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24 Buffalo Business Autumn 2021 As a student, the technical side of cybersecurity came naturally for Aaron Fiebelkorn, BS '15, MBA '17. But he realized there were other areas where he could grow. "When people would bring me a project they'd done or come to me with a problem, I'd give a lot of corrective feed- back instead of being an active listener and understanding," he says. "I wanted to focus on the skill sets that would make me better for myself and for others." So he enrolled in LeaderCORE, the School of Management's exclusive lead- ership certification program that bridges the gap between academic learning and the workplace. Today, Fiebelkorn is a cybersecurity governance analyst at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in Washington. There, he puts his LeaderCORE skills to work, serving as a translator of sorts between the cybersecu- rity pros and government administration. "I noticed there was a huge gap with one side not understanding the business needs and the other not understanding technical terms," he says. "So I wanted to be in the middle, where I could understand the technical requirements while making sure we're getting what we really need." In just four years since graduation, Fiebelkorn has led big improvements at CISA. Aer recognizing a training need for the engineers who moved to leadership roles, he developed an employee engagement program that helped them succeed, while also increasing retention of the cybersecurity profes- sionals who worked for them. He's also made a remarkable impact on CISA's hiring process. Aer assembling a team to implement strategies to retain the staff they had and attract more, they analyzed and optimized the organization's recruiting pipeline to reduce onboarding time by 100 days—a key metric to reduce hiring attrition. Fiebelkorn is just one of more than 400 UB MBA alums who have graduated with LeaderCORE certification since its launch in 2011. In the 10 years since, the program has garnered high praise from students, alumni, employers and the educa- tional industry—including winning the MBA Roundtable Innovator Award in 2012. LeaderCORE spans the entire two years of the UB MBA experience and focuses on 10 core competencies considered vital by the business community for effective performance By Kevin Manne REFLECTING, LEARNING, GROWING Fiebelkorn On the 10th anniversary of LeaderCORE, its graduates are making an impact Alumni Impact ™