Brief Bio of Anne-Rachel Inné:
Anne served as one of the co-managers of OBSI (now known as Illinois Business Consulting) during her study in the Illinois MBA program. Anne is currently the Vice President Government Engagement for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. She has 18 years of experience in management, communications and policy professional under her belt. She is also an experienced manager of people, budgets and programs.
What brought you to UIUC?
When I finished my first master’s I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but knew I wanted to go into translation/interpretation and translated/interpreted for the Organization of African Union and many others. So I worked as free-lance translator and I got another job with the then private French airline UTA that I left after 5 years in Niger having worked at operations at the airport and been the sales manager.
I went back to school in 1994 and wanted to do an MBA. Having a social/literary background I went to the Economics Institute at the University of Colorado in Boulder and took refresher courses as well as looked at different Universities MBA program with their help. I was attracted to the Illinois MBA program as it had a good IT component, had cases studies as well as courses to learn more of the case studies concept.
What do you remember most about OSBI?
The beginnings! Dr. Magelli, Lillian Sharpley and I talked about the concept of starting a consulting company in the MBA program. Lillian and I were taking classes on Entrepreneurship and how to help people build business plans. We had our own and having to sell to bankers made the link to the Illinois Small Business Office. OSBI started because it was a way of applying our knowledge that Lillian who was graduating in 1996 could stay and work on it with me.
We got students from different backgrounds to work on issues that were submitted to us by small businesses and that we helped resolve. The fact that we are not all from the US, that the teams were a mix of people who had worked, who were not experienced, had different professional backgrounds and aspirations made the teams lively and a success. It also helped us think outside of the box which is great when one is trying to resolve issues. Dr. Magelli believed in it and gave us the opportunity to try something new in the MBA program. He is a visionary and I truly love that in him.
What have you taken from OSBI that you still use today?
When I came to OSBI I had worked in multidisciplinary backgrounds. It was important for me to replicate this in OBSI because it gives you different ways to look at things. It brought us all together. When you have a multidisciplinary team, you have different ways of looking at the same issue. It is the best way to stay innovative in things you do. The marketing student gets to bounce ideas off the forward thinking economics major. This brought people into OSBI–we never lacked students who wanted to make it happen.
Advice for current members?
One of the things I kept telling the teams back then is to be open minded. It is always worth seeing how far a team can go. If it’s marketing, accounting, economics–it’s important to have the “let go” attitude to keep the spirit of learning going. When you go into something with an open mind you learn and share and innovate. You can see things happen. You can see the potential but you can also redirect as needed.
Some students went into different industries than their major because they could see something else. OBSI let us see shared responsibility in a business. Once we work together on a specific matter, we can all see our shared responsibility to make the same thing happen. When we come together, the final product is all of us. Doing it together is the most important thing.
What do you think sets OSBI apart?
The forward thinking of Dr. Magelli. He pushes you to the top of Mt. Kilmanjaro (smiles). His forward thinking is what led us and what we tried fulfilling. Think forward, think outside of the box and you will stay relevant.