Shelli Baltman smiles mischievously. “I am a bit of an oddball here,” she says, standing in the London offices of the creativity company where she works.

“I have an MBA from Insead and I was a strategy consultant with McKinsey in London, then I did IT strategy work as well. My CV was absolutely not what we normally hire. In fact my background was so different that my boss described it as like hiring David Beckham for your cricket team.”

Canadian-born Baltman joined ?What If! in 2002. Trained in analysis, she did not have any of the normal skill sets the company seeks. “I had to learn all about innovation and branding and consumer insight,” she admits.

Fortunately, Baltman is a fast learner. Her timing was also good – coinciding with the company’s international expansion. Today the company is believed to be the biggest independent innovation company in the world. That growth created new opportunities. Last year she became strategy director of UK business.

How useful was the MBA to her career development? “An MBA is like a passport,” she says. “For me it was about having as many options as possible. I had an undergraduate degree in business but I knew that having an MBA would open doors that my undergrad degree would not.

“The other real motivator was the network you acquire. I chose my MBA school carefully. I had offers from Kellogg and Harvard but thought that Insead was more likely to give me an international and diverse set of friends and colleagues.”

Baltman graduated from Insead in 1998. “McKinsey offered me a job in London and it would have been really hard to turn down such an amazing brand name.” From McKinsey, she went on to work in e-commerce. But, as time went by, she had a nagging feeling that she was in the wrong job.

“About five years after my MBA, having spent the time in the strategy consulting and e-commerce sector, I did not feel I was fulfilling my potential. I thought carefully about what I wanted to do. Then I started looking for organisations that were a fit.”

That is when she found ?What If!.

“I knew when I walked in the door that it was the kind of company I could work for and I pursued a job with dogged determination until I was given one.” Now, she says: “My MBA training is incredibly useful, although not in a direct way. Understanding the fundamentals of business, the financial aspects, accounting principles and strategy associated with the innovation projects that I work on makes me more valuable to my clients.”

People with MBAs are famously analytical but could they be more geared to the creative side? “I think so,” Baltman says. “They should value brand, insight, design and emotional connection more than they do. If I were running an MBA programme I would bring the best innovators and design companies into the classroom.”

Would she have planned her career differently? “In retrospect I wish I had done my MBA a bit later,” she says.

“If I had to give advice to an MBA student, it would be to think carefully before going on the course as to what they want to achieve after they leave. I have a friend who wanted to work in the outdoor field after he left school. He spent the year making contacts, moved to Aspen after Insead and now operates the most successful outdoor equipment PR company in America.”

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