“As a kid, I always loved to solve problems,” said Leslie Gattuso (BS, 2012; MSM, 2015). “Even now I’m sure it annoys my family, when they’re telling me about something and I’m saying, ‘Oh, well, we can solve this by doing X, Y, and Z.’ And I think that mentality was always there. But I don’t think I ever realized it was something that you can make a career out of.” Yet after several years of consulting with Deloitte, Gattuso, now director, digital strategy & operations (health & wellness) at Walmart, seems to have found her way.
As an undergraduate, Gattuso served as a Culverhouse Ambassador and was in the business honors program. Heeding the advice of a mentor, she made it a priority to take advantage of office hours and meet with a different one of her professors each week. She especially connected with the late Dr. James Cashman, with Drs. David Heggem and Ron Dulek. But her deepest relationship was with Dr. Kristy Reynolds.
Straight out of her marketing master’s at Manderson, where she worked as a TA for Reynolds and fell in love with teaching, Gattuso was tempted to pursue a PhD, so she applied to both PhD and MBA programs. But by this time, she had also began to eye consulting as a career path. “Consulting…has a lot of similarities to academic research in that you’re setting out to solve a problem, but just on a much more accelerated timeline, with real-world impact,” she explained.
For Gattuso, problem-solving is a valuable and difficult-to-teach skill. “I think people either have the tenacity and desire to go and figure things out, with a willingness to ram their heads against the wall a million times, or they don’t. You have to be willing to try a bunch of things to figure out what works,” she said. “And, also, you need the willingness to admit, ‘I don’t know anything about this,’ and the humility to go and learn from people that do. I think that those are hard things to develop.”
This ability to drill relentlessly down on a problem has served Gattuso well in her career thus far. “And even now, I have the opportunity to take on new programs and initiatives, with new problems to solve.” She said. “Often times, it’s me and my team’s responsibility to take apart problems and say, ‘what are the different components that this issue is made up of and how do we go and solve for each of them.’”
When she left her last role, Gattuso was replaced by a Harvard graduate. Despite her love for UA, Gattuso is aware that when she shares rooms with Ivy League grads, she cannot simply “cruise on her credentials.” This drives her to work a little harder than everyone else. “UA grads are willing to roll up our sleeves to get stuff done. It’s that attitude that allows us to compete with anybody,” she said.
So for now, Gattuso gets to do one of the things she loves, which is solving problems, and she gives back, in part, by serving on the Culverhouse Associate Board of Visitors. But teaching? She has had some opportunities to teach informally in her team, whether that is teaching them new systems, skills, processes or ways of doing things, and she really enjoys that kind of mentorship. So she is not ruling full-time teaching out for the future. After all, Culverhouse hires clinical instructors who can bring their real-world business experience into the classroom, focusing on teaching without the burden of research expectations.
Hope to see you soon, Professor Gattuso.