Kevin Yngve ’22 MBA

Finding a path to purpose 

Kevin Yngve ’22 MBA came to Kellogg to fill a void.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University, Kevin spent 10 years in a traditional engineering role before applying for the Evening & Weekend program at Kellogg.

“I think I had grown comfortable in my role,” Kevin says. “I was learning, I was getting a lot of depth in a specific area, but I wasn’t challenged.”

Kevin knew he had room to grow and looked to address the gaps in his knowledge that he felt were holding him back.

He applied to multiple business schools, but it was a Kellogg information session that sealed the deal for him. The collaborative nature of Kellogg was immediately apparent when a professor asked prospective students at the session to develop and present a 30-second pitch with the person sitting next to them.

“The prospect of developing this completely cold presentation to a group of strangers was something that really scared me, and that told me I had something to learn,” he recalls. “The sense of unknown and the little bit of fear that came with that drew me to Kellogg.”

As someone who had already established himself in the engineering field, Kevin was particularly drawn to the Evening & Weekend Program and looked forward to building relationships with people at similar points in their lives. 

“I was a little bit older, and I wanted to keep my career going. So those two things combined meant that I would have more peers in the program,” he says. “There’s a sense of collaboration that doesn’t exist in every community that I’ve been a part of, and it’s very tangible and powerful.”

Kevin knew that while he was seeking an MBA to gain new skills in business and strategy, he was also missing purpose in his current role. He took advantage of Kellogg’s recruitment programs to help him land a position as a global product manager at Hach that combined his technical skills with a passion for sustainability.

“In my new role, I’m expected to understand how business works, how the different functions come together, how to communicate well,” he says. “I felt incredibly prepared jumping into some of those discussions because of the work that Kellogg required me to do.”

Following two and a half years of what Kevin calls “ruthless prioritization,” he continues to learn and develop new skills through Kellogg’s Degree Enhancement Program, which allows recent graduates to take up to six Kellogg course credits free of charge.

“There’s so much to learn,” Kevin says. “Being able to come back and focus on things one course at a time, whatever pace you want, is just amazing. It’s a great opportunity.”

He remains certain that Kellogg was the right choice for him.

“Coming into a space where there are a lot of experts in things I didn’t know well was really attractive to me.”