The COVID-19 outbreak is what initially brought Robert Foery to the Executive Master
of Business Administration program in the Davis College of Business and Technology
at Jacksonville University. 
In a time when people were isolating, he was drawn to the EMBA program because classes met in person instead of virtually.
“When COVID hit and travel stopped, I wanted to maximize the in-person experience. The Davis College provided an excellent curriculum plus a cohort-based learning environment,” he said.
Foery, who earned his EMBA in 2023, is the director of public sales at LaunchDarkly, where he’s building and leading a sales organization for a venture capital-funded software product company. LaunchDarkly recently earned a spot on Forbes magazine’s Top 100 Private Cloud Companies for 2024.
He began working at LaunchDarkly in May and immediately applied what he learned in the classroom to his new position.
“As part of the interview process for my current company, I was asked to build and present a strategic plan to triple the public sector sales bookings within 30 months,” Foery said. “It was both fun and rewarding to draw from JU’s Corporate Strategy and Research class to build this plan.”
Foery said the best part of the EMBA program for him was learning with his diverse and multi-talented cohort.
“The ability to engage and learn with people with wide-ranging backgrounds and experiences gave me an amazing perspective,” he said. “Our cohort meets periodically throughout the year, and it’s fun to see how people are growing and thriving because of the Davis College EMBA program.”
He said all the Davis College faculty members played a positive role in his EMBA experience; however, Dr. Douglas Johansen’s Global Marketplace course, coupled with the international EMBA trip to Portugal, was something he would never forget.
“The opportunity to meet face-to-face with the central bank of Portugal and learn how its policies shape employment and prosperity was better than any lecture, and the ability to consult and guide a local IT company making a U.S. market entry went beyond any case study we did,” Foery said.
The international business trip prompted him to start a consulting company, First Coast Management Group, which focuses on technology implementation, operations, and go-to-market consulting services.
“The EMBA program gave me the confidence and motivation to share our knowledge and experiences to help small-to-medium-sized companies be more successful,” he said.
