UBC PMBA grad gained business skills, confidence and connections to land in sales at Sprout Social

Amandeep Dhillon (UBC PMBA ‘25) was looking for a way to maintain her upward career trajectory and deepen her business expertise without stepping away from the workforce. She found that balance in the Professional MBA at the UBC Sauder School of Business, a part-time, 24-month program designed for working professionals to continue advancing their careers while they learn.  

Drawn to the program’s flexible format and weekend scheduling, Dhillon valued not having to miss out on earnings. With strengthened business acumen and renewed confidence, Dhillon has expanded her role from SAP consulting at Deloitte into a client-facing pre-sales position at social media management company Sprout Social – marking a step forward in her career. 
 

Maintaining career momentum on the West Coast 

Originally from Calgary, Dhillon knew that she wanted to live in Western Canada and says applying to one of Canada’s top business schools was a no brainer. Instead, the pivotal decision was whether to go full-time or choose the part-time PMBA. Again, the choice was easy: maintain career momentum while upskilling her business knowledge. “I love applying my learning. Even in my undergrad days, I worked part time all throughout and I like the balance,” she says. “If I've learned something in an Operations class or in Finance, being able to see that in my day-to-day really helps retain that learning.” 
 

A goal to augment and formalize business skills 

With a bachelor's degree in computer information systems as her baseline, Dhillon also appreciated the ability to round out the business side of her education. “Being able to understand the inner workings of business, such as how to read its financial statements and how those results might impact its strategy, that was a big thing for me,” she says. 

Less expected was the boost she got in terms of personal development. “The PMBA helped me close my knowledge gaps, but also from a self-confidence standpoint, that deeper knowledge made me feel like I had the business acumen to add more value in my everyday work,” says Dhillon, adding that this foundation serves her especially well as a consultant serving multiple industries from health care to retail.  

Following her undergraduate studies, Dhillon had interned at SAP in Vancouver and then landed a job at Deloitte in their SAP consulting practice, working with companies from oil and gas to crown corporations. From working on the post-sales side where she consulted on issues with the specific software, she then moved into pre-sales where she started to be involved in making the business case for products via client education, a role that’s more directly related to organizational growth. She credits one of her UBC PMBA courses, Business Development and Negotiations, with really helping her to deepen her skills in consultative selling, something that has been useful in exploring her options in sales. Just after graduation, she moved into her current role as Lead Solution Engineer with social media management company, Sprout Social.  

Finding global connections and local support systems 

For Dhillon, standout moments from her UBC PMBA included the two Global Network Weeks she participated in, and the connections she built both abroad and in her classes. Each Global Network Week sees cohorts from graduate schools around the world come together in a concentrated week abroad on a focused topic. In Guadalajara, Mexico, Dhillon got to learn about emerging markets, and in Sydney, Australia, about sustainability. The latter was particularly profound because she gained her first exposure to a topic she’s never formally studied, with immersive field trips that made the experience especially meaningful.  

Beyond the learning and the confidence, Dhillon says that the UBC PMBA also brought valuable connections from day one of classes. “You meet so many likeminded people with different skills and strengths. We naturally formed study groups,” she said, noting that she felt supported by both peers and faculty, especially in crunch times like when she started the program and a new job at the same time. “I've met some wonderful people that I could say are friends for life,” she says. 

A proud graduate, Dhillon plans to apply her newfound confidence to learning as much as she can in her current role, while setting her sights on a long-term career in sales and business development.  Again, she points to the program as helping her discover this direction. “Right now, I'm the technical seller within the sales cycle, but now that I have that broader business skills that came with my PMBA, I want to have more ownership in driving business impact and customer success, so I'm going to go into sales as the next career move,” she says.