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AI: Well, before we get too much further, I just wanted to go back and ask a little bit more about -- and to mention that you weren't just at any business school, you were at Northwestern University, you were at the Kellogg School.

PJ: Right.

AI: Which was quite well-regarded as one of the top business schools. And so really, with that degree, you, you could have gone anywhere, almost. There were many, many options open to you.

PJ: Yeah.

AI: And so as you were looking at this, the Grameen Bank and the Microcredit lending approaches, I'm just wondering, what, was there anything else that you had considered that... you ended up at Physio, but before you, you went there, were there other choices that you had looked at?

PJ: Well, you know, it was tempting to go back into investment banking. I was, I was looking very seriously at management consulting. I had a class in business school taught by this professor that I really, really liked, called, I think it was, I think it was called organizational management or management strategy. And, you know, everything was by the case method, and so you would get a case of a company that was going through all these things, and then you'd have to figure out, "What would I do if I were the CEO?" And I really loved that piece of it; I loved that class. And so, kind of the whole piece of management strategy was really interesting to me. And then the other thing was marketing, and I was really interesting in marketing. And Kellogg was really known for its marketing. I think the year that I was there, the year I left, maybe, it was ranked the number one business school overall, but the marketing had been number one for several years, and so that was also something that was interesting. But you know, frankly, I looked at that, and there were all my, a lot of my friends were going to P&G, Procter & Gamble and some of the big marketing companies that were recruiting there. And I just thought, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna sell toothpaste." [Laughs] I mean, it just, just doesn't sound that appealing to me, though I have to say, I was always a sucker for Pringles, and one of my friends was the Pringles account manager -- [laughs] -- and I thought that would have been really great 'cause I would have had a lifetime supply of Pringles.

But it just wasn't... so I think probably the closest I was, was management consulting, if I was gonna go into something else. But it seemed like some of the same cutthroatness as investment banking. And I think I applied... the company that I -- I think I applied for a job at McKinsey, and I think I didn't get it, and I think I never applied anywhere else. And I wonder if I had gotten it, would I have gone there? I'm not sure, 'cause I... but anyway, it wasn't... so I think I had just applied to McKinsey and didn't apply anywhere else, and then didn't get McKinsey, and didn't go.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.