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Profile: Thomas Finke, JD-MBA Class of 1992
JD-MBA Graduation Year: Class of 1992
Undergraduate: Claremont McKenna
Employer: Tribune Company
Title: VP, Development at Tribune Interactive
Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona
AN: Why did you decide to pursue a JD-MBA?
TF: I went to Northwestern Law right after college, and a year into law school I thought it was very likely that I would end up in a business career, so I applied to Kellogg. At the time, completing a joint degree took four years so the opportunity to receive a Kellogg degree with only one more year of school was too good to pass up.
AN: What did you do during your summers?
TF: I spent three summers at Sidley Austin in Chicago. Obviously, I concluded fairly quickly that it was a good fit for me. After graduating in 1992, I went to work there in their corporate and securities group.
AN: What was your time like at Sidley?
TF: I spent 6 years at Sidley, working about half of my time on mergers and acquisitions and the other half on IPO work, primarily for William Blair.
AN: How did your career progress after leaving Sidley?
TF: I left Sidley to join Classified Ventures in a business development role, and after a year, became the president of one of the business units, Auctions.com. After a year of running the business, it became clear that we did not have the ability to successfully compete against ebay, so we decided to wind down the business in early 2000.
At that point, Tribune recruited me to be the CEO of a business they had invested in, eppraisals.com. The company provided online appraisals of antiques and collectibles. However, eppraisals.com was ahead of its time. In order to complete an appraisal, users had to upload a photo of the item. In 2000, everyone was still using dial-up and uploading photos could be an all-night process. That business came to an end in 2001 at which time Tribune brought me on in a corporate development role.
I held a series of development and strategy roles before I ended up in my current position as the head of business development for Tribune Interactive.
Our group negotiates commercial relationships for Tribune’s online sites and evaluates acquisition opportunities. I have worked on the acquisitions of ShopLocal.com, topix.net and ForSaleByOwner.com and other strategic online investments and partnerships.
AN: How does the joint degree distinguish you in your line of work?
TF: The law degree and practicing law have been very helpful in business development because I am able to quickly understand and negotiate legal issues. The business degree provides a framework for strategic planning, broad understanding of business concepts, and credibility.
AN: What would you say to JD-MBAs who want a career involving transactional work but are not planning to practice law first?
TF: It is a mistake not to practice law. If you are going into brand management, strategic planning, or consulting, then practicing law is probably not a good use of your time. But if you want to go into a field where a legal background is helpful, such as business development, or even investment banking to some extent, practicing law for a couple of years is very useful.
The challenge about going into law is that it can be hard to get out. Even with a JD/MBA, the business world looks at you as a lawyer and can be reluctant to hire you because the stereotype is that lawyers are risk-averse and can’t see the big picture. If you do go into law, you have to be very cognizant of managing your exit.
AN: What are some of your business goals at Tribune?
TF: My first goal is to continue to grow ForSaleByOwner.com, where I serve as the CEO. Secondly, we are focused on building a very large interactive business at Tribune. We’re off to a good start, but there is a lot of work still to do. And finally, I would like to continue to hire and develop very talented individuals—many of whom are and will be Kellogg grads.
AN: Do you have any advice for current JD-MBA students?
TF: My advice would be to take a lot of marketing courses. Every profession that you go into is about marketing – you’re either marketing a product or marketing yourself.
Also, I would say that whatever field you decide on, work as hard as you possibly can for the first few years because with hard work comes more experience, greater exposure and more opportunities. When I look back on the lucky breaks I got in my career, most of them were because I spent the extra effort to put myself in a position for good things to happen.
AN: What would you recommend students take advantage of while at school?
TF: I think the most important thing you can do while at Kellogg is to meet and make as many friends as you can. Relationships developed at Kellogg will be personally and professionally rewarding for a lifetime. Quite a few of my classmates have benefited professionally from the relationships they developed at Kellogg.
AN: What do you like to do in your spare time?
TF: My wife, Lisa, who is also a Kellogg grad, and I run a foundation that raises money for breast cancer, which we started when we were at Kellogg. Also, I like to coach my kids’ sports teams—soccer, basketball and tennis. My daughter Carol is 10 and my son Andrew is 8.
AN: Thank you for sharing your time and insight with us.
TF: You’re welcome. Hopefully, this will be helpful to your readers.
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