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Chan Roeun Mak '12
Cambodia/United States
“I enjoy the flexibility of bringing my coursework with me while I’m on business travel. During my last business trip to Berlin, I completed my finals on the road.”


Chan Roeun Mak '12

Chan Roeun Mak ’12 may be one of the most determined go-getters in the workforce – a skill she learned right out of high school.

“I started out as a receptionist at the Academy of Languages,” explains the Cambodia-born American of her first employer, a Seattle-based translation and interpretation agency. Because the company was forced to make cuts after 9/11, the then 20-year-old soon found herself unemployed. “I wasn’t deterred. I kept showing up to work and worked for free until they hired me back.”

The persistence paid off. Mak, who hadn’t yet earned her degree, assumed additional responsibility as the human resources coordinator. She also dabbled in project management. The experience, she says, was the catalyst for her interest in other cultures.

“My colleagues were from all over the world, and so were our clients. Their backgrounds and stories made such an impression on me.”

Her current role as a contracts negotiation specialist for The Boeing Co. in Seattle is similar in some ways. “I work with customers from different parts of Europe and Russia. So it’s important to me that I be well-versed in the international arena.” It's this need for a global mindset and international business proficiency that brought Mak to Thunderbird's Distance Learning Global MBA program - which allowed her to broaden her skills while continuing to work full-time.

Mak is responsible for preparing proposals and agreements for new commercial airplane sales and aftermarket services. “I spend a lot of time collaborating with teams to figure out how to approach problems and structure deals,” she says. While she occasionally meets customers in Europe to execute airplane exchange agreements, oftentimes customers travel to Seattle. “Although taking delivery of an aircraft is slightly akin to buying a brand-new car, it’s magnificently more exciting to see your customer fly off with a brand-new plane. It’s a complex product with a very interesting lifecycle.”

Mak, now 29, says that her Thunderbird skills are helping in her job already. “After participating in our on-site Regional Business Environment class in Santiago, I was better able to understand the business model of a customer airline in that region.” The Regional Business Environment course, she believes, is “the best introductory course you can have, because it represents what Thunderbird is all about.”

An unexpected learning outcome of the Santiago trip occurred when the country experienced an 8.8 Richter-scale earthquake while she and her cohort were there. “I was able to witness how our customer airlines executed contingency plans and handled a natural disaster. Who knew that a natural disaster could become a professional learning opportunity?"

Mak, who lived briefly in Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines when she was young, says she couldn’t be happier with her decision to attend Thunderbird’s Distance Learning Global MBA program. “I enjoy the flexibility of bringing my coursework with me while I’m on business travel. During my last business trip to Berlin, I completed my finals on the road.”