Combining Engineering and Business To Lead as a Project Manager
Vibin Roy, MS’23, engineering management, personalized his master’s program with management elective courses and a variety of career-building experiences, which helped put him on a project leadership path in the energy industry.
While working as an electrical engineer in India, Vibin Roy, MS’23, engineering management, sought an advanced degree program that would advance his leadership opportunities, while staying firmly anchored in the day-to-day world of engineering.
“I wanted a path where both engineering and business merged,” Roy says. “I wanted to take ownership of projects, but I didn’t want to let go of engineering because I absolutely loved it, and I still do.”
He discovered that the MS in engineering management program at Northeastern University would enable him to tailor his educational experience with academics and experiential learning to meet his objective of becoming a project manager. When Roy selected from a wide variety of course electives, he objectively evaluated his skill set and determined what was missing. “I came to Northeastern with an intention to create my story and every course I picked was another piece to that story,” Roy says.
While confident in his technical and engineering skills, he identified management skills gaps and addressed them with courses focusing on project management, data analytics, product development, and financial management. “I was the guy who disliked numbers, but the finance class changed the way I looked at things,” says Roy. “The knowledge I gained in how I interpret numbers is honestly about 80% of what my job is now.”
Roy also complemented academics with experiential learning opportunities that mapped to his career ambition. “Beyond the courses at Northeastern, there are an incredible number of resources to help with your career,” Roy says. “I made the most of that.”
He took a co-op position at Cytiva, a biopharmaceutical equipment manufacturer, as a portfolio manager, where he set schedules and tracked progress on multiple projects. Roy says, “The key takeaway is it introduced me to the world of project management.” He also realized a preference for the energy industry.
Roy adds, “The co-op introduction course and co-op advisors walked him through the journey to land a job.” Through these resources, he learned how to focus his job search, fine-tune his answers to job interview questions, and revamp his resume for the U.S. job market.
Another important piece of his graduate student experience was working with a faculty mentor. He developed a rapport with Himlona Palikhe, associate teaching professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, when he enrolled in her project management class. She helped Roy examine his ambitions and transform them into a career path. With her encouragement, Roy wrote and presented a paper, “Improving Traditional Project Management for Renewable Energy Projects Through the Integration of Agile and Lean Methodologies,” at the American Society for Engineering Management annual conference. “The paper was very valuable for my resume,” Roy says. He also served as a course assistant in Palikhe’s class for two semesters. More recently, Roy has been a guest speaker in her project management class.
As part of the Northeastern Student Government Organization, Roy gained leadership experience serving as vice president of marketing and outreach. The experience also expanded his professional network and helped improve his public speaking and people skills. “During the election process, I had to talk to many different people,” Roy says. “It gave me more confidence.” For all his contributions, Roy was recognized with Northeastern’s Outstanding Master’s Student Leadership Award.
Upon graduation, Roy joined Leidos, a technology, engineering, and science services company, as an assistant project manager. He works in the energy group managing substation and other electrical engineering projects, and was recently promoted to project manager.