By Brittany Rogers

Above image by BYU Photo

Heather Nemelka opened the aperture of BYU's top-25 EMBA program.

As CEO of the Nemelka household (a.k.a. “Mom”), Heather Nemelka honed her skills in financial planning, project management, conflict arbitration—the list goes on. She just hadn’t honed them in the workforce.

Photo by Bradley Slade

As such, Nemelka did not fit the profile of a typical BYU MBA student when she applied in 2015—not having traditional work experience and having spent significant time outside the workforce.

No matter: Nemelka, now a graduate of BYU’s executive MBA (EMBA) program, has helped redefine it.

According to Treavor Peterson, managing director of BYU’s MBA programs, Nemelka was among the first to be admitted without the typical years of work experience. Yet Nemelka was so successful, embodying BYU’s educational and spiritual mission, that the EMBA program now accepts one or two applicants each year with similar backgrounds. “She has opened doors for a new group of people,” says Peterson.

And now she’s helping other women through those doors. In addition to working her post-MBA day job, Nemelka has cared for the women in her congregation as the Relief Society president and has launched a new startup, Elavare, focused on assisting moms hoping to return to employment.

“It’s not just about building skills,” says Nemelka. “It’s also about building confidence.”

She speaks from experience. Post-divorce, it took time for Nemelka to remember the ambitious kid she once was. “I wanted to be president of the United States,” says Nemelka. Her eye had always been on BYU, where she could “be surrounded by other students who loved the gospel and . . . professors who wanted us to feel the Spirit.”

“BYU was the fertile soil that allowed me to become who I am,” she says. She found belonging in the BYU Student Service Association. Nemelka knocked out her advertising degree quickly, expediting her education in order to join her husband in Pennsylvania. From there the couple moved to New York City, where Nemelka worked as an executive assistant to the CFO of Time Warner—that is, until she landed her dream job.

“I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom,” says Nemelka, a transition she made the moment she had her first of five children. “Being a mother is the most noble calling of all.”

She did rock a side hustle along the way. When the family moved back to Provo, Utah, Nemelka started flipping yard sale finds on eBay. Her biggest score: two antique wooden decoy fish used in ice fishing, which she bought for $1.50 and sold for $325. “After that, I was hooked,” says Nemelka, who reached PowerSeller status on eBay.

Her hobby came in handy when, following her divorce, Nemelka needed to find full-time employment to support her family. “I applied to so many jobs,” says Nemelka. “Nobody called me back.” The 18-year employment gap proved too wide.

Nemelka’s businessman brother helped her land an informational interview at KT Tape, a courtesy visit that she hoped would lead to introductions with other companies. Turns out all she needed was a foot in the door: the next day KT offered her a role as a marketing coordinator.

Each day was a sprint. “I remember sitting in meetings with a notebook, writing down all these acronyms I didn’t understand,” says Nemelka, who googled them all posthaste. But she quickly found traction; just a few months in, she was entrusted with huge projects, like executing a photoshoot with NBA star James Harden.

This with five kids, ages 9 to 18, at home.

As busy as she was, “I kept having the impression that I needed to do something more,” says Nemelka.

Her ears must have been burning. Her bishop had approached stake member Daniel Snow—the director of BYU MBA programs—with an idea: Nemelka with an MBA.

“She’d be a rock star,” Snow said in response. He’d known Nemelka since their freshman year at BYU—when they lived at Deseret Towers in 1989. But the invitation to apply was no favor. As a former instructor at Harvard, Wharton, and Oxford, Snow says he knows potential when he sees it, and he could sense that her strong spiritual commitments and professional excellence made her an ideal fit.

Photo by Bradley Slade

With encouragement, Nemelka applied and got . . . rejected.

“It just hadn’t been done before,” says Peterson; the career experience matriculating MBA students bring—from Wall Street to NASA—enriches the program for everyone. They asked Nemelka to get a full year at KT under her belt and try again. This time she made BYU MBA history.

Now they invite her back as a featured speaker. “She’s a great speaker, and she has a great story,” says Peterson. “We put her on stage as much as we can.” Nemelka tells BYU students about perseverance, about driving home some MBA class nights “banging the dashboard, crying, it was so hard.”

Her whole family, she says, picked up the slack at home. “My kids got to see their mother do hard things. They got to see my love for BYU. And they saw how much it changed me, how education can change your life and your trajectory.”

Not to mention the trajectory of others. “She was a pioneer for other women, like me,” says Amy Openshaw, a mother of six who gained admittance to the BYU EMBA program in Nemelka’s wake. “She began mentoring me before I got into the program.” Openshaw is impressed by what Nemelka does to support women through Elavare, teaching them how to build a résumé, a LinkedIn page, and more. “And she does this all because she cares.”

Today Nemelka is the global head of stakeholder relations at Spinnaker Support. Ever the enterpriser, Nemelka set—and notched—an income goal she once thought unfathomable. More important, she’s grown as a person. She’s grateful to be able to provide for her family as a single mother. And she sings the praises both of an MBA and of BYU. “I tell people all the time, an MBA will change your life,” she says. “BYU will change your life.”

BYU provides “a great education,” Nemelka says. “But what sets it apart is that . . . spiritual uplift, that impact to your testimony. . . . You go to BYU and your spirit is changed.”