Some of our favorite MBAs of the year
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
Carl Sagan was the ultimate Poet and Quant. He poetically made scientific complexities understandable to the masses. Through his writings, he captured the human experience and what it means to be one in billions, yet connected through the space matter that our DNA and blood is made from.
We wrote about many unique MBAs this year — each different in their backgrounds and passions. This year some of our favorites are musicians, leaders in finance, and athletes. One has chosen to live out of her van and guide groups of women up some of the world’s highest peaks. Another is attempting to launch a rap career. And another is training to make the national Canadian rugby team for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Below is a list, in no order, of our favorite MBAs of 2017.
Ashley Lannquist (left) and Caitlyn Driehorst are the co-presidents of the Berkeley Haas FinTech Club, which was launched last fall. Photo by Jim Block for Berkeley-Haas
Ashley Lannquist and Caitlyn Driehorst, UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business
2017 saw financial technology (fintech) continue to sweep across B-school campuses. MBA programs across the world created fintech courses, specific tracks or concentrations, and student-run clubs. One of our favorites that we saw this year is the Haas FinTech Club at the University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business. Founded in 2016, it’s one of our favorites because it was founded by two women MBAs — Ashley Lannquist and Caitlyn Driehorst. Considering its roots in finance and technology — two of the bro-iest industries on the planet — we appreciate that the Haas club not only had two women co-founders, but at the time we published the article in March, was one of just four clubs at Haas with an all-women leadership team.
“About a fifth of the first-year full-time MBA class joined the FinTech Club within six months of its founding, putting it among our most popular new clubs in recent Haas history,” Bill Rindfuss, the club’s faculty sponsor, said in an article published by Berkeley Haas. “There’s a growing career interest in fintech among our students and we’re fortunate that the Bay Area is a hotbed for these jobs.”
Lannquist — a lifelong East Coaster — told us at the time of publication that the thought of creating a fintech club during her time in B-school was the big draw to move coasts. Driehorst, who had an early career in consulting, got interested in the industry after a stint in impact investing. For now, the two plan on continuing fintech leadership roles to establish a pipeline of women role models in the industry.
Clyde Kelly Atkins will earn his MBA from Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 2018. He’s also an accomplished hip-hop artist. Courtesy photo
Clyde Kelly Atkins, Wharton
Each year, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School enrolls close to 900 new MBAs. In the fall of 2016, they enrolled one who would produce two hip-hop albums within his first year of studying at Wharton. P&Q readers, allow us to re-introduce you to Clyde Kelly Atkins, who goes by Clyde Kelly while on stage. A former McKinsey analyst, Atkins says hip-hop music naturally speaks to MBAs and other business-minded individuals.
“I think people who identify as business people or entrepreneurs probably have an instinctive liking for hip-hop music,” Atkins told us last May. “Because I think it has that message of hustle and grit that those people like. It’s becoming more common.”
Atkins took the tragic, too-soon passing of his father and turned it into motivation and an outlet when he took a poetry class early in high school. “That’s where I first started to realize what it felt like to be inspired creatively and to use a creative outlet as a positive way to channel my emotions,” he said. What started as a hobby and thing to do with friends quickly turned into a passion while on the road traveling for McKinsey.
Atkins has a Spotify page, where his first album, Not Rich Yet, has millions of plays after being released a little more than a year ago.
“When a listener listens to it, I want them to feel simultaneously determined and feel like they have motivation, grit, and strength,” Atkins explains. “But I also want them to feel at-ease and OK with the fact that life has its ups and downs.”
Sunny Stroeer has a Harvard MBA, quit a high-paying job at Bain, and now lives on the road. Courtesy photo
Sunny Stroeer, Harvard Business School
Quick, think of a stereotypical Harvard Business School MBA. Now forget everything you just thought of and imagine a 32-year-old woman living out of a van with thousands of Instagram followers. That’s Suzanne “Sunny” Stroeer, who we wrote about last August. Stroeer, now a professional mountaineer and guide, graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA in 2011. At the end of 2015, Stroeer had quit her job as a consultant at Bain’s Houston office and set off solo in a Chevy Astro van with hundreds of thousand miles on it. She essentially traded the typical fast-cars-and-big-money consultant life to Jack Kerouac herself around the Southwestern U.S. Along the way, she learned a couple things about herself. First, that she could push her body harder than about 98% of the rest of the world. Second, she has a knack at getting others to do the same.
Not only has Stroeer run some of the country’s most prestigious ultra-marathons, she has found a specific skill set in high alpine mountaineering. At the begging of 2017, Stroeer took her second trip to Aconcagua in Argentina. Towering at nearly 23,00 feet, Aconcagua is the highest peak in the world outside of Asia. On January 23, Stroeer left the Plaza de Mulas base camp, some 8,501 feet below the summit of Aconcagua, and exactly eight hours and 47 minutes later she topped out — 29 minutes faster than any other woman had ever done.
Now Stroeer is combining her love for outdoor pursuits and adventures and lessons she learned at HBS. With a “home base” in Boulder, Colorado, Stroeer is running an expedition business for women. In October, she led a three-week climb up Mera Peak near Mount Everest. And just this month, she made a return trip to Aconcagua.
“The rat race is just that. It’s a rat race,” Stroeer told us last summer when asked if she’d ever consider returning to Bain or a similar more traditional job. “You can always make more money, but you don’t get more days in your life — it doesn’t matter how hard you try.”
Benjamin Fernandes, Stanford MBA ’17, is a television personality in his home country of Tanzania, where he has sports and youth talk shows. Courtesy photo
Benjamin Fernandes, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business
We certainly don’t know every student to be accepted to and attend Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (considering the 6% or so acceptance rate, the list isn’t too long), but it’s hard to imagine a more unlikely one than Benjamin Fernandes. The Tanzanian went to the University of Northwester-St. Paul, a small evangelical Christian college where about 70% of applicants get accepted, on academic probation. He graduated in four years with good grades, but bombed the GMAT. Still, a professor recommended him applying to the business schools at Stanford and Harvard immediately after graduating from undergrad. Fernandes told us in April, that he didn’t even know what an MBA was at the time, but applied anyway. He was waitlisted at both Harvard and Stanford before eventually getting rejected at both schools. But the seed was planted.
Fernandes returned home to Tanzania and revved up to apply during the next application cycle. His goal? Not only get accepted to Stanford’s GSB, but get the Africa MBA Fellowship, which gives full tuition to eight African citizens out of the 2,600 or so that apply from around the massive continent. On a December day in 2014, Fernandes got a call from Derrick Bolton, the former dean of admissions at Stanford GSB. Before the call dropped, Fernandes learned he had bee accepted to the GSB. When Bolton called back about 20 minutes later, he informed him he would also be attending Stanford for free as the youngest ever Africa MBA Fellow.
“I was all in tears, my mom and dad and I were in tears and that right there was a very powerful moment that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life,” Fernandes recalled of the moment.
After graduating this past spring, Fernandes returned to Tanzania, where he wants to upend the financial system.
“Financial inclusion is a huge passion of mine,” Fernandes told us last April. “I believe in allowing people to access financial services, and I believe that’s especially important in a country like mine which is growing very fast, with a very youthful population. Today I’m the youngest guy in my class at GSB, 24 years old, and today I’m older than 70% of my country’s population. Sixty-six percent of 53 million people in my country are under the age of 24 — it’s a very youthful country.
“So I believe the next four or five years is going to be a transformational period for my country, especially in the workplace, especially in business and industry. This is an important, vital period that we’re going to come into very soon, and who’s going to be leading them for it? Most politicians are age 55-60, so I believe there is an opportunity for the young people, and that’s what I care about.”
Ema Pasic Reid, Tuck 2017, came to the U.S. with her parents as a 6-year-old refugee from the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Courtesy photo
Ema Pasic Reid, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business
This year’s political — and societal — rhetoric and discourse has been charged. One of the most divisive topics has been immigration and the handling of refugees. That’s why Ema Pasic Reid decided to re-promote a 12-minute YouTube video of a Tuck Talk she gave to fellow students and faculty at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business in 2016.
“When we think of refugees, we often think of people in tattered clothes crossing our borders, or packed like sardines on a boat, because that’s all we see,” Reid says in the video. “We’re deeply suspect of their motivations and genuinely question what they’re doing here in our country, stealing our jobs. We often scorn, ‘Why don’t they just go back home?’ But as my story hopefully highlights, they don’t have a home to return to.
“And if they’re lucky enough to escape, and they find themselves here in the U.S., then to be honest we’re incredibly lucky to have them.”
At just age six, Reid’s family fled Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a siege lasting more than 1,400 days was taking place. The Bosnian War — the largest on European soil since World War II — resulted in the killing of hundreds of thousands, many of which were civilians, and the displacement of millions others, including Reid’s immediate family. Thanks to connections built during her father’s yearlong scholarship as a physician at the University of Louisville University Hospital, the family had a landing spot when they fled the violence.
Reid’s family is a primo example of the immigrant and refugee families that make this country better. Her father continues as a physician and Reid graduated this past spring with an MBA from Tuck.
“We were such a lucky, lucky family,” Reid told us last February, “and that’s what makes it so hard for me to talk about, because I harbor all of this internal guilt for being one of the people that was able to escape with my immediate family.”
Austin Webb. Courtesy photo
Austin Webb, Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business
At Poets&Quants, we appreciate the game-changers. Austin Webb is a game-changer. Or, at least, he attend B-school to become one. We first learned about Webb and his agriculture technology company, RoBotany, in the summer of 2016. We were working on an article based on more and more MBAs forgoing tradition summer internships between their first and second years to work on their own businesses. Over lunch near our headquarters in Oakland, California, David Mawhinney, the entrepreneurship guru at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business told us about the larger number of MBA students he was seeing “stick it to the man” for the summer. Webb was his current example.
A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Webb enrolled at Tepper specifically to “start a high growth company that solved a big, important problem,” he told us in his 2017 Best MBAs profile last May. He left his young career in investment banking to do just that. RoBotany is using software analytics and automated robots to change the farming industry. According to the company’s site, they produce “perfect, pure produce no matter the season or location,” using “smart indoor farms.” In half a year, Webb and team had built miniature prototype farm using their patent-pending technology, raised over half a million dollars in funding, and launched their produce brand, Pure Sky Farms, into Whole Foods. Grown in an “unadulterated” environment, the produce is pesticide and herbicide-free and uses 95% less water, according to Webb.
“Upon arriving at the Tepper School, Austin immediately established himself as a leader at Carnegie Mellon and the Tepper School by becoming the President of the University-wide Graduate Entrepreneurs Club,” Mawhinney told us last May. “But what impressed me the most about Austin is that during his first year when he entered our annual McGinnis Venture Competition with his startup RoBotany – an indoor vertical farming company powered by robots – and did not pass through to the second round because the idea was early and still forming, but instead of quitting or pivoting, he doubled down in his efforts and built a valuable growing company.”
Richa Gangopadhyay, MBA at Olin. Courtesy photo
Richa Gangopadhyay, Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School
Richa Gangopadhyay is a pure Michigander. Born in New Delhi, her family moved to Pittsburg and then Pennsylvania when Gangopadhyay was young. “I’m also a huge fan of the Red Wings, Pistons, and, of course, Eminem,” Gangopadhyay told us in March, giving shout-outs to Michigan’s professional hockey team, professional basketball team, and famed rapper, respectively. But that’s not what the majority of the world knows Gangopadhyay for.
In 2007, around the time Gangopadhyay enrolled at Michigan State University to study nutrition and dietetics, she won one of the oldest and most prestigious Indo-American competitions — the Miss India U.S.A. pageant. At 21, Gangopadhyay took a “sabbatical” from college and moved back to India to pursue a career in acting.
“Everyone thought I was crazy. My friends and family were definitely skeptical,” Gangopadhyay told us. “When it came to Indian cinema, there are 22 languages spoken in India and there are several big regional industries within the country. At the end of the day, I think my parents saw how determined I was about pursuing it, so they allowed me to give it a shot.”
But a shot with a caveat. Gangopadhyay had to move in with roommates to an apartment in Mumbai, take three months of acting classes, and land a big-time gig within a year, otherwise, she had to come home. She didn’t have to go home. Gangopadhyay landed gig after gig in commercials and modeling until she was cast for a big role in the movie, Leader. “I was famous overnight,” Gangopadhyay recalls. “One thing I was always very sure of was staying grounded. I was the same Richa that I was when I was back as a college student at Michigan State, maybe just more worldly-wise and mature.”
After becoming an award-winning actress for her work in Mayakkam Enna, and at the peak of her acting career, Gangopadhyay left it all to finish her undergraduate degree at Eastern Michigan University and eventually her MBA at Washington University in St. Louis’s Olin Business School. “I think my MBA degree is going to help me augment my business leadership and collaboration skills. In the long run, I want a career in the entertainment, media or sports sector,” she said.
Ani Haykuni will receive her Oxford Said MBA in September after a year in which she battled cancer and started her own foundation. Courtesy photo
Ani Haykuni, Oxford Saïd Business School
At age 30, Ani Haykuni was at a prime in life. She had been accepted at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. She was working a dream position at a nonprofit. And she spent a lot of her time going on hikes and enjoying the personal side of life. Then, in a flash, Haykuni was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. “When the doctors gave me their diagnosis, I asked two questions,” Ani recalled in August. “What are my chances of survival? Secondly, can you treat me within two months? Because I have to go to Oxford.”
The answers to both were not great. Oxford agreed to defer the admissions for a year. But the cancer was “very fast-spreading” and according to Haykuni, if untreated, she wouldn’t have much time left. Haykuni spent a year fighting the cancer. The first few months of the chemotherapy were rough. She’d go a week without being able to eat after a chemo treatment. But one thing she held closely to was her impending time at Oxford.
“When I would receive that email from the admission team or recruitment department, keeping me up to date about the program, it helped me a lot,” Haykuni said.
“I was telling myself, you’re not going to give up, you’re going to recover and you’re going to go to Oxford. You’re going to do what you wanted to do. You know, I had many goals. And that helped me a lot. It was one of the reasons I am alive. I think one who has goals, who reason to live, and passion to help others and create, that helps and it helped me a lot.”
In 2016, when the year was up, Haykuni still had the cancer in her. But she was well enough to pack up, move to the U.K. and attend and graduate the full-time MBA program at Oxford while continuing treatment. As Haykuni continues to battle the cancer, she doesn’t plan on slowing down. While at Oxford, her and a team of classmates established the Ani Haykuni Cancer Treatment Support Foundation, which provides financial and psychological support for cancer patients in Armenia, her home country.
The critic within: Columbia MBA Kim Gittleson disses her experience at the school
Kim Gittleson, Columbia Business School
Kim Gittleson is probably a least-favorite MBA of 2017 to a lot of people. On May 22, days after graduating with 787 other full-time MBAs from the Columbia Business School, a scathing essay she wrote about her experience and the school was published in Bloomberg. “An MBA Is Not All it Should Be” was published and set off a firestorm of angry internet comments, as did our feature on the essay.
“It’s graduation season in America and a good moment to admit an uncomfortable truth: Too many grads are walking across campus quads to accept an MBA. I should know — I’m one of them,” Gittleson penned in the opinion piece.
Among other things, Gittleson said as a whole, she thinks business schools “are failing to inculcate any real sense of direction or moral obligation in their students.” Gittleson said the core curriculum “lacks a core” and that “even the most dedicated students find it hard to acquire a substantial body of learning.” Plus, “sexism abounds,” she continued.
Of course, Gittleson’s review of the school is specific to her and her experiences — although she echoes what others say in a not-so-public setting. Still, we admire Gittleson’s bravery to publish a critique of not only Columbia Business School and business school in general. It has been a year of women speaking out where they used to remain silent and we appreciate Gittleson’s willingness to do so in the graduate business education space.
Moshe Cavalin. Courtesy photo.
Moshe Cavalin, Arizona State University W. P. Carey School of Business
Sure, there have of course been other teenage MBA students in the world. But Moshe Cavalin must be one of the most accomplished. Cavalin, who is enrolled at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business and aims to earn his MBA this coming spring was a 19-year-old when we wrote about him last March. He also had already interned at NASA and could fly a plane. Oh yeah, and the MBA will be his second graduate degree.
Cavalin, a Los Angeles native, enrolled in community college at 8. At 12, he transferred to UCLA. And by 16 — when most American teenagers are learning how to drive or worrying about prom — Cavalin had a degree in math from UCLA and enrolled in an online master’s program in cybersecurity at Brandeis University.
“It was a challenge when everyone was so much older than me,” Cavalin told us last spring. “But some of my closest friends today are people I met back in community college, who acted as big brothers and sisters. It started off as a bit of a joke, but they opened their minds to a young person being in a class with them, and now I prefer spending time with older people.”
Cavalin is the youngest person to ever enroll in the full-time MBA program at the Carey School and plans to enter tech when he graduates in 2018.
“I would love to stay in the aerospace and aviation field, but I’m open to any company that creates innovation and changes the way we see things,” he said.
“I’m interested in bridging the gap between technology and business — it’s the best of both worlds.”
Below are brief summaries of MBAs that made honorable mention for Our Favorite MBAs of 2017.
Wharton’s Dante Pearson goes from waitlister to class speaker. Courtesy photo
Dante Pearson, Wharton
Dante Pearson, who graduated from Wharton last year is the first of two graduation student speakers that caught our eye last year. Pearson, who was placed firmly on Wharton’s waitlist before being accepted to the school, gave a speech that revolved around the idea that life is “one big waitlist.”
“You worry about the avalanche, but it’s something else entirely that gets you,” Pearson explained in his speech. “I think this applies to us as well because most of us are managing career risk. In other words, the risk of failing professionally or financially. Meanwhile, we are wildly exposed to other risks. The risk that we didn’t tell our brother we loved him enough. Or, that we didn’t practice our faith to its fullest extent to see where it would take us. Or, that we never actually fought for someone else’s rights when we didn’t have skin in the game even though these are exactly the people we say we want to be. It’s never a particularly good time, so we wait.”
HBS Graduate Andrew Cone gave the student address at 2017 Class Day
Andrew Cone, Harvard Business School
Andrew Cone, who graduated from Harvard Business School last spring had one message for his fellow graduates at commencement: Speak out.
“Now is not the time to shy away from topics that make us uncomfortable,” Cone said. “Try to think of a time when you didn’t stand up for an idea or a person. Maybe it was yourself.” The reason, said Cole, was likely fear. “There are times we don’t speak up for fear of being redundant. The silent majority will carry the day. And we face no consequence. If we all remain silent on topics for which others will speak on our behalf there will come a day when no one does. It is better to engage imperfectly than abstain indefinitely.”
Cone, who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio spent much of his adolescence not saying much of anything to avoid being labeled by other teenagers. The way he said “S” prompted “people to label” him, he said. Some of Cone’s best moments at Harvard were when not only himself, but others spoke out.
“We must listen to those who speak up along side and against us,” he said during the speech. “We must embrace dissenters even when it seems inconvenient. We need to value the voices of our doubters as much as those of our champions.”
Katie and Colin Robertson began school at Carlson School of Management this fall after both left the military. Both are West Point grads an officers who were in combat — and both have a pair of Bronze Stars. Courtesy photo
Katie & Colin Robertson, University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management
Katie and Colin Robertson are the first of two MBA couples we’re featuring. After being married 11 years, the Robertsons enrolled in the full-time MBA program at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. At the time they took the GMAT and began the application process, the two had three children all under the age of four.
“Everybody here was great with working with my schedule and our schedule,” Katie said September. “It’s a whole family and everyone has been completely supportive.” Added Colin: “Just about the only challenge we faced was trying to balance both taking the GMAT and travel time and coming up for the in-person interviews, trying to work out the schedule for all that with the kids. Carlson was really supportive.”
Victoria and Oren Yunger on a trip to Belize. The Yungers began their MBA together at the Chicago Booth School of Business this fall. Courtesy photo
Victoria & Oren Yunger, Chicago Booth School of Business
Mission statements can be helpful. In the case of attending the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business as a married couple, it helped Victoria and Oren Yunger keep a focus as a married couple in an elite full-time MBA program. “Grow individually without growing apart,” was the mission.
“When I suggested the idea of getting an MBA to Victoria, she laughed it off,” Oren recalled last September. “She went to a few MBA panels and conferences as my partner, (but) because of her unusual background in fashion blogging and digital marketing, she felt that she did not fit the classic profile of MBAs. Victoria rejected my MBA idea, but I asked her to at least think about it.”
Victoria decided it could be the best option for her and obliged. The two applied to all M7 schools before eventually enrolling at Chicago Booth.
Dan Moor, an MBA at Oxford Saïd competing for the national Canadian rugby team in November 2017. Photo courtesy of Rugby Canada
Dan Moor, Oxford’s Saïd Business School
The typical MBA makes traveling while in B-school a priority. Trips for pleasure. Trips for business. Trips with classmates. Recruiting trips. Trips to visit family. The list goes on. And while Dan Moor probably made similar trips, his travel also included competing for Rugby Canada, his home country’s national Rugby team. It also included spars with the likes of the Maori All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team, photographed above.
In 2016, Dan Moor left his rare and prestigious private equity job at Toronto-based firm, Birch Hill Equity Partners to train full-time for the Canadian rugby team and enroll in the one-year MBA program at the Oxford Saïd Business School. ““It was really tough to go through the decision and leave my job,” Moor told us earlier this month. But what would it feel like to not pursue a dream he’s had since competing for Ottawa University? “It would have been like getting 100 meters from the summit and turning back,” Moor said.
So Moor spent his year at Oxford continuing to compete — both for the Canadian national team and Oxford in the annual Varsity Match against Cambridge. “Oxford is a special place,” Moor told us about making the decision to attend Oxford Saïd over the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “It has been the epicenter of Western thought for thousands of years.”
Upon graduation, Moor plans on signing with a U.K.-based professional rugby team and training and competing full-time to make the Canadian team for the 2019 World Cup.
Stanford MBA Anna Frances Wood has launched Brains Over Blonde
Anna Frances Wood, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business
Sometimes, our favorite topics and people to write about are the ones that will stir the pot. That’s exactly what happened when we featured Anna Frances Wood, an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, who started her own company, Brains over Blonde. The venture is a community-based internet platform to empower women through video and written content and one-to-one mentoring and coaching. Despite the deluge of comments — that called out everything from white privilege to what is “true” feminism — that ensued from our readers, Wood has some serious business and entrepreneurial chops. After graduating from the University of California-Berkeley in undergrad, she spent four years at Google where she grew and managed about $450 million as a strategic account manager. But even before that, she grew up in Palo Alto as a daughter of a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Stanford lecturer.
“Attractiveness is a double-edged sword,” Wood told us back in August. “Either you are beautiful or not beautiful enough. I was judged a lot. My capabilities were underestimated or credited to other things like my looks and I thought that was very unfair. That has become a societal norm.
“Even in business school we touched on the characteristics that make up a good leader. A lot of them are stereotypically male. I tried on these characteristics and they didn’t always fit. I learned that I am a much better leader when I am myself. I don’t think women should have to adapt to societal definitions of leadership or success.”
DON’T MISS: OUR MOST READ STORIES OF 2017 or 2017 EDITORS’ PICKS OF OUR FAVORITES
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