Master of Quantitative Management: Health Analytics Student Phyllis Njiru
“The MSQM: Health Analytics program is an excellent platform to closely engage with different professionals from across the world, gain insights into different ways of thinking, and understand how different professionals apply this learning into their own career journeys.”
Regulatory Affairs Portfolio Manager
Novartis SA (Pty) Ltd.

MSQM: Health Analytics

Class of 2023
Industry:
Pharmaceuticals

Prior Education:

University of the Witwatersrand
Pharmacy, 2006
Hometown:
Johannesburg, South Africa
Nationality:
South Africa

Reflections

People have different strengths in a team. Once you have room for everyone to be open and comfortable enough to share, the team result for projects is boosted from the combination of these different strengths and the efforts at collaboration. It got uncomfortable when we had strong differing opinions and had to make decisions when everyone was not in agreement. We navigated it by persisting with strong robust discussions to share reasoning and seeking external input from our professors or teaching assistants to help balance out the thinking. Working in a team has been crucial to this learning experience.

Before Fuqua

I am currently a regulatory affairs portfolio manager for Novartis, South Africa. My responsibilities include developing regulatory strategies to achieve registration of pharmaceutical products by creating, structuring, and executing submission plans to meet Health Authority requirements; providing regulatory intelligence to support business needs; and data management of regulatory information of registered products.

After Fuqua

With my degree, I will be better equipped to understand the broader contexts under which health care systems operate, as well as the analytical principles needed for decision making. I aim to make a meaningful impact in the health care sector in my professional journey, by using the key analytical and business principles gained from the program.

My Favorite Professor

Thus far my favorite professor has been our Managerial Economics professor, Pino Lopomo. Reasons included his ease of availability for clarification of information outside of office hours, during class the repetition of important concepts we needed to grasp and the clear compilation and breakdown course material. I also like the comments to the class in lectures where he stated, “I am like your coach, I want to see you do well,” and I was encouraged by this positivity.