Park Fellows Alumni Spotlight: Alex Green MBA ’12

By Shefe Garrett, MBA '25

Alex Green is a product manager at Apple, leading multiple product teams across domains such as workforce management software and employee engagement, education, and communication. Previously, he was the senior manager for retail technology product management and led the international expansion of Apple retail stores. Green sat down with Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow Shefe Garrett, MBA ’25, to discuss his career path and reflect on his time as a Park Fellow at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Can you tell us about your journey since leaving Johnson and how you have been creating an impact?

Alex: I interned at Apple during my MBA and returned full-time after graduating; I have been with the company since then, primarily in retail technology. At first, as a project manager, I was tasked with expanding Apple retail stores and entering new markets internationally. After transitioning to product management, I also became a people leader and oversaw the product managers who work on the retail technology that runs Apple retail stores worldwide.

The most impactful project was an early initiative— opening Apple’s first stores in Brazil, the company’s first in South America. I was quite junior in my career with the company, and this was an incredibly challenging market to enter. I had to learn how the organization works really well, as well as the cultural and legal expectations in the market. A lot of internal education and cross-functional collaboration was needed to achieve a strong definition of what we’re bringing to the market and how we present ourselves. We needed to communicate the standard Apple sets for customer experience and doing that wasn’t easy. After accomplishing this, I felt like I could tackle anything.

How would you describe your leadership style, and how did being a Park Fellow influence its development?

Alex: As a Park Fellow, I learned the concept of servant leadership, and Johnson provided the perfect environment to practice and experiment. I try my best to embody servant leadership in my work. I started at Apple as an individual contributor, and over time I have become a people manager. For me, my job is not just about making sure that we are just doing great work, but also about how we are going about it. I try to empower my teams to make independent decisions, to try and fail, and to diagnose and learn from that failure so we can do better going forward.

Collaboration is key at Apple; nothing gets done without support and buy-in from many partners. I reflect this on my teams; I want to hear from all voices, loud and quiet. I work to provide an environment where people are comfortable learning, trying, and trying again. I also emphasize diversity of thinking; my team works with both technical and non-technical individuals. Translating into different perspectives is how to get the best results. Diversity of thought is reflective of the diversity of our customer base. We do better and greater as a team.

What experience from the Park Program do you remember most fondly?

Alex: The Park Retreat! We spent a lot of time role-playing through various hypothetical situations that tested our leadership styles. I found it very inspiring to observe my peers and see the different ways that different types of people would tackle a challenging situation. I appreciated being in a face-to-face space with other Park Fellows and learning how they break down challenges. It’s inspiring to be in a group of people who want to deconstruct their mentality and become vulnerable enough to learn to be a better leader.

About Shefe Garrett, MBA ’25

Shefe Garrett is a first-year MBA candidate in the Two-Year MBA program at the Johnson School, where she is a Park Leadership Fellow and chair of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management at Johnson. Prior to business school she was a product manager at Service Titan, a B2B SaaS company, where she designed new features and led UX design to support residential and commercial service industry businesses. Garrett earned a BBA in management information systems from the University of Georgia in 2018.