Meet the Vanderbilt Owen MBA Class of 2018

Bennet Hayes

Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Calculated risk-taker who believes in combining data with human insights to drive decision-making.

Hometown: Boston, MA

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have run across the Grand Canyon.

Undergraduate School and Major:

Georgetown University, Economics

Northwestern University, Master of Science in Journalism

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Professional Poker Player

Marketing Manager, Rent Like A Champion

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest accomplishment was finding consistency as a poker professional in an industry that is known for its volatility and unpredictability. One of my strengths as a poker player was my ability to orient effort and energy towards the process and away from results, which led to a month-to-month level of consistency most professional poker players (even successful ones) struggle to find. This levelness not only allowed my mom to sleep better at night (really!), but it also became a fundamental element of my identity as a poker player.

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants? I would urge applicants to be as reflective as possible at every stage of the process. It’s easy to be modest or difficult on yourself when self-evaluating, but to be successful in the application process, you have to reflect on your personal and professional experiences in a way that allows you to find the value and variety of your contributions. Taking the time to understand and analyze those past experiences before you begin the application process will give you a great head start.

I believe that I have significantly improved in recognizing the value and relatability of my professional experiences by the end of the entire application process, but I wish it had happened sooner. The quicker an applicant can reach this point of awareness, the stronger his or her personality and uniqueness will shine through in essays, applications, and interviews.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? Culture is a buzzword around MBA programs, but I recognized Vanderbilt Business as a place that possessed a real and profound sense of community. Everyone I met at Vanderbilt seemed genuinely interested in me and my potential fit at the school, which is something I can’t say about every school I visited. Those relationships proved extremely important to me when it came time to make a decision.

Relatedly, the small class size (and at no sacrifice to the variety of the educational experience) was extremely attractive. There’s little doubt that the small class size is partially responsible for the development of Vanderbilt’s close-knit community. I see a smaller class size as a chance for me to find leadership opportunities during my time in the program. It’s obviously important that the ultimate output of an MBA degree comes to fruition – getting a job – but I also wanted to make sure that I attended a program where I could make an impact during my two years on campus.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? I’m looking for a position that allows me to problem-solve across functional areas of a business. My ideal job would enable me to contextualize the analytical abilities I cultivated as a poker player within the business knowledge I’m now acquiring as a Vanderbilt student. Variety in the function and scope of projects would also be an attractive element.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? That I was invested in the growth of us all – as both individuals and a community – on a daily basis.