From Tough Mudder to IoT, UVA Darden Alumna Reflects on Impact of General Management Education and Expertise

Just three months into Nicole Puhl’s (MBA ’16) role with Lehman Brothers — her first after graduating from college in 2008 — “the bottom fell out of the financial market,” Puhl recalled. In front of an audience of Darden students, faculty and staff as a Career Center Leadership Speaker, Puhl reflected on the path to her current role as senior director of strategic services at Hach, a Danaher-owned subsidiary.

Day Trading and Digital Marketing: More Similar Than It May Seem

Weathering the 2008 financial crisis was one part of Puhl’s career journey that prompted her to pivot into a new industry and role. While working out one day, Puhl heard friends discussing a military-style obstacle race — the very first “Tough Mudder” race. When Puhl went to sign up, the event was already sold out.

“I thought, ‘They must be on to something,’” Puhl said. So she researched the new company, sent the founders an email to introduce herself, and eventually joined Tough Mudder as its eighth employee and media director. At the time, Facebook was just beginning to host digital advertising campaigns and video content, so Puhl became involved in rolling out both of those new capabilities on behalf of Tough Mudder.

“Buying digital ads in 2011 looked a lot like the way you would day trade,” said Puhl, drawing on her investment sales and trading experience. And, “digital ads were the primary way we got people out to [Tough Mudder] events.”

Once she scaled Tough Mudder’s digital marketing strategy, Puhl then wanted to help scale its merchandising efforts.

“The average Ironman participant buys $1,000 of merch at events,” Puhl noted. “We wanted to capture a fraction of that, so we started partnerships with Under Armor and others, which were responsible for growing our merchandizing business.”

Taking Time for Self-Reflection Sparks a Passion for General Management

After a handful of years with the growing startup, Puhl took time off from the job market with the eventual aim of heading to business school.

“I was truly burnt out,” said Puhl, who was working most weekends to help produce Tough Mudder events. “I was having trouble progressing in the startup world, and mentors told me to highly specialize when I liked doing a bit of everything.”

So Puhl traveled and hiked, became a yoga instructor, studied for the GMAT, and ultimately, was accepted and began at Darden.

“I really reflected on what I wanted to do,” Puhl recalled from her time at Darden. “I got grounded in the types of problems I was interested in solving from a macro level. I studied economics, so I knew I wanted to solve problems that were meaningful.”

She found Danaher through a sponsored case competition and completed a First Year internship with the firm. The experience “checked a lot of boxes” for Puhl; Danaher encouraged her to be the “jack of all trades”, which she identified as one of her strongest skills.

After graduating from Darden, Puhl joined Danaher full-time at the firm’s subsidiary company Hach, which develops water quality instrumentation. She felt connected to the complex problems Hach seeks to solve — problems like protecting the water supply and ensuring that businesses and people have safe, efficient access to clean water.

Puhl began in Danaher’s General Management Development Program, which helps students navigate different functional roles, with the ultimate goal of placing them in a management or general manager position. The focus on these various functions and skillsets across Danaher’s operations, marketing, development and service has been an important aspect of Puhl’s post-Darden journey.

‘Accumulate Skillsets, Not Just Achievements’

Puhl soon gained expertise in roles with increasing responsibility at Hach — she started as a product manager, then became a business unit manager and director for Hach’s software solutions, and now serves in a senior director role. She encouraged Darden students to not fixate on one role in their immediate futures and to reflect on the more distant future, instead.

“I knew the next two to three roles that could look like a win for me, and could socialize that with my managers, mentors and career coaches,” said Puhl. “That helped the organization find options for me. The ability to articulate what ‘good’ looks like for you will serve you well.”

Darden’s case method approach also helped Puhl gains skills in clear, persuasive communication. To Puhl and other managers she has encountered, the success of employees at any level of an organization can be measured by their communication skills and performance during meetings.

“Accumulate skillsets, not just achievements,” Puhl continued, “You have to ask, ‘How does this role challenge me in a way I haven’t had exposure to before?’”

Drawing on the Darden Classroom Experience to Lead Data Science Transformations

After nearly two years in traditional product management, Puhl turned towards an Internet of Things [IoT] strategic initiative in Hach for her next career move.

“Given the product development work I did as a product manager, I understood the types and depth of data that Hach’s instruments could produce. I also saw where we were trying to take the business on our software and IoT journey and I said, ‘I get what we’re doing here. I want to be a part of that.’”

While at Darden, Puhl took Professor Casey Lichendahl’s “Data Science for Business” course and was able to apply that to her work at Hach and Danaher.

“Hach is pursuing the digital transformation that many industrial companies are — we want to predict when our instruments are going to fail so that we can proactively service and replace those instruments to create an unparalleled customer experience,” said Puhl. “It’s a really exciting time to be in this industry and feels like a once-in-a-career experience to help transform a 75-year-old instrumentation company into a services-based company.”

Hach’s focus on the digitization of water, optimizing treatment processes and protecting one of the world’s most precious resources resonates strongly with Puhl’s core values. Indeed, it’s why she launched a career in the water industry in the first place.