For working professionals pursuing an MBA, access matters—access to experienced leaders, honest career conversations, and networks that extend beyond their own organization or industry. Foster School’s Mentoring Program Learning Circles are designed to create exactly that kind of connection.
Those conversations often center on the realities professionals face as they grow into leadership roles. Most understand, in theory, that influence isn’t just about hierarchy. You don’t need a title to move people. But knowing that and actually doing it—especially in high-stakes moments—are two different things. The gap between theory and practice is where careers stall or accelerate.
That gap was the subject of a recent Mentoring Program Learning Circle featuring mentors and Foster MBA alums Ajith Prabhakara (MBA ’14), Robert Neer (MBA ’15), and Caroline Boren (MBA ’10). It’s an online format designed for working professionals who can’t always make it to an on-campus event. For students in Foster’s MBA programs for working professionals — Hybrid MBA, Global Executive MBA, Technology Management MBA, and Executive MBA — it’s a way to expand their mentor network well beyond their individual Foster School mentor. Each session connects them with new mentors across industries and roles, and focuses on the questions that matter most for their careers.
A recent session took that question head-on: how do you build leadership influence and credibility? The three mentors who participated have spent decades doing exactly that across tech, media, healthcare, and beyond.
- Ajith Prabhakara leads research product management for humanoid robotics at Meta Reality Labs. During his career, he has built and scaled products across B2B, mobile, telecom, robotics, and last-mile delivery, navigating multiple career transitions—from engineer to product manager, product to research, individual contributor to executive, and big tech to startup.
- Robert Neer is co-founder of Goods Ventures LLC, a startup focused on high-EQ team collaboration and product development. He has led operating model and technology transformations, and has a track record of building new lines of business inside Fortune 100 companies across entertainment, telecom, advertising, and health care.
- Caroline Boren spent her career in communications, marketing leadership and consulting for some of the Pacific Northwest’s most recognizable organizations, including T-Mobile, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, Expedia, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Among the highest-rated managers at Alaska Airlines, she oversaw more than 200 employees and a $500 million P&L. She monitors human medical research at Fred Hutch and speaks to business and communications students about leadership, brand reputation, and crisis management.
We asked them three questions. Here’s what they said.
Can you share a moment when you had to influence without formal authority and what you did that made it work?
Robert Neer: This is the fundamental situation for almost any product manager—their position is one of influence and storytelling, driving a vision and aligning a team or an org to it. This is made infinitely easier if you’re armed with clarity about the shared outcomes and strategies of the organization.
In most situations, the most powerful lever of influence is available to you: understanding incentives and aligning them. Then you have to write yourself into the story of the other party’s incentives. Any good story is fundamentally about influence—and this story cannot be fiction. It has to be grounded in a principled understanding of where our incentives fall regarding the company strategy.
I’ve helped grow advertising businesses at e-commerce companies more than once. Working with various experience owners to find inventory for advertising messages, the first reaction is typically: “No way. Customers hate ads, and you’ll wreck my conversion.” Re-framing this with a holistic perspective on the enterprise’s aspirations is key. How do we keep prices low, shipping costs competitive, customer benefits high, and stay profitable amid steep competition? We build a high-margin advertising business that is fundamentally about connecting customers with products they’re looking for from our trusted vendors—who want the same thing we do: to sell their products effectively to our customers. So the last thing any player in this story wants is to degrade the customer experience. That’s a story in which we can both see ourselves winning.
Ajith Prabhakara: I had to influence an over-subscribed engineering team, over which I had no formal authority, to validate a critical research hypothesis for my own team. My approach involved three key steps.
First, I authored a document articulating the opportunity and long-term benefit of validating this research hypothesis, which I evangelized across the organization. This generated support from senior leaders, including the engineering VP, who helped identify a key engineering lead for collaboration.
Second, I worked closely with that engineering lead to draft a time-boxed plan for developing a proof-of-concept prototype. This collaborative effort ensured the proposed technical approach was viable.
Third, I sought feedback from the engineering leaders whose support I needed, iterated on the plan based on their input, and helped identify crucial trade-offs — finalizing a plan that would effectively validate the research hypothesis while minimizing the required engineering effort.
Caroline Boren: While working at a global communications agency, I wanted the CEO to consider converting a money-losing standalone practice that had long been near and dear to her heart into a service embedded across all practices, leveraging existing client relationships and resources. Rather than opening with the proposed solution, I first initiated a conversation about the problem we were trying to solve, to ensure we were aligned on what that was. I was also prepared with relevant data and customer feedback should there be any need for clarification.
I have found that asking a simple upfront question — “What problem are we trying to solve?” — brings focus, causes people to set aside individual emotions and biases, and puts you in the strongest position to propose compelling solutions, whether or not you’re the decision maker. The CEO, who was initially taken aback by my proposal, ultimately agreed to the restructure, which positioned us to deliver the service profitably while supporting the organization’s overall mission and brand.
In this video (filmed in 2024), hear directly from Foster mentors and MBA alums, including Neer and Prabhakara, about why they serve as Foster mentors.
When you’re trying to build leadership credibility, what do you prioritize early on, and what’s a common mistake people make?
Robert Neer: Listen, learn, be curious, and understand their motivations and what they consider success for themselves and their team. Learn as much as you can about what is hard for them and what is keeping them from success. Be humble about what you don’t know, and excited about the opportunity to learn. People often confuse credibility with credentials, insights, or knowing the answer. There is nothing less credible than showing up believing you know more about someone else’s job than they do.
Ajith Prabhakara: My first priority is establishing a foundational understanding of the team or stakeholder’s strategic landscape: their immediate and long-term priorities, and the specific metrics they use to evaluate benefits and risks. This upfront work allows me to tailor my contributions to their needs.
The most common mistake is failing to dedicate time to this foundational discovery, instead diving headfirst into tactical projects. Without fully understanding a team’s motivations and goals, you risk misaligning your efforts. Making time to build this deeper understanding is critical to establishing credibility with the team, its leaders, and key stakeholders.
Caroline Boren: One thing I focus on early on is face-to-face opportunities to ask questions and truly listen to people’s best ideas for serving customers and running the business. Getting acquainted with the new team is nice. Asking deeper, more deliberate questions and truly listening for and capturing employees’ best thinking are far more effective in building credibility. I always make a point of sending a handwritten note or follow-up email, or commenting in a subsequent team meeting about specific ideas I heard and any relevant actions as a result.
When I first joined Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as chief of staff for the Communications and Marketing department, I met with all 40 team members, took notes from our conversations, and wrote a follow-up email to each person thanking them and acknowledging one key learning or idea from our conversation. It was an effective way to reinforce what I had heard and to build positive working relationships with all employees.
When I took on responsibility for Alaska Airlines’ customer care department, I’d visit a call center each month and sit in on customer calls with several reps. I’d always follow up with a short handwritten note to each rep, thanking them and highlighting a call they handled particularly well. Occasionally, on a subsequent visit, I’d spot one of my handwritten notes pinned to the wall in someone’s workstation.
In the recent Learning Circle, you shared advice with Foster MBA students. What’s one idea you find yourself returning to most often—and why does it matter right now?
Robert Neer: Throughout history, people entering a new field or role have been given roles that focus on specific tasks and fill a pretty narrow function in the org. No matter what that first role is, learn as much as you can about how the business works as a system—what are all the ways the organization makes or loses money, and where the seams are. The sooner you show yourself to be a systems thinker driven by curiosity and a learning mindset, the better you will be at your job and the more opportunities you will see.
There is a lot of chatter now about how AI is taking on these task-driven roles. That may be true, but it makes curiosity about the whole system and where frictions and seams exist even more important.
Ajith Prabhakara: I emphasize two ideas for career growth: The first is mastering situational awareness and adaptation. To influence leaders, you must first understand your situational context. Be curious, ask questions, and listen deeply to understand the motivations of all decision-makers—advocates, dissenters, and those on the fence. Learn how they make decisions (evidence-based, relational, inspirational) and adapt your approach based on that understanding.
The second is embracing transparency of thought. Credibility is rooted in trust, and trust comes from being understood. Humans naturally build mental models of each other, so share your thinking: what you believe and why, why you changed your mind, your preferred ways of working, and your approach to collaboration and decision-making. Once people understand how you think and work, they know how to collaborate with you—and that’s the foundation of trust.
With the broad adoption of AI-enabled tools, building prototypes and even complete solutions is easier than ever, significantly blurring the boundaries between traditional roles. What remains essential and irreplaceable is the human layer: trust, credibility, and effective ways of working together. These skills, which ensure successful collaboration and provide the final layer of human judgment, are more critical than ever for organizational success.
Caroline Boren: This is truly evergreen advice: you are not the fount of all knowledge for your team, nor are you the fixer of all problems. As you take on bigger roles with broader responsibilities, you are likely to know less, not more, than those on your team about any area within your scope. That’s a good thing, as it will force you to listen more and talk less.
Focus instead on asking direct, timely questions about your team’s immediate goals and priorities—there should be only a few—and on making sure you’re aligned. Probe about work hurdles or barriers to decision-making. Make sure those who report to you aren’t wasting time on what you agree are not priorities, and support them in motivating and rewarding strong performers on their teams, while promptly addressing any weak performance. Their success is your success. Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott is a great resource for this approach.
Foster’s Mentoring Program Learning Circles reflect a broader focus across Foster’s MBA programs: giving students access to experienced leaders, practical career insight, and a professional network that continues long after graduation.
The sessions with industry leaders are open to students in the Hybrid MBA, Global Executive MBA, Technology Management MBA, and Executive MBA programs.