advantage (STRAT 688), taught by Michael Jensen, professor of strategy.

Mastering Her Craft Through MAP

During her time at Michigan Ross, Maya had the opportunity to participate in a Multidisciplinary Action Project. She and her team worked for Titan, India’s leading lifestyle company. Maya’s team was tasked with creating a five-year HR transformation strategy for the company, something she says was an incredibly valuable learning experience.

“It gave me really good exposure to what it actually means to do consulting. We had the opportunity to travel to India to work with the Titan team on this project, and it was so rewarding to really understand the structure of the organization, their vision for where they're headed, and which HR processes, systems, and policies need to catch up to support that,” Maya said. “MAP was something that was definitely a selling point for Ross, but I think just what I actually got out of MAP exceeded my expectations.”

With her bachelor’s degree in international business, Maya says she especially loved the global aspect of her project.

“It was amazing to explore a completely different industry, a completely different country. Even though it was still HR, learning how to navigate another culture as an HR professional was a valuable learning experience,” she said.

What’s Next and Advice for Students

As she leaves Michigan Ross, Maya plans to return to Eli Lilly and Co. and will be working in the HR leadership role she sought to get out of her MBA experience.

“I’m really excited to move into a leadership role, to be able to apply a lot of the learnings that I have from business school, and to really just hit the ground running,” Maya said.

To prospective students considering getting their MBA, Maya offered this advice:

“Really make sure that you know your top three key priorities and in what order as you're thinking about what school to attend. If rankings are the most important to you, that’s obviously fine, but know that means you're trading off on other things like maybe school culture, or there could be some things around the curriculum that may not be as appealing to you.”

As a parting thought, reflecting on her experience at Michigan Ross, she also shared advice for students like her who didn’t come to business school to switch careers.

“Many people feel like they have to be making this drastic change to come to school, and I think it’s really okay if you feel like you've been reflective on your journey along the way, to come to school and really just refine what it is that you think you want to do,” Maya said. “Business school is life-changing, but your experience doesn't have to involve completely changing your life.”