Quandt ’76 Dispels Myths of Business World

Things are not always as they seem. Susan Quandt ’76 relays that sentiment in her book “Sudden Impact on the Job: Top Business Leaders Reveal the Secrets to Fast Success.”

Quandt, who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Valpo, worked in a variety of positions at Fortune 500 companies before “retiring” in 2000. She went on to create her own real estate development venture and founded the consulting firm The ROI2 Partnership while becoming an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

This past April, Quandt visited with several Valpo management, marketing and finance classes, before giving a public presentation at VU’s Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources.

“Besides the friendships, what I most cherish about my Valpo education is the commitment of the faculty, and because of the class sizes, the ability to interact with them and really learn,” Quandt said.

For her book, she interviewed 14 CEOs to learn what the executives thought they did well and what they might have done differently. The book shares those insights.

“The goal of the book is to help people who are starting new jobs, whether within their company or through having joined a new company, to be effective given the context of their job change,” Quandt said. “The book dispels many of the myths and helps those new on the job think through the aspects of their new circumstances and what issues others have confronted to be successful.”