The Problem-Solver’s Program
Guillermo Hellmund (MMM '25) began the MMM program knowing he eventually wanted to create his own company. He had no idea he'd become a co-founder before graduating.
When Guillermo Hellmund (MMM ‘25) began Northwestern's MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM) program — a dual-degree program between Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management — he knew he eventually wanted to create his own company.
He didn’t know he'd launch that company before graduating.
That is the power of the MMM program, he said.
“MMM is a program for problem solvers,” said Hellmund, co-founder and chief product officer of fintech startup Pharus. “It was the perfect program for me to structure all those wild ideas I've always had and actually be able to execute them.” Hellmund grew up in Venezuela and found his way to the MMM program after stops in Panama and Guatemala. He describes himself as a tech geek and said he spent his childhood taking apart and reassembling gadgets to become familiar with how they work.
Hellmund earned his bachelor’s degree in systems engineering in his home country in 2019, and soon after began to think about continuing his education, getting an MBA, and transitioning into product management. A friend told him about a potentially better option — the MMM program.
Hellmund said he was enchanted by the program’s emphasis on doing instead of theoretical learning. His goal was to build a network of like-minded action-oriented entrepreneurs and find a post-MMM product management job before starting his own endeavor a few years later.
During his first-year Growth Innovation class, Hellmund presented a framework for his long-term plans. Afterward, a friend approached him and said he knew someone launching their own company who was looking for someone with a keen eye for human-centered design. Someone who could take a complex product and simplify it to help the business grow.
Someone like Hellmund.
“My dream has always been to work in tech,” Hellmund said. “MMM accelerated my timeline a little bit.”
Now Hellmund finds himself navigating the second year of the MMM program while having a direct avenue to apply what he is learning in the classroom.
Pharus will serve as a platform where small- and medium-sized consumable-goods businesses can pull actionable insights. The goal, Hellmund said, is to offer a platform that does more than tell the story of what happened financially but rather provides guidance for what needs to happen next.
“My main goal for Pharus is to make it a proactive insights platform instead of a reactive insights platform,” he said. “We're giving you what you don't know you need.”
Hellmund has additional goals outside of Pharus that have come about because of MMM. One is to grow awareness of the program in his home country and other Latin American markets.
Hellmund said he never heard of the MMM program before a friend told him about it. He recently joined the MMM marketing team to help ensure no one else from Venezuela who is looking for an opportunity like he was can say the same thing in the future.
“Few people there know what MMM is, let alone how amazing it is,” he said. “I don't have enough fingers to tell you how many people told me that if they knew MMM existed, they would have applied.”
Hellmund said he is happy to give back to MMM because he is thankful it gave him a place to mold his future
“I am a person of creative ideas,” he said. “MMM is a space for me to share those ideas and be heard and actually find people to support those ideas.”