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Finance That Puts People FirstAlumni Stories Capturing the Opportunity in Risk
Meet Heather Brilliant, ’05
For Heather Brilliant, good leadership means knowing when to take the kind of calculated risks that her Booth training taught her to identify, quantify, evaluate, and act upon.
- March 28, 2017
- Leadership
Heather Brilliant: 00:06
It's something I always strive toward, to really figure out where is the industry going, where is our company's future? Being able to think 10 years or even further down the track. I think it's critically important to be able to set the course for your company and where you want to go, but also to be able to communicate that effectively to your team and to help them feel connected to that mission and really part of it.
Heather Brilliant: 00:27
Over time, as I've become more comfortable with different aspects of risk, I would say that what I try to do in my career is to take calculated risks where there's an asymmetric payoff opportunity, and I wouldn't have been able to calculate that so well if I hadn't gone to Booth.
Heather Brilliant: 00:46
I think taking risks is a critical part of being a leader. I think you have to be willing to put yourself out there and make decisions that other people may be unwilling or unable to make, and it takes a lot of courage to do that because you can also make decisions that are wrong or that lead to outcomes that are undesirable. But I think, in the end, the more opportunity you have to take risk, the more you gain an appreciation for when risk is worth taking and when it's just foolhardy.
Heather Brilliant: 01:15
My time at Booth was where I really started finding other leaders within the community that helped inspire me and helped me realize that it was possible to take my career in any direction I wanted to take it.
Heather Brilliant’s Chicago Booth MBA experience has had a profound influence on her professional journey. The Evening MBA Program at Booth was instrumental in helping Heather—now the managing director, Americas, for First State Investments, based in New York—to achieve her long-term goals while staying on her ideal career path.
“When I was in equity research, I thought it was the most exhilarating career I could have ever hoped for, and I didn’t want to take a break.”
The flexibility of the program made it possible for Heather to earn her degree from a top-ranked program and join a diverse and global community of other students, faculty, and alumni who were equally committed to ongoing intellectual and professional growth.
“At Booth, I really started finding other leaders within the community that helped inspire me and helped me realize that it was possible to take my career in any direction I wanted to take it.”
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