Fostering community and career growth

For Hussam Bachour (MS ’16, MBA ’17), Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business offered more than just a pathway to success, it offered a home away from home. Quinlan’s comprehensive curriculum, supportive community, and extensive network of alumni and industry partners provided Bachour with the tools he needed build a successful career in healthcare supply chain management.

Choosing supply chain management

Bachour first enrolled in Loyola’s MBA and MS in Supply Chain Management dual degree program after immigrating to Chicago from Syria in 2013. He had earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration back home in Damascus, and was drawn in to the interdisciplinary nature of supply chain management. “Business is where all the sciences intersect––it’s a melting pot of so many disciplines,” he said. “I was drawn in to how we can use mathematics and other sciences to make decisions that can impact operations and the supply chain in general.”

Loyola’s dual degree program provided Bachour with an opportunity to develop focused expertise in supply chain management while also enhancing his broader knowledge of key business principles. “The MBA gave me a breadth of knowledge, from accounting to finance to marketing,” Bachour said. “At the same time, the MS gave me the depth of knowledge in the two main areas my career is built on, which is supply chain management and information systems.”

The Loyola advantage

As an international student, Bachour quickly felt at home at Loyola. “One of the first things I noticed as a student was how much you can sense the positive culture and the care that the faculty and staff have for students,” he said. “Likewise, the student body is very intellectually curious and mission-driven, and they want to build community.”

Bachour took advantage of numerous opportunities to network and gain practical professional experience. This included his work with Quinlan’s Supply Chain and Sustainability Center, where he participated in an initiative that partnered with World Business Chicago to improve truck permitting and routing in the Chicagoland area. “Being in Chicago and being part of Loyola’s network, I had opportunities early on to gain experience and test my skills before actually joining the workforce after graduation,” he said.

Pursuing success

Since graduating, Bachour has pursued a successful career working in healthcare supply chain management. His resume includes roles at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Northwestern Medicine, and Medline, where he currently works as the director of supply chain technology. He credits his Loyola connections for allowing him to get his foot in the door: “My entry into the industry was highly influenced by the support I received from Loyola, the strength of my education, and Loyola’s reputations and relationships.”

Even now, Bachour maintains close ties to the Loyola community. He worked as an adjunct instructor at Loyola from 2017 to 2022 before taking a break to focus on his new role at Medline. He hopes to return to teaching in the near future. “As a professional, teaching helps me think about problems I see at work differently and gives me a broader perspective,” he said. “It has also made me think even more highly of Loyola and its community. Going from being a student to a professor and still seeing the same mission and the same values has made my relationship with the community even stronger.”

Learn more about Loyola’s MBA/Master in Supply Chain Management dual degree program. Contact our Graduate & Professional Admission team with questions.