2018 Best MBAs: Hosanna Odhner, Yale SOM - Poets&Quants

Hosanna Odhner

Yale School of Management

“Physicist turned MBA, passionately solving problems using science and business to positively impact people’s lives.”

Age: 27

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

Fun fact about yourself: I couldn’t read till age 11.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Bryn Mawr College, BA in Physics

Where did you work before enrolling in business school? The Vanguard Group: first as an Investment Specialist, then Investment Consultant, and finally International Reporting and Data Analysis Administrator

Where did you intern during the summer of 2017? Medtronic in Boston, Mass.

Where will you be working after graduation? Medtronic as a Product Manager in their Surgical Robotics division

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• Forté Fellow for Women in Business
• Graduating top of my class
• Collaborated with Yale SOM game theory professor to redesign our bidding system for classes
• Led design team with Design for America at the Center for Innovation, Engineering, and Design at Yale College to redesign the children’s play space at a local homeless shelter
• Served as teaching assistant for eight different classes and a tutor for six more
• Admissions Ambassador
• Career Advisor
• Member for Academic Affairs Committee
• Club membership: Design+Innovation, Women in Management, Social Impact Lab, Net Impact, SOM Voices

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I’m most proud of my work on redesigning the bidding system for Yale SOM elective courses. Like many business schools, Yale uses an auction system to match students to classes. As avid believers in the power of the free market, we would expect this to be an elegant and efficient way to capture consumer preferences and allocate the scarce resource of classroom seats. But going through the process as a first-year, it became abundantly clear that the auction was causing enormous stress, anxiety, and frustration throughout the student body. Friendships were damaged by bidding strategies. The idea that something as relatively trivial as class selection was hurting our community made my blood boil.

So I approached our deans with a proposal to redesign it. After teaming up with our resident expert in game theory, Professor Jidong Zhou, I fully embraced Yale’s approach to integrated curriculum. Drawing on Design Thinking methodology from our Design+Innovation club, employing market design and best response theory from our Competitor class, and adding a dash of behavioral psychology from Behavioral Economics, I came up with a list of recommended changes to improve not just the efficiency of the auction, but more important, the user experience. With enthusiastic support from the administration, the changes were implemented the very next year. While we’ll only know the full effects of my work after the auction ends in April, the initial results are very promising. I feel incredibly lucky to have created a lasting impact that affects all current and future Yale SOM students.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? In my second year at my old company, morale was pretty low in my department. We were chronically overworked, and attrition was through the roof. So I decided to do something about it. I convinced management to let me try a pilot program focused on employee development and engagement. I chose six people to do monthly self-development days, where they got a reprieve from their daily grind to focus on improving themselves professionally. Honestly, it was far from a revolutionary idea. But I took pride in two things about it: one, I was able to convince an extremely risk-averse management team during a very busy time to allow me to try this experiment; and two, that my first and foremost priority throughout the process was protecting my team to give them the freedom to explore. More than once, I had to defend the project to senior leaders, and I took a lot of heat about how I was running it. But I had a responsibility to my team, and I wasn’t about to let them down. And it paid off. In a time of dropping employee engagement, it was one of the few projects that helped increase morale.

Why did you choose this business school? The most important part of Yale SOM to me is the mission: Educating Leaders for Business and Society. Before business school, I firmly believed that doing the “right thing” in business (good treatment of employees, honesty and transparency with customers, environmental responsibility, etc.) was not just the decent thing to do, it was the strategically smart thing to do. I felt in my gut that what was good for the world was also good for business. But I lacked the rigor and knowledge to back up my theory. When looking at business schools, I wanted a place that viewed business not as a vehicle of ROI, but as a way to create value—to be a place that believes that rather than firms existing to make profits, they make profits to exist. And that’s what I found here at Yale.

What is your best piece of advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? The generic (but very true) advice is be yourself. If you try to be who you think the admissions office “wants you to be,” you’ll sound like every other applicant. So be yourself. Trust me, you’ll be much more interesting.

The practical piece of advice is, if at all possible, get former MBAs to look at your resume. My first week at business school taught me that I had no idea how to write a proper resume. Thank goodness Yale Admissions was able to see the value in the mediocrity, because I did a terrible job of highlighting it for them.

What was your biggest regret in business school? I don’t believe in regrets. To regret something implies an assumption of a counterfactual, an alternate reality, where things turned out better than they did in real life. You never know what would have happened, and there’s no reason to assume it would have been a happier story than the one you ended up with. Learn from your mistakes, and then move on and be grateful for where you are. You never know how things could have turned out for the worse.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I’ve met a lot of interesting people at SOM, but Michael Spencer takes the cake. Raised on a remote farm in Montana, he then moved to Kenya for half a decade, where he fully embraced entrepreneurship, adventure, and, most of all, knowing himself. Over the past two years, I’ve been surprised at the power of FOMO and peer signaling to make me second-guess my decisions. In my experience with Michael, I’ve been amazed at his unassuming and confident ability to resist herd mentality. Michael has a level of self-awareness, openness, and ability to forge his own path that I truly admire and aspire to, and I feel very lucky to call him a friend.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? I didn’t pursue business in college. I was actually far down the path to pursuing a PhD in physics—I’d done four research fellowships, and had several published papers under my belt. But the same thing that drew me to physics eventually led me to business: the exhilaration of applying knowledge and understanding in real-world settings to improve people’s lives. So I guess I have my high school physics teacher to thank for inspiring me with the power of applied knowledge.

“If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be…a PhD in quantum optics. Or a PhD in behavioral economics and positive psychology. (Let’s face it, I’ll probably end up in a PhD program eventually.).”

What are the top two items on your bucket list?

1. Become a mentor to younger business leaders
2. Write a well-researched book that’s accessible to wide audiences

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? That’s the girl whose insatiable desire to learn is only matched by her enthusiasm to meaningfully help others.

What would your theme song be? “Everything You Didn’t Do” by British jazz artist Jamie Cullum—a song about how the possibilities in life are always before you, ready to be explored.

Favorite vacation spot: Any place where I can visit a friend or family member and explore a bit of the world.

Hobbies? My true passion is learning new things, so throughout the years I’ve dabbled in everything from pottery to debating to skydiving. I’m a bit of a serial hobbyist. My current interests include powerlifting and hiking, but my lifelong passion is blues dancing. I’ve traveled from Philadelphia to Denver to Boston to dance with hundreds of different people. I will always be grateful for such a welcoming and loving community.

What made Hosanna such an invaluable addition to the class of 2018?

“Hosanna Odhner is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, having earned a BA in physics there. She is an outstanding scholar who has earned more high honors grades in the Yale SOM core curriculum than any other student. Her outstanding academic performance is truly remarkable, given the rigor and demands of the program. She will be named our student marshal for the MBA program for this year’s commencement due to her outstanding scholarship.

Hosanna has also dedicated herself to improving the student experience for her classmates, engaging in an extensive independent study focused on applying economic theory to the course-bidding system. Her work improved the system and produced better outcomes for students. She also served as an outstanding teaching assistant, and her participation in her courses lifted the level of the classroom discussion. Hosanna also engaged in cross-disciplinary pursuits, serving as the Yale SOM liaison to the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design. Her dedication to engagement across academic disciplines greatly adds to the university learning environment. She has been the recipient of a research fellowship from the National Science Foundation and is a Forté Foundation Fellow. Hosanna has chosen to join Medtronic after she completes her degree.”

Sherilyn Scully
Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Life

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2018 Best MBAs: Christine Chen, Yale SOM - Poets&Quants

Christine Chen

Yale School of Management

“Passionate about gender equity, human capital strategy, and the art of cooking (and eating) dumplings.”

Age: 30

Hometown: Honolulu, Hawaii

Fun fact about yourself: I’m dancing with Lenny Kravitz in one of his music videos.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Wellesley College, BA in Neuroscience

Where did you work before enrolling in business school? (List Company and Role)

• Oliver Wyman, Campus Recruiter—Inclusion & Diversity Lead
• KIPP NYC, Recruitment Manager
• Public Prep, Staff and Student Recruitment Associate
• Muchin College Prep (a Noble Street Charter School) through Teach for America, High School Performing Arts and Reading Teacher

Where did you intern during the summer of 2017? Deloitte Consulting LLP, Chicago

Where will you be working after graduation? Deloitte Consulting LLP, Senior Consultant in Human Capital

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: (Include school awards and honors)

• Student Government Co-Vice President
• Class of 2018 Student Life Chair (elected position in Student Government, two consecutive years)
• Co-Chair, PeriodCon 2018
• Human Capital Club Co-Leader
• Class of 2018 Student Fundraising Chair for Internship Fund (an annual student-led campaign to raise funds for classmates pursuing social sector internships)
• Student Orientation Leader
• Admissions Interviewer

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? PeriodCon at Yale SOM. Yennie Lee (SOM ’18) and I met as learning team members, and in between problem sets and group projects, we had informal conversations about the everyday challenges surrounding menstruation. We quickly realized that as members of the Yale SOM community, we are in a unique position that enables us to bring together the best minds, innovators, activists, practitioners, and business leaders in order to bring light to a lot of issues surrounding this topic. It’s quite unbelievable that we still live in a world where getting your period might mean losing your right to an education or falling victim to sexual violence in unsafe sanitary spaces. Our conference brought together more than 120 attendees (including those who do not menstruate, like men) from the university, non-profit, and for-profit sector from the nearby community and faraway (we had panelists from Uganda!). The conference also featured prominent leaders in the industry such as Jennifer Weiss-Wolf (author of Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity) and brands such as Diva International Inc., Boxed.com, and Thinx. We also used our conference as a platform to put together a pad and tampon drive for local non-profits dedicated to supporting homelessness in New Haven—we donated more than 5,000 pads and tampons!

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Straight out of college, I was a high school teacher at a charter school in Chicago through the Teach for America program. Nothing can prepare a fresh graduate for an experience like teaching, especially in an inner-city school, but every day with my students was such a humbling experience. One of my 350 students, Dorcas, was a sophomore when I started teaching her. It wasn’t until I left teaching a year later that I found out she had been accepted into my alma mater, Wellesley College, and was planning to enroll. We kept in touch (and had a couple of pizza dinners and movie nights) and now she’s a teacher in her own classroom through Teach for America in Baltimore. She started this past fall, and I bought her a Wellesley pennant for her classroom, just like the one I had in my classroom a little over eight years ago! She, along with all of my students, continue to make me proud every day.

What was your favorite MBA Course? Business Ethics, taught by Jason Dana. A discussion-based class, Business Ethnics was my favorite class because it helped me find my personal code of ethics as a future manager and leader. Prior to the class, I thought it was so easy to point out what the “right” or “wrong” thing to do is, but the discussions really pushed me to understand others’ code of ethics and where they come from. Real world problems don’t simply have “right” or “wrong” answers—there is a ton of grey area.

Why did you choose this business school? Something magical happens when you step into Evans Hall, Yale School of Management’s dedicated building on campus. Everyone in that building is family, and they know you and you know them, because we are a community that cares so much about each other. Transitioning from a small, liberal arts, all-women’s college, I knew I needed this type of environment to thrive. I also chose SOM because it is one of the youngest of the top business schools. This means that as an individual, I have the power to start something new, perhaps a new initiative or event, that could change the course of the school or the lives of my classmates. You can’t find an opportunity like that at any other top business school.

What is your best piece advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? Don’t focus too much on the numbers. Yes, test scores and GPA—that’s all important, but it’s not your whole application. I was (and still am) a pretty mediocre test taker, and I was obsessed with my GMAT score. After multiple attempts to raise my score, I finally decided to focus on other parts of my application, especially the parts that were still in my control—the essay and short answers. We have a website that lists so many students (Admissions Ambassadors) who signed up to talk to prospective students and tell them more about our amazing school. Take advantage of that and think about what you bring to the school, the opportunities SOM will provide for you, and, together, the remarkable amount of impact you will achieve.

What is the biggest myth about your school? That everyone goes into non-profit work. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized I was more of the majority, as someone who found that many classmates also came from the non-profit education sector. But, our school is actually very diverse; in fact, consulting and banking are probably the most popular career tracks for SOM students after graduating.

What was your biggest regret in business school? Not signing up for wine class—a class we take very seriously, which meets once a week.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I admire every single one of my classmates, but there’s one that truly stands out for me. Her name is Tarini Mohan, a fellow Wellesley College sibling, and an inspiration to more than just me. She was in a horrible accident a few years ago while doing non-profit work in Africa, causing major damage to her brain. Even though she is still recovering, she has the drive, determination, and charisma to ask the tough questions in class, bring classmates together in small group settings, and just be goofy and fun when we all need a break from the fast-paced business-school life. She pushes me to think of access, equity, and inclusivity, especially in my leadership roles, more than I would have prior to being her friend and classmate.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? I decided to pursue business school after college, more specifically during my time at Public Prep as a Student and Staff Recruitment Associate. One of my managers at the time, Alex Steele, was one of the only people I knew with an MBA, and she was such a great manager, always pushing me to do better and fighting for what she believed was right for our students in her role as the Director of Operations.

“If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be…auditioning for Broadway musicals—it’s been a lifelong dream of mine to sing on Broadway. (This is what happens when you’re named after the main character in Phantom of the Opera.).”

If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience? I’d dedicate more formal time and resources toward connecting the student body to the staff in the building. Evans Hall is such a tightly knit community, and it would be great to have some time to sit down and chat with staff members who work so hard in many ways to support our learning. Their smiles and “hellos” when I enter the building each day really make an impact, especially when I have three project deadlines looming over my head and back-to-back meetings.

What are the top two items on your bucket list?

1) I’d like to start my own all-girls school focusing on empowerment and self-confidence.

2) If I can’t get Oprah to help me with #1, I’d like to just meet her—maybe even give her a hug if I can.

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? “She knew how to get things done. And get them done well.”

What is your favorite movie about business? It’s not a movie, but I love Shark Tank. I started watching it more after taking some Entrepreneurship classes at SOM. I learned that to start a business, you have to give it your all: quit your job, take out loans, and take risks. I also learned that there’s always a problem to solve—those people on that show are my heroes!

What would your theme song be? “Dancing Queen” by ABBA

Favorite vacation spot:

Home with my family in Honolulu

Hobbies? Singing with my SOM band, perfecting my dumpling recipe and teaching it to others, watching an embarrassing amount of Law & Order SVU

What made Christine such an invaluable addition to the class of 2018?

“Christine Chen is the vice president of the SOM student government and the student life chair. She exemplifies the very best in our student body, volunteering for such demanding, pivotal leadership positions. She serves as a role model for all students in her caring commitment to the varied perspectives of the student body.

Prior to her graduate work, Christine’s professional career has been dedicated to assisting organizations with mentoring, performance management, and diversity and inclusion goals. Her early career focused on education, beginning with her work with Teach For America and continuing in leadership roles in charter schools located in urban areas. Christine is a mission-driven individual, and Yale SOM greatly benefitted from her commitment to the projects that speak to her caring mission. She has dedicated herself to bettering the school community, serving on multiple committees to help elevate the school experience for her classmates. In one of her many leadership roles, Christine served as an orientation leader and volunteered to serve as a mentor to the entire incoming class for the ensuing academic year. She has been extraordinarily effective in educating her classmates on positive student activities that lead to well-being, taking on very significant student experiences. Her dedication to promoting healthy, inclusive extracurricular school programming has benefited everyone in the larger school community. Her selfless dedication to assisting others achieve a supportive, positive experience is pivotal to the holistic school experience, and defines Christine. She has accepted a role at Deloitte Consulting after graduation.”

Sherilyn Scully
Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Life

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2018 Best MBAs: Heather A. Harrison, Yale SOM - Poets&Quants

Heather A. Harrison

Yale School of Management

“I am deeply passionate about paying forward the wonderful opportunities I’ve been granted in life.”

Age: 30

Hometown: Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee

Fun fact about yourself: I love camping and hiking in national parks!

Undergraduate School and Degree: BS in Business Administration, University of Tennessee

Where did you work before enrolling in business school?

Tennessee Valley Authority (Federal Power Utility in Knoxville and Chattanooga, TN):

• 4 Internships throughout undergrad (Fuels team, IT and Enterprise Risk Management)
• 5 years – Enterprise Risk Management (Risk Analyst)
• 5 years – Structuring & Portfolio Management (Energy Marketing Strategist)

Salt River Project (State Power Utility in Phoenix, AZ):

• 2 years – Market Risk Management (Sr. Financial Analyst)

Where did you intern during the summer of 2017? McKinsey, Stamford, CT

Where will you be working after graduation? I will be an associate with McKinsey in their Stamford, CT office.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

Summary: I have resolved to make my time at SOM impactful, and in that spirit, I have pursued a number of leadership roles over the last two years. This has included serving for two years as an elected cohort representative to our student government; currently serving as the student government vice president; volunteering to lead a consulting case team; working with the Academic Affairs and Student Life office as a student consultant; putting together and instructing a number of training workshops for my peers; assisting with four classes (including a trip abroad to India) as a TA and two more as a course tutor; heading the commencement committee; and volunteering to lead a group of new students in my “4037 family.”

Role Descriptions:

1. Student Government Vice President – As a VP in Student Government, I have had the honor of working closely with the deans and student and faculty leadership to promote a respectful and supportive culture that is distinctly SOM. I have been able to spearhead a number of initiatives, including leading our commencement committee, co-sponsoring a committee to evaluate the fair representation of one-year degree programs, and kickstarting working groups that are re-evaluating SOM’s technology offerings, including calendaring and the IT portal.
2. Student Government Cohort Representative – In my role as cohort representative, I worked with students, the administration, and faculty members at SOM to help create a positive learning environment and fun social experience for my peers. I also worked each week on producing a newsletter that was customized for the 70 people I represented and encouraged their participation in our community.
3. Excel Tutor – I volunteered to host a tutoring session for my peers who had little experience with the program. When more than 70 people attended the workshop, I became a formal tutor offering classes in this area. I hosted five or six additional workshops throughout the year for both students and the administration that were designed to help advance their analytical skills and structure.
4. Student Consultant to AASL – I worked extensively with Yale SOM’s office of Academic Affairs and Student Life to help them revamp their orientation scheduling tool, creating a model that could generate the schedule in a variety of forms designed for different audiences (partners, students, staff).
5. Designed a “Job Prep Training” Series – Worked with the administration and students to coordinate a three-part training series designed to help my peers prepare for their professional endeavors. This included an Excel course that I taught, as well as PowerPoint and “masterful meetings” sessions. The series was well attended and well received, and is being planned again for 2018.
6. Teaching Assistant – I was a teaching assistant for Power and Politics, Freakonomics and the International Experience India trip, as well as a head teaching assistant for Modeling Managerial Decisions. Throughout this time, I kept a list of suggestions on how to improve the TA process, and upon completing my first teaching assistantship, I worked with the Academic Affairs committee and AASL to help integrate my lessons learned into more formal standards for TAs. (This process continues to be refined.)
7. Designing a Stress Reduction Workshop – I have been working with Professor Sarah Biggerstaff and Rebecca Udler, Director of Academic Affairs & Student Life, to design a workshop that will ease the transition into grad school and create a greater sense of community among new students at SOM.
8. Course Tutor – I tutored multiple students in Competitor and Investor, meeting with small groups twice a week to help them better grasp the course concepts.
9. Case Team Leader – After interning at McKinsey this summer, I made it my goal to help other SOM’ers attain their dream jobs by volunteering to be a Case Team Leader for the Consulting Club. This has been a wonderful way to “pay it forward,” as my case team leader had done for me.
10. 4037 Family Leader – I volunteered to help mentor first-year students as a 4037 family leader. I answered questions, met them all when they arrived in New Haven, and planned events to help bring the group together and create a sense of community within our group.

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? My time in Student Government has, by far, been the richest part of my SOM experience. The opportunity to reach out to our population and help them make their visions a reality has been truly humbling. I love to solve problems and to help other people, and this opportunity has allowed me to serve my community in that capacity. I feel truly honored to have been allowed to help lead this organization and to impact change at the highest levels at the Yale School of Management.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? At the outset of my career, I worked with a team to completely revamp the Enterprise Risk Management program at Tennessee Valley Authority. From the ground up, our team and leadership built a new process for risk capture and assessment, and forged relationships with stakeholders across the company at the same time. This allowed me to work with senior leadership in a variety of capacities, and to learn and think critically about the company’s greatest challenges. In my time there, we collected and catalogued hundreds of risks, developing a more rigorous framework for risk-informed decision-making and mitigation planning.

What was your favorite MBA Course? At Yale SOM, we have a course on Interpersonal Dynamics that encourages us to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” In a small group, we explore our interactions with true honesty and deep introspection. Building this skill has helped me appreciate that while we’re all striving to excel in our environment, the deeper humanity that connects us can often be found in our failures. I strongly believe now that our biggest growth comes from our failures, rather than our successes, and that by normalizing and discussing failure, we create connection and trust. I try harder now to be open about the things that are difficult for me and when I need help. In this way, I believe that we can create better opportunities for collaboration and when appropriate, more informed risk-taking.

Why did you choose this business school? I had the opportunity to tour and consider a variety of programs before I selected Yale SOM. My background made me nervous about my ability to fit in and feel at home. When I finally had the opportunity to visit the school, I was thrilled to find that it was the kind of place where people truly cared about making the experience better for those that came after them—a core value that I share. I knew in that moment that it was the place for me.

What is your best piece advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? At SOM, we strive to help those around us and that come after us, while maintaining a sense of true community. The people you meet here are your friends and your network, not your competition. Think deeply about the value that you can bring to those around you, as well as what you hope to take away from your time here. Be intentional in the way that you plan this experience by taking enthusiastic responsibility for creating what you wish to see.

What is the biggest myth about your school? I was very nervous that I wouldn’t fit in. I am from a small, rural town and was the first in my nuclear family to finish college, which I attended at a state school. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my peers and that they would have all “trained their whole lives” to be in a place like Yale.

In fact, my experience was so substantially different. The people that I have met here are humble, kind, and come from all walks of life. I have been truly lucky to have had my perspective refined by the diverse and immensely caring group of people that I have met at SOM. The truth is that if you work hard and are willing to pour your heart into your goals, there’s little you can’t accomplish here.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I very much look up to my friend Ruirui Kuang, who goes out of her way to help others and to foster inclusivity in our community. She has put together numerous dinners (open to all who sign up) at her home, has a brilliant mind in the classroom, and is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. Her kindness and intellect have a unique way of making people feel at ease with her almost immediately.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? My fiancé was an endless source of support in my decision to go back to business school. Five years ago, I never would have envisioned this future for myself. Truly, what I needed was to be told that this was possible for me. He was relentlessly encouraging, even when I felt that I was way out of my depth. He empowered me to take control of my future and to be proactive in creating the life and career I wanted for myself. Without him, it is extremely unlikely that I would have found the confidence to work through this process.

“If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be…in the energy field, probably pursuing a career in energy trading.

If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience? I would make the courtyard at our school dog-friendly for the day so that students could take a break and relieve their stress with their classmates’ furry friends!

What are the top two items on your bucket list?

1. Hike Machu Picchu in Peru
2. See the Northern Lights

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? I hope that they will think of me as someone who enriched their time at SOM and who they can always reach out to and count on in the future.

What is your favorite movie about business? Office Space—always keep an eye on your stapler!

What would your theme song be? “Suddenly I See” – KT Tunstall

Favorite vacation spot: New Orleans

Hobbies? Traveling, dancing, hiking, puzzles, playing with my Goldendoodle

What made Heather such an invaluable addition to the class of 2018?

“Heather Harrison is distinguished by her leadership and selfless dedication to the school and larger community. Heather serves as a role model for all students in her caring commitment to the varied perspectives of the student body. She serves as the vice president of the SOM student government and also as cohort representative. She has volunteered her time to coach students to improve analytical skills, offering multiple workshops each academic year. Her dedication to volunteer in assisting her classmates to thrive in their coursework speaks to her commitment to the success of her peers.

Heather has also participated in the coordination of an additional workshop series designed to assist her classmates to prepare for their next professional engagement. She has served as a teaching assistant in four courses and has improved the effectiveness of the training for teaching assistants. Heather has also served as a tutor, a case team leader, and an active participant in many school-wide committees. Her interest in improving the academic and co-curricular experience for all students is boundless. Heather has had profound impact on the holistic student experience, as her classmates have greatly benefited gaining new skills and insights through her efforts. She has also committed herself to designing stress-reduction programming for new students as they enter managerial education. Heather has also been devoted to the larger community, serving the needs of diverse and divergent populations. She has raised funds for the Colon Cancer Alliance and worked with victims of youth trafficking. She designed and launched a summit on igniting cultural change as a component of her summer internship. Her selfless dedication to assisting others achieve their goals and maximize their unique potential defines Heather.”

Sherilyn Scully

Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Life

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2018 Best MBAs: Billy Marks, Yale SOM - Poets&Quants

Billy Marks

Yale School of Management

“Sun Sag, Rising Libra (i.e., whimsical, idealistic, easygoing, curious, gregarious, restless, cheerful, rebellious, and relationship-oriented).”

Age: 29

Hometown: Newburyport, MA

Fun fact about yourself: I helped write and publish three budget travel guides on Paris, Rome and Florence while in college (shameless plug for Let’s Go travel guides)

Undergraduate School and Degree: Harvard College, A.B. in Romance Languages & Literatures (Post-Colonial French and Spanish Literature)

Where did you work before enrolling in business school? I worked at J.P. Morgan as a Senior Associate in the Antitrust Compliance department. As a small team of three, my co-worker, manager and I designed, implemented, and managed global risk prevention and reduction programs affecting the 250,000 employees worldwide in all 300-plus businesses at the bank.

Where did you intern during the summer of 2017? I split my summer between Boston, MA and Antigua, Guatemala, with Adelante Shoe Co., an awesome seed-stage ethical fashion brand that’s pioneering a new living-wage methodology for economic development in Central America. I joined the team as a full-on team member, doing everything and anything—updating our financial statements, helping take cool Insta photos of my new kicks, devising guerrilla sales strategies, helping prep for our angel round. My time with Adelante culminated in a week in Tepoztlán, Mexico, where I joined the CEO for a week-long intensive program to kick off the company’s acceptance to the Agora Partnerships social-impact accelerator program.

Where will you be working after graduation? Not sure where yet, but I’m passionate about combining my general management degree with principles of design thinking to problems of environmental stewardship, conservation, and sustainability. I want to help organizations—private, public, and nonprofit—develop more sustainable systems of production, consumption, and infrastructure, and hope to galvanize creative energy toward this end.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

– Student Orientation Leader

– Out Of Office (SOM’s LGBTQ Affinity Group) Co-leader

– Yale Business of Legal Cannabis Conference Co-founder

– Yale GreenLight Facilitator (where I co-facilitate design thinking workshops to develop creative solutions to client problems at the intersection of business and the environment)

– Career Advisor

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I’m really proud of the advocacy and outreach work that my Out Of Office team has done this year. Each year the LGBTQ affinity group puts on skit shows that showcase different workplace scenarios to bring to light issues that LGBTQ individuals face on a daily basis. This year we also partnered with Student Government to host an “Ask Me Anything” panel, where audience members could ask anonymous questions about the queer experience. At both events, we had really engaged audiences, who asked intentional and purposeful questions about how they can be better allies and how they can learn more about the queer community. I’m proud because it demonstrates both the hard work of my teammates in putting on such great events, and also the community that we as students have fostered to create such open spaces for tough dialogue.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? I am most proud of the Yale Business of Legal Cannabis Conference, which I recently co-organized with a fellow classmate and close friend, Connie Lee (SOM ’18). We are both interested in cannabis for many reasons, including the impact of the War on Drugs in communities of color, the growing concerns about environmental impacts, and the proliferation of innovative products and services in this emerging industry. Yet we were surprised to find that management professionals outside of the industry rarely have sound knowledge or appreciation of the opportunities and challenges present in the business of legal cannabis.

The more we delved into this topic, the more we felt inspired to organize an event which would provide a holistic overview of the cannabis space, its history and its potential futures, as well as focus attention on key issues of social equity as cannabis moves further into the mainstream. As a first-of-its-kind conference, it was a lot of work creating the vision and getting it off the ground, but we received really positive feedback from our speakers, the attendees, and our fellow classmates, who found the conversations educational, informative, and inspiring. I want to work in sticky, intersectional spaces, pushing businesses and leaders to have tough conversations and confront the realities of how we can make the world a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable place. Hosting this conference was a big step for me in starting toward that mission.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Amy Wrzesniewski. While I had maybe three hours of class with her tops, I have found that she has left an indelible mark on me and the student body here at SOM. While she might not outwardly state it, I believe that her learning objective for students here is to first and foremost truly understand themselves, and then to make professional decisions (whether leadership-based, team-oriented or career-related) with this in mind to optimize for impact, happiness, and success. You can tell she’s been very thoughtful about the design of one of our cornerstone courses, Managing Groups & Teams, and the subsequent learning teams we work in. But more than that, her words of wisdom related to career choices have been passed down from generation to generation of SOM students and still stick with me as I think about my next steps: Don’t get on the first shiny cruise ship you see; wait for that cool, unique catamaran.

Why did you choose this business school? I was truly persuaded to come to SOM when a fellow admit passionately yelled at me during the big welcome weekend dance party that I “absolutely must come here!” (It was Christine Chen, a fellow P&Q “Best & Brightest.” Sorry, Christine!). In all honesty, I came to SOM because of the passionately supportive people like Christine. SOM’ers care deeply about their peers and their peers’ endeavors, regardless of what they might be. I felt that SOM was a place where I could come find my true north and be supported at every step along the way.

What is your best piece advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? BE. YOUR. SELF. The SOM community is a truly authentic one. I’ve never been in a quasi-personal/quasi-professional environment where I have so naturally been able to live my truth, and I think that SOM students, staff and faculty are able to sniff out inauthenticity, and just want you to thrive as you. Remove the, “Oh, well I should say this to get into b-school.” No! Get rid of the person you should be and focus on the person you want to be.

What is the biggest myth about your school? I was told the pizza here is amazing. And it is, don’t get me wrong! But honestly, I still stop by my late-night 99-cent place on 43rd and 8th when I’m in New York, because you can’t beat $1 New York pizza.

What was your biggest regret in business school? Not taking more time to explore outside of SOM and Yale. We are, as a community, so framed by to-do lists, job hunting, making “impact,” that we forget to take time to breathe and explore the cool things Connecticut has to offer—hikes, art, and architecture.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? There are so many SOM students whom I admire, but one that quickly comes to mind is my learning teammate Natalia Ariza. Natalia came to business school to really challenge herself and grow. Not ever thinking she would end up in business school, let alone at a place like Yale, she at times felt like an imposter. But despite personal and professional challenges, she kept an amazingly optimistic perspective, looked so many of her fears straight in the eye and treated every challenge as an opportunity. I sincerely admire her grit, tenacity, and self-awareness, and can’t wait to see where she goes in life.

“If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be… the classical clarinet player my inner orchestra geek always wanted to be.”

If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience? I would build in more opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to engage with each other in playful, creative, and connective ways. I was originally impressed by Evans Hall, our beautiful and impressive glass building, but I’ve come to find it overly formal at times. Without a lot of comfortable, generative spaces to encourage genuine, non-school related conversations to happen, I would install sleep pods and lounge furniture in ways that disrupt the usual flow of everyone and encourage people to congregate in a relaxing way.

What are the top two items on your bucket list? Road-tripping through the United States to see all the natural beauty this land has to offer and learning to scuba dive and seeing the Great Barrier Reef before it’s gone forever.

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? As a compassionate and empathetic listener.

What is your favorite movie about business? A childhood favorite and cult classic: Empire Records (1995). Renée Zellweger, Liv Tyler, and their fellow cast members remind me that profit doesn’t always win and that community can hold you up, especially when you’re fighting for something that has a greater purpose. “Damn the man, save the empire!”

What would your theme song be? “Sorry Not Sorry” by Demi Lovato (It’s just such a confidence booster.)

Favorite vacation spot: The salty shores of Cape Cod.

Hobbies? Attempting to land some shoulder stands in yoga, meditating and drawing, trying out new vegan smoothie recipes, trying to grow a man bun, and obsessively telling my friends about their astrological signs.

What made Billy such an invaluable addition to the class of 2018?

“Billy Marks is a dedicated student leader at the Yale School of Management, cited by his peers as someone who goes above and beyond to provide guidance to his classmates. He was selected to be a Student Orientation Leader and helped to create and facilitate a new session during the program on Student Wellness. Many of the incoming students lauded him for always going out of his way, even on his busiest days, to answer any questions they had about career searches, leadership roles, or just life in general at SOM. Even after the Orientation program concluded, Billy continued to serve on working groups throughout the year, committed to enhancing topics particularly around diversity and inclusion. Billy is also a Career Advisor, Co-leader of the LGBT affinity group “Out of Office,” an Entrepreneurship Consultant with the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, and the co-founder of the Yale Business of Legal Cannabis Conference. In addition, Billy facilitates design thinking workshops for clients’ sustainability and environmental challenges through his work at Yale GreenLight. What distinguishes Billy is his authenticity and commitment to whatever project he is involved with, and the impact his projects have on our greater community.”

Rebecca Udler
Director of Academic Affairs & Student Life

The post 2018 Best MBAs: Billy Marks, Yale SOM appeared first on Poets&Quants.

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