Learning to Innovate

Yesuto Shaw (MMM '23) shares how Northwestern's MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM) program helped him strengthen his creative problem-solving skills and become a product manager at LinkedIn.

It was early in Yesuto Shaw's career when he began to question his weaknesses.

He started his career as a business analyst for a credit card company before transitioning into product management. Multiple managers told Shaw (MMM '23) that while he was great at executing strategies and delivering results, if he wanted to become a leader, he needed to generate bold, new ideas — not just bring the visions of others to life.

"I worried that I just didn’t have the 'innovation gene,'” Shaw said. “But then I decided to take on the mindset that innovation was a skill that could be developed with the right approach and environment, rather than just assuming I had to have been born with that skill.”

Shaw turned to Northwestern's MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM) program — a dual-degree program between Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management.

He quickly discovered that innovation isn’t a mysterious talent. It’s a structured discipline that can be learned, practiced, and refined.

"I knew that developing skills in innovative problem solving was one of my top two priorities for attending a business school program, alongside developing leadership skills," he said. "The MMM program is perfect if you want to focus on innovation — especially with an emphasis on designing products and experiences."

Today, Shaw is doing just that at LinkedIn, where he is a product manager for B2B recruiter user experience. When most consumers think of the social media platform, they think of the news feed and messaging functions, Shaw said. The company also offers multiple B2B products specifically for recruiters, salespeople, and marketers.

"I was surprised to learn how much LinkedIn operates like a multi-sided marketplace that has to serve the needs of businesspeople using it in the daily execution of their jobs, while also making it an engaging experience for consumers who are seeking to learn something new or connect with people they know," he said. "The teams at LinkedIn wear many hats and juggle many user needs, which makes the work all the more interesting and exciting."

Shaw's team is focused on building products for recruiters who use the platform to hire talent. He's currently helping to develop a hiring assistant that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help recruiters with the more manual, repeated tasks of their day-to-day job. The goal is not to replace recruiters, but instead to help them spend more time interacting with qualified candidates.

Shaw was drawn to product management because he's always been fascinated with how people think and approach different issues in their lives.

"I love having the opportunity to get into the minds of our customers, understand what their needs really are, and then be a part of building a solution that makes life better and easier in some way," he said. "In my current role, that means that we’re able to help recruiters find qualified candidates quicker, and that also means that jobseekers are hopefully getting hired quicker through the work we’re doing."

Shaw interned at LinkedIn during his time in MMM, and said the experience was critical to him securing a full-time job.

He also credited MMM with teaching him that innovation starts with accurately identifying a problem to solve. One of his key takeaways from MMM was how important it is to go beyond surface-level conversations — that understanding a challenge comes from crafting interview questions in a way that gets to the root of the goal the customer is really trying to accomplish.

"It’s important to take a step back and conduct detailed interviews with customers to truly understand the root of the problem that you should focus on fixing," he said. "Once I’ve clearly defined the problem, then I’m able to take the frameworks and methods I learned to create solutions that are truly innovative and that set us apart from the competition."