Katy McDonald ‘88: Opening Doors to Classical Music

Katy McDonald ‘88 (MBA) is an alumna of the University of San Diego School of Business who used her MBA degree to better serve the nonprofit world while pursuing an enduring passion for the arts. Currently, Katy is the chief of staff at the San Diego Symphony and has played an integral role in the development of The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, which just opened in early August.

What first brought you to the USD School of Business?

When I graduated from college, I got a job traveling as a leadership consultant for my sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma. When I finished that year on the road, they hired me to be a leadership consultant for the new chapter at USD. That’s when I learned that the USD School of Business had an MBA program that was perfect for me. 

Because of the smaller classes, I had great accessibility to my professors and I felt very comfortable there. They accepted my unusual path of switching from being a philosophy major to a graduate business student.

How has an MBA served you in your current position as chief of staff at the San Diego Symphony? 

It's interesting, I was a philosophy major and I spent a lot of time thinking about Plato, Aristotle and the polis. But, I realized that no one was going to pay me to hear my philosophy on cities. And so, I was driven to pursue business school to round out my liberal arts education and develop more functional skills. Now, I use my MBA degree every single day.

I often say that the first class students should take is accounting and the last class they should take is accounting. This highlights the importance of budgeting and how doing so allows you to run a successful business. It helps you structure your thoughts and consider expenses, revenues, allocation of resources and how to staff properly in order to run a successful business. All of that has been critical to my thinking and has helped me become a better manager.

Originally, I thought that if you go to business school, you have to work at a for-profit entity. But your career prospects aren’t actually that limited. I realized I could apply smart business thinking to better serve the nonprofit world and that knowledge has been vital to me throughout my career.

You’ve been busy working on opening the San Diego Symphony’s Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. Tell us more about that. 

The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park is a state-of-the-art concert venue that elevates the experience of live music and serves as a public center for all of San Diego. The dream of having a permanent outdoor venue for the San Diego Symphony has been on the agenda for over 20 years. 

One of the things that San Diego can do well is to have a permanent outdoor venue, something that can really be used 365 days per year. This is something I learned in business school — how do you take advantage of your greatest assets? How do you create your own special niche out there? This is what we’re doing with The Shell. 

How can the local community interact with The Shell?

85 percent of the time, The Shell will be open to the public as a park. 15 percent of the time, the Symphony can close our little gates and either charge people admission to come to a concert or it can be rented.

One idea we supported early on was having fewer barriers to entry for people to enjoy classical music. Being able to go to a rehearsal and listen to the Symphony is one of those experiences that could encourage more people to find a connection with classical music.

Additionally, we're working with a number of nearby organizations and neighborhoods like Barrio Logan to connect with the local community so that they feel like this is their neighborhood park. We also work with all kinds of community partners on a regular basis, such as school districts and social service organizations around town, to ensure a variety of engagement and educational opportunities.

What is one of your favorite memories from your time at the USD School of Business?

One of my favorite memories is serving as president of a company in a business simulation competition against eight or 10 different business schools. 

It was a case competition where a team of students acted as a company, so we had to make quarterly decisions on a regular basis. We had to learn how to analyze data and make product, pricing, marketing and operational decisions based on that data. In the beginning, we had lots of time to make decisions, and then, as the semester went along, the decision-making process got shorter and shorter until we were making decisions on an hourly basis.

Our USD team traveled to Reno, Nevada and won one of the major championships! We put all of our classroom learning into practice — I’ll never forget it! USD is a very special school that's doing great things for our city and I am very proud to be an alumna.

What is your advice for current USD students?

When I talk to young people now, I explain how we can never take our country or city for granted. And that we must all be as knowledgeable as we possibly can about how each of us can contribute to making a difference and making our communities a better place. 

They don't just exist out of nowhere — they exist because people care about their communities, they invest in them and they are committed to them. I think Institutional strength is critical going forward and that everybody needs to find a way to help strengthen the institutions in their community.