Ben Dogonniuck ’26
MBA
Ben Dogonniuck got his professional start running operations for a mining company, while also working as a logistics officer in the National Guard. A military deployment in 2023 motivated him to think bigger about his career.
“I got to do logistics full-time for about nine months, and that was what sparked me to step away from doing operations management, where I was wearing steel-toed boots, hard hat and a safety vest every day,” he says.
He wanted to pivot to logistics, supply chain and business management, and LeBow felt like the natural fit.
“I have friends and family who went to Drexel and who had fantastic things to say about the school and the culture here,” he says. “I’d seen the students that come out of that school, the cloth they are cut from, and I knew that was the kind of program I would want to be in.”
Dogonniuck made a career leap while still working toward his MBA, taking on a new role as a project manager with international freight forwarder dfYOUNG. As part of the defense team there, he coordinates efforts to ship military equipment, largely to overseas destinations.
Sometimes that involves coordinating the physical movement of goods; other times, it means acting as the customer liaison. That variety of responsibilities calls for a broad mix of skills. “You can have three or four different accounts that you’re helping with at any given time, so organization is really important, and you need strong communications, especially on the customer-facing portions.”
The rigors of the LeBow MBA program have sharpened his skills in both of these areas, while at the same time broadening and deepening his understanding of business fundamentals.
“Part of getting the MBA was learning how to talk about the basics of financials and operations, as well as about management efficiencies and change leadership,” he says. “Those are the kinds of topics you hit in your first two or three quarters of the program.”
In mastering that material, Dogonniuck was also able to fine-tune his career focus. “Did I want to be an investment banker, or did I want to get into accounting?” he recalls asking before ultimately choosing a concentration in supply chain management and logistics.
As an active military member, he got significant support at LeBow. “Even from the moment I was looking at applying, the Drexel Veterans Association reached out to me and made resources available,” he says. The DVA helped him hit the ground running as a grad student and later played an instrumental role in his landing his role at dfYOUNG.
Through the DVA, Dogonniuck got connected with the Philadelphia Union League Veterans Fellowship, a program that pairs veterans with mentors for career development. His mentor would later become his boss after an internship opportunitiy at dfYOUNG turned into a full-time offer.
Looking ahead, Dogonniuck has his eye on future career growth, and the LeBow MBA “just generally sets me up for success.”
“I did a lot of introspection through the program, trying to learn what it means not just get an MBA, but to be an MBA,” he says. “I feel much more empowered now to own everything that I do, both at work and in my military career.”
“I want to be more than just a project manager one day: I want to manage more people and bigger teams. I want to be in a boardroom, and I already feel confident about making the big decisions.”