How a Clemson MBA opened opportunities for Richard Kornacki M’12

A global perspective

Moving overseas can be a hard decision, especially when you have an established career and support group. But for Richard Kornacki M’12, his wife, Meagen Kornacki ’06 and their kids, the opportunity to move to Budapest, Hungary and continue working for Michelin was too good of a deal to pass up.

“[My wife and I] had already decided some years ago that we wanted to do a stint overseas. It’s really a part of the Michelin culture to get overseas, learn the culture and learn international business,” Kornacki explains. “It has been a great experience so far.”

Although this is the first time moving overseas with his wife and kids, Kornacki spent his early childhood growing up in Clermont-Ferrand, France, while his father, who also worked at Michelin, had a job at their headquarters.

Having lived in Budapest for four months now, Kornacki has made connections with people across the globe, tried some new, amazing foods and has begun to make Budapest feel like home.

A Clemson MBA degree opens doors

Before his move to Europe, Kornacki lived in Greenville for 18 years and, while there, earned a Clemson MBA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MBAe).

“I had heard amazing things about Clemson. I grew up in the area, so I obviously knew the power of the school. But my dad actually also got his master’s from Clemson back in the day,” Kornacki says. “It was just an easy choice, in my opinion. I selected Clemson because of the program that it offered; it had an entrepreneurial spirit to it, which is what I was looking for at the time.”

Richard Kornacki is an excellent success story of the impact the MBAe program can have for intrapreneurs in a corporate setting. His ability to expand on the foundation he developed in the program to an international company such as Michelin has been wonderful to follow. We are proud to have him as a part of our Clemson MBA Family.

Greg Pickett, Ph.D., Director of the MBA Program

While enrolled in the Clemson MBAe Program, Kornacki continued working and opted to go to classes at night. Through the program, he met other accomplished professionals. This provided a whole new lens to class discussions as many of Kornacki’s classmates had actual experience with the challenges and situations presented in class. Between the insightful discussions, networking opportunities and team projects, Kornacki could take what he learned in class and apply his knowledge to his job role.

“The MBAe program has helped me to understand all of the different aspects of business and how I can make sure that we utilize them in the market in order to hit our sales objectives. That kind of all-around knowledge helps with determining how a certain decision may affect the company.”

Real-world application

Today, Kornacki’s role at Michelin is the commercial director for Central Europe and Central Asia two-wheel product sales, for which he manages around 30 countries. Before the MBA Program, Kornacki had a career focused on the supply chain, but after the program, he realized he wanted to move into the commercial world of marketing or sales.

“While in the MBAe Program, I developed the toolset I needed to decide to branch out to other business areas. When an opportunity came up to move into more commercial work, my work experience with Michelin and having an MBA degree gave me a diverse knowledge base of the business, and I was able to make that leap for a major career change.”

Now, Kornacki is learning business on an international scale, and although some aspects of working in Budapest are different than working in the States, in the end, he says, the foundation he learned in the Clemson MBA Program has prepared him for it.

“Moving to Budapest opened my eyes up to a lot. It has been great to experience different cultures and learn different ways of working together. But when you get down to business, it’s still very much the same.”

About the Clemson MBA Program

Clemson’s MBA program is highly regarded for its innovative approach to advanced business topics. Clemson MBA students can expect engaging classroom experiences with academically qualified faculty that also boasts business experience reaching far beyond the classroom. In addition, students can expect over 30 annual career-focused events that range from employer visits to networking forums and individual career counseling with the Princeton Review’s #1 ranked Career Services team. The Clemson MBA in entrepreneurship program was recently awarded the 11th best MBA in entrepreneurship programs in the world by Poets & Quants.