Lenka SellamGraduate student Lenka Sellam had plenty of business experience by 2005 when she began looking for a graduate business program. She was born and raised in Peru. At the age of 18, she had taken over one of her family's bakeries and turned it around in three months.

"The bakery was slated to close anyway," Sellam says, "so my father figured he had nothing to lose by letting me try to save it."

She gained 10 lbs. and many years' experience as she resuscitated the bakery in three months by, as she puts it, "being myself. I did not mention that I was the owner's daughter when I went in to observe and talk to the employees and customers."

She cleaned and organized the premises, retrained and hired new employees, created new recipes, designed new uniforms, and ultimately attracted enough customers to render the once-failing bakery a success.

Later, while earning her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, she co-oped at Motorola. After graduation, she took a job in R&D with Michigan-based automotive supplier Valeo, which led to a cost improvement position with that company in Barcelona, Spain. Along the way, she has visited or lived and worked in Cuba, Brazil, Chile, China, Italy, Germany and, most recently, France.

She says it was "a great day" when she attended an MBA information session offered by the Forte Foundation in Paris. She remembers, "One of the speakers was talking about the kind of work she did, which sounded familiar to me. I asked her if that discipline had a name, and she said it was called turnaround. I immediately searched the Internet and found an article by a member of the Turnaround Management Association, which included information about the UDM program."

It may seem like an academic program might have limited benefits to a seasoned professional and world traveller like Sellam, but she says returning to Michigan to study Business Turnaround and Transformation Management at UDM was a no-brainer.

"The UDM Master of Science in BTM is the only program of its kind in the world," she says. "Our program is associated with individuals from first-class turnaround companies through the Steering Committee, and we as students will most likely have the opportunity to do a practicum with one of those companies."

In addition, Sellam's extensive business experience makes her a resource for the program and her classmates. She says, "We have a great pool of instructors, from both academia and industry, who encourage us to think creatively and make the best tools and research available to us. And the instructors and students learn from each other, in both directions, not just one."

"We are learning to see things others might not, and that habit continues beyond the classroom," she notes. "Every type of business I visit I find something to improve, even at my Pilates studio."

"It takes true passion to practice turnaround, but it is rewarding to be part of a little improvement in the world," Sellam says. "It helps to think of a BTM expert as a surgeon called in on a case. Much like a beginning doctor, I am considering volunteering to help small businesses in Michigan during my studies. After graduation, I hope to be in a great company that shares my mission, which is to help all of us improve and grow.

"Imagine how many companies need help," she adds. "This is just the beginning."