Alumni Spotlight: How Jian Chen Turned His MUC MBA Into a $3M Business

From Classroom to Company

In 2019, Jian Chen was a mid-level logistics coordinator at a Vancouver import company, frustrated by the inefficiency of the tools he used every day and wondering if there was a smarter way. He enrolled in MUC's MBA programme with a vague notion of starting a business. He graduated two years later with a business plan, a co-founder, and a seed investor — all connections he made at MUC.

"The MBA gave me the frameworks," he says. "But more than that, it gave me the network, the mentorship, and the confidence to actually do it."

His company, RouteLogic, builds real-time freight optimization software for small and mid-size logistics operators in Atlantic Canada. In its fourth year of operation, it processes over $40 million in freight movements monthly and generates $3 million in annual recurring revenue.

The MUC Turning Point

Jian credits two specific things from his MUC MBA experience with making RouteLogic possible.

First, a supply chain strategy course taught by an industry practitioner with two decades of experience in Canadian logistics. "He had operated a company. He had seen things go wrong. The case studies were real and recent. That is a different kind of learning."

Second, the MBA capstone project — a live consulting engagement with an Atlantic Canadian SME. His team's engagement happened to be with a regional trucking company struggling with dispatch efficiency. The problem he solved in that project became RouteLogic's founding product.

Giving Back

Jian now sits on MUC's Business Advisory Council and has hired three MUC co-op students, two of whom have transitioned to full-time roles. He returns to campus each fall to speak to incoming MBA students.

"I tell them: the business you start does not have to be glamorous. Solve a real problem for real people. Fredericton taught me that."