December 21, 2010

Good News Tuesday: James Peterson III - Future Face of Technology

Yvette Graham, James Peterson, Milt Haynes
I met James Peterson III in 2008 when National BDPA recognized him with their Epsilon Awards as their 'Most Promising Technologist'.

James has lived up to that high honor with his work over the past few years. Today we learned that James is finishing the last year of his MBA program at Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University’s Tinley Park location. James recently accepted a position with an accounting and consulting leader, Deloitte Consulting. Here is interview that James recently completed with the folks at Keller where he shares some of his wisdom and advice for his Keller peers. I thought it was a great addition to our weekly Good News Tuesday meme!

  1. How did you develop an interest of the field of that you are currently in?
    My mother is the Executive Director of Nursing for the Cook County Bureau of Health. After watching her at work and assisting her with her duties I wanted to be just like her, only in a different industry. After realizing that project management is one of my best professional qualities I decided to pursue that as a career in the technology sector since that is what I have experience in.
  2. What successes have you achieved thus far and how was it made possible?
    My greatest success to date has been being profiled in Black Enterprise magazine (March 2008). I responded to an advertisement in the October 2007 issue asking for submissions pertaining to how Black Enterprise magazine has helped to shape your career. I submitted my article and the rest is history.
  3. From what Keller program will you be graduating?
    MBA – Project Management concentration, June 2011
  4. What has been your favorite experience at Keller so far?
    Taking GM 545 in the Atlanta Perimeter center. I loved that class and the professor made statistics very interesting, I ended up getting an A in that class.
  5. What motivated you to succeed at Keller?
    I wanted to have the suffixes MBA & PMP listed after my name.
  6. What will be your title and role (job description) with Deloitte?
    Business Technology Master Consultant – Technology Division, Systems Integration service line. Duties will involve interfacing directly with clients (Fortune 1000 and Government) with regards to delivering valued services and technology solutions aligned to their strategic goals and initiatives.
  7. What do you feel set you apart from the competition?
    My competition came from medium and large size public institutions where firms like Deloitte routinely recruit from on-campus. Most of the students from these schools feel as if their institution name and degree title should “elevate” them into the roles and organizations that they seek employment in. I feel that my desire to achieve success and to outperform my competition is what separates me from the rest. Keller trained me to get the job done, not to rely on an outsider’s subjective ranking.
  8. How did your Keller experience prepare you for this role?
    Keller prepared me for this role by having classes scheduled for every 8 weeks. Each class in a sense becomes a project and this has conditioned me to working quickly, delivering quality results and gaining real-world expertise and instruction.
  9. What advice would you have for your Keller peers?
    When you tell your peers what school you’ve attended (or are attending) and they get it confused with another graduate school, kindly correct them. If they sneer or give you awkward looks, please inform them that you attend a high caliber and quality school that actually prepares you to become leaders in business, and not to rely on someone’s name or brand to become successful. Also, Join professional organizations that are related to your professional goals and network, network, network!!!

This blog will continue to seek out Good News stories about people of African descent and share them with you each Tuesday. Please pass along any Good News stories that come your way!

In the meantime, I encourage you to share some love with James Peterson III. Perhaps we'll get enough good vibes going here that he'll come by and visit himself!

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