“I’m probably not your standard Cranfield student,” said Kim Nilsson, who graduated from the Cranfield MBA in 2012.
Nilsson is the managing director and co-founder of Pivigo Recruitment, a recruitment firm that helps science PhD graduates find great roles in business and industry.
Nilsson was a scientist before attending Cranfield. She studied physics as an undergraduate, then astrophysics for her PhD before working as an astronomer for a few years!
But after about four years in the science field, Nilsson decided she had had “enough” and realized she would rather work with people, not computers.
“For me, it was a slow process when I realized that I didn’t love science,” Nilsson said. “I did love it, but the part of it I loved the most was managing a project.”
She looked to European b-schools to fill her thirst for learning about managing projects and people; she landed at Cranfield after visiting the school and feeling completely welcome there.
Cranfield’s strong emphasis on personal development, plus their annual Female FTSE report about women on boards, drew her to the school.
It was at Cranfield that she thought of the idea for Pivigo and met her co-founder Jason Muller, who has a recruitment background.
“I thought of the idea for Pivigo in an entrepreneurship module by thinking ‘What problems have I experienced?’” Nilsson said. “I realized there is no service for scientists who wanted to leave the science field.”
Now, Nilsson and Muller have created that service. Pivigo assists in connecting PhD graduates with opportunities at Pivigo’s clients, who are mostly in the financial, risk and data sectors.
Although PhD-educated candidates may seem like an extremely narrow candidate pool to work with, Nilsson said she found this concentrated pool to be the most effective for her business.
“In our business plan, we found that it’s the best thing to be quite niche,” Nilsson said. “There are a lot of general recruiters out there; we need to focus on our niche.”
Nilsson said she has found herself in a niche market that works for her: one that balances between the business and science worlds (worlds that have quite a lot to learn from each other!).
The most influential thing Nilsson said she learned while getting her Cranfield MBA is applicable to both those in the science field and in the business field:
“What I got from Cranfield is a confidence in my own abilities,” Nilsson said. “If you really work hard, you can go all the way to the top.”
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