Tabassum Mili Hawlader, MMA’26

Hard work has never been a problem for Tabassum Mili Hawlader. “I’m the eldest daughter of immigrant parents,” she says with a laugh. “I knew what it meant to work from a young age.” She was drafting legal documents to support her father’s refugee-aid work before she was old enough to drive. While completing her undergraduate degree a few years later, she spent nights, weekends, and windows between classes piecing together full-time hours in a range of professional fields—first legal, then marketing, then web development.

The hustle of Mili’s early years meant that by the time she graduated and took a full-time job in product management at RBC (where she had completed an undergrad co-op term), her career was well underway. “I had built a foundation as a generalist,” she says. “And I had learned to adapt quickly, as well.”

Mili thrived in her new position. She built terrific relationships, had ample opportunities to flex her natural organizational and communication skills, and, before long, began to lead initiatives on her team. But as she progressed into a management role, she recognized an opportunity to strengthen her quantitative and analytical skills. “I recognized that data supports credibility, and—as someone who had advanced quickly in my career—I wanted to ensure my decisions were grounded in data-driven insight,” she recalls. “I wanted to build a stronger technical toolkit.”

That realization led Mili to enroll in the Smith Master of Management Analytics (MMA) program, which she began in May of 2025. So far, it’s been a rich learning experience. She’s challenged by the workload, but not overwhelmed by it. Those years balancing work and studies during undergrad prepared her well. She’s inspired by faculty: “The insights we’re getting are not insights you can get from Google.” And she’s energized by her team, an “amazing” cohort of highly motivated, and surprisingly compatible, professionals from a wildly diverse range of backgrounds. “I’ve never had this kind of team dynamic before,” she says. “Smith really knows how to put people together.”

Only a few months into the program, Mili is already developing technical skills she knows will stay with her throughout her career. She’s learning how to quantify managerial insights across an organization, a process she finds fascinating: “You can actually create a model out of intuition.” She’s building the fluency to work seamlessly with data and AI experts and translate insights into strategy. She’s also assembling a powerful library of resources. In an elective course on marketing analytics, for instance, she explored how data can pinpoint the “sweet spot” where additional investments no longer drive meaningful returns—a lesson that completely changed how she thinks about strategy.

But Mili’s MMA education is extending far beyond data and algorithms. In fact, she finds the program’s focus on so-called soft skills—such as communication, governance, and change management—every bit as valuable as the technical chops she’s building. For instance, she’s becoming skilled at tailoring an explanation of a figure or projection to the needs of an audience, which can sometimes mean talking about a single number in a dozen different ways. She’s learning how to connect people, process, and data, and understanding that true transformation depends on aligning all three. “Analytics is very important, but it doesn’t create value on its own,” she says. “The program really emphasizes delivery. You have to be able to present information in an executable format, to get buy-in from senior leadership, and to get everyone rowing together.”

This is all coming in very handy in her job at RBC, where she was recently promoted to an Associate Director role, investigating how AI and analytics can create new opportunities for the way organizations work. “I can frame problems analytically—not just in words—and I can challenge assumptions. That is helping me to push for smarter strategies in my organization.”

Mili has big ambitions for the future. She’d like to become an agent of change, both by leading innovative pivots within her organization, and by helping inform national and global policies surrounding the responsible use of technology. With the MMA, she’s cultivating the credibility to do it all. “I’m gaining the ability to confidently shape a transformation strategy, at a high level, using data analytics,” she says. “In today’s world, I think that is invaluable.”