Alumni Connection

Learning from the Pros

Three alumni executives offer advice to College of Business students.

Mark Bietz ’07

Chief Marketing Officer at Fun.com

Lisa Hyland ’88

Sr. Vice President and Director of human resources at Federated Insurance

Jeff Meyerhofer ’98

Chief Operating Officer and GM of payments for Optum Financial Services at UnitedHealth Group.

Dean of the College of Business, Dr. Brenda Flannery opened an online session featuring three successful alumni last summer by remarking on how the pandemic, with its many challenges, has opened some doors for students as well.

“I think in the past, we wouldn’t have even thought about using a virtual format in which to bring [together] three great alumni, but here we are,” she said. “Sometimes difficult things… bring us new opportunities.”

One such opportunity was an online panel featuring three alumni executives: Lisa Hyland ’88, director of human resources at Federated Insurance; Mark Bietz ’07, chief marketing officer at Fun.com; and Jeff Meyerhofer ’98, chief operating officer & GM of payments for Optum Financial Services at UnitedHealth Group.

The alumni executive panel was organized by talent programs specialist Samantha Campa and featured a Q&A format that allowed each panelist to offer advice, encouragement and lessons they’ve learned throughout their careers.

We’ve compiled a few highlights from the hour-long session:

On What Hiring Managers Are Looking For

Mark Bietz: [We’re looking for] people that went out and did something or are in the process of doing something or learning or just, you know, a ecting some sort of change, whether it be in their personal lives within their friends and family groups or with an organization. at’s something that we really look for because it really sort of helps to understand if this person is a self-starter and if they do things on their own volition. at’s really important to us because as an entrepreneurial organization, we’re really looking for people that can sit back, listen, observe and then nd their own opportunities and collaborate with folks to get [things] done.

On Making the Most of Your College Experience

Lisa Hyland: My time at [Minnesota State Mankato] really challenged me to think a little bit more broadly. It helped me to become a much more inquisitive person and generally kind of sparked a desire to learn from other people.

I just would encourage [students] to engage in everything and anything. College is your moment to explore and to gure out what you like and what you don’t like and where your interests lie and it just creates this big open eld for you. [When] the window closes, life gets more focused and your time gets committed to other things. And this is just a unique window of time in your life where you just get to explore all facets of yourself.

Je Meyerhofer: When I rst started at Mankato I started working at Walmart. And I didn’t think that it was very valuable, but as I started to understand business and started to understand the [point of sale] system and the supply chain, all of that comes back to business. So, learning business and learning the pro t and loss component of it was very valuable to me. e other thing that I did is I volunteered at a credit union [on campus]. I volunteered to run the checks just to be able to understand banking one-on-one. And I got to the point where I was the assistant manager, I mean, I was still not paid, but it was a way for me to learn two di erent businesses: a retail model and a banking model. en when I came out, not only did I have a mindset of a business degree, but I also had two fairly applicable experiences. So, I think that if you can seek those out, there’s value there, even if you’re not getting paid. It’ll pay for itself in the long run.

On Thriving Through Diffi cult Times

Lisa Hyland: It’s so important that you’re doing something right now. ere’s a post-pandemic, there’s a time past this and you want to have a story to tell. If you’re coming in to talk to me, I’d rather hear that you got arrested than that you played Minecra or whatever. Get out and do something and engage yourself. Have a story to tell. How did you use this time? … I want to hear what you did and how you made the most of it and how you came out a better person for it in the end.