Meet the Vanderbilt Owen MBA Class of 2018

Carys Petrie

Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: An entrepreneurial thinker, committed to using business to tackle the world’s most pressing social problems.

Hometown: Inverness, Scotland.

Fun Fact About Yourself: I’ve traveled, worked, and lived in a total of 52 countries.

Undergraduate School and Major: The University of Glasgow, UK. Bachelor of Laws

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Founding member and Operations Director of WildHearts, a group of non-profit and social enterprises

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest accomplishment was growing WildHearts from a startup to one of the UK’s leading social enterprises – transforming 110,000 lives through microfinance in the developing world and entrepreneurship education domestically.

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants? This may be particularly tricky for international students, but if possible, take the time to visit the schools you are interested in. All of the top schools will give you a world-class education, but the true gift is the people you’ll be surrounded by for the next two years. Soak up the culture, have as many conversations as possible, observe how classmates interact with each other and with faculty, and choose somewhere you feel at home. If you can’t visit in person, set up Skype chats with current students, alumni, and admissions.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? I’m passionate about both social impact and entrepreneurship, so I was excited by the prospect of getting involved with the Turner Family Center for Social Ventures and Vanderbilt’s new Innovation Center. I’m also interested in exploring the intersection of corporate social responsibility and employee attraction and engagement, so I will be taking as many classes from Vanderbilt’s renowned Human Organizational Performance program as possible.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? I would love to be part of another social enterprise startup, particularly one focused on financial inclusion or business solutions to poverty. There are also some amazing companies using their resources and influence to create positive social impact; leading a CSR team at an organization like Deloitte or Microsoft would be an incredible opportunity to demonstrate that traditional business can be a force for good, too. 

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? That I helped them think about the role of business in society and how we can all influence our future employers – whatever the industry – to create social good as well as profit.