Want to rise through a corporation? Learn to think like an entrepreneur.

Startups aren’t the only place where an entrepreneurial mindset is a gamechanger. Just ask Kareem AlMutaa, who moved to Canada from Cairo, Egypt in 2009 after completing an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Kareem works for nVent, a $2.1B multinational manufacturer of engineering products, as Sales Engineer, Canada on the nVent Lenton line of concrete reinforcement products. Last year, while enrolled in the MEIE, he applied what he was learning in the program to dramatically accelerate his rise through the company.

The impact was widespread. He increased revenue for his product line by 200% and won nVent’s President's Award for Sales Excellence by performing in the top 2% of the enterprise. For his final MEIE project, Kareem generated a solution to a problem with an existing nVent product that attracted the attention of the president and is now in the development pipeline. He was also promoted to Regional Manager, Canada. But most of all, he became a go-to guy for his supervisors. “People trust me,” he says. “They know my ideas are reliable.”

What happened in the MEIE program that amplified his skills? “I learned how to really listen to what customers are saying. Unless you fully understand what they care about, you can’t deliver a solution.”

Kareem points out that in a large corporation, proposals are generally approved by C-level executives and directors who focus on increasing yields. In the face of this pressure, Kareem finds that applying the tools from the MEIE makes him more effective and less stressed. “The entrepreneurial mindset really calmed me down,” he says. “You can lay back and be strategic. Everything falls into place.”