Steve Rubow, President & CEO, Topco Associates, Inc., Lake Forest MBA Class of 1977
"People skills" are as important as practical ability for anyone wanting to move up in today’s business climate, advises Steve Rubow, president and CEO of Topco Associates, the fourth largest private firm in Chicago. Topco Associates is a $4 billion buying cooperative owned by 31 different food retailers, drug stores and foodservice cooperatives nationwide and internationally, including Dominick’s and Ace Hardware in Chicago. The cooperative purchases private label products, fresh meat, produce, pharmaceuticals, even natural gas–everything but national brands–for its owner companies.
The 1977 LFGSM graduate credits the emphasis on organizational behavior in his MBA course work with developing the people skills he needed to make a steady climb upward in the Jewel Foods chain, then quickly through top management positions at Topco.
Rubow attended LFGSM’s Lake Forest campus after nearly 10 years with Jewel. The company sponsored selected employees who wanted to earn an MBA at the School. "I found a benefit in waiting (between undergraduate and graduate school). I was able to make direct applications to what I was doing at work," he explained, adding, "If I found a concept I thought was interesting, I could actually try it." He’s now encouraging Topco’s human resources department to look into establishing a relationship with LFGSM.
"I thought it was outstanding," he says of the program. "I found it to be very, very helpful." Three aspects of the Lake Forest curriculum made a particularly strong impact on Rubow. "The emphasis on organizational behavior helped with people skills," he recalls. "We were also provided with an opportunity for making the bridge between the conceptual and the tactical. You could talk about concepts and then test them against reality because you had people in class who were already in the work force." The ability to immediately try what he was learning in his own workplace made a big difference, especially when he was promoted to take over the produce department at Jewel shortly after graduation.
"We were…provided with an opportunity for making the bridge between the conceptual and the tactical. You could talk about concepts and then test them against reality because you had people in class who were already in the work force."
"I was given the opportunity to restructure and reformat not only the in-store presentation, but the personnel as well," Rubow said, indicating that he was glad to have the skills learned at Lake Forest under his belt. Then in 1982, he was named vice president of merchandising, marketing and advertising at Star Market, a Jewel company located in Boston. After joining Topco in 1987, as vice president of perishables, he quickly moved into an executive vice president position and was named president/CEO in 1992.
"A person in management today has to have an MBA as a starting point," Rubow believes. "It’s not just the degree that’s essential, but gaining the discipline required to go through the program."
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