Sonakshi Bahety

University of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business

“I am constantly striving to achieve excellence in my professional and personal endeavors.”

Age: 26

Hometown: Indore, India

Fun fact about yourself: I gave my first-ever dance performance on stage at the age of 2.5 years.

Undergraduate School and Degree: BBA Finance, NMIMS University (Mumbai, India)

Where did you work before enrolling in business school? Amrit Group, Finance & Strategy Manager; Indore, India

Where did you intern during the summer of 2017? Ecolab, Houston

Where will you be working after graduation? Finance Manager, Ecolab

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

Forte Foundation Fellow
Co-President, Notre Dame MBA Finance & Investments Club
Vice President, Notre Dame Net Impact Chapter
CFO, Notre Dame MBA Women in Business Club
MBA Student Mentor
Team Uganda Member and Teaching Assistant, Business on the Frontlines
Investment Analyst, Notre Dame Applied Investment Management Portfolio
Notre Dame MBA Board Fellow, Working with the board of Hannah’s House
Brogan Family Award Recipient
Beta Gamma Sigma

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? As a part of a team project, I had the opportunity to serve an NGO that builds schools in Uganda and travel to Africa. We were responsible to analyze their school construction process and competitive advantages. It was one of the most rewarding experiences and gave me the opportunity to interact with people involved in development work and education across the world. We were able to propose a recommendation that has the potential to impact education and lives of hundreds of children in Uganda, and it is something that gives me a lot of joy.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? While working as a Research Analyst at a brokerage house in India, I got the opportunity to teach a course at the company’s in-house training facility, which focused on enhancing financial literacy in India. I designed a curriculum for a course – Fundamentals of Currency Derivatives – and took the pilot class during my time there. The course was an optimum blend of theory and practical training and was successful in enhancing knowledge of the currency markets among the students. It is still taught at the institute, and I am grateful that I was able to pass on my knowledge and experience in a continuous and meaningful manner.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Professor. Viva Bartkus. She is one of the most inspiring, hard-working, passionate, and warm teachers that I have known. She is an exceptionally intelligent and talented professor, who is very invested in bringing out the best in her students.

What was your favorite MBA Course? Business on the Frontlines. It is a course that truly differentiates Mendoza from any other B-school. The biggest insight for me is understanding how the dynamism of business can be harnessed to prevent conflict and promote peace in post-conflict and poor communities across the world.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose Notre Dame because of the strength of its Finance curriculum in the MBA program, the small class size, the opportunity to participate and get involved in the community and develop strong relationships with the class and faculty, and the school’s focus on Asking More of Business.

What is your best piece advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? My advice would be to evaluate the goal of getting an MBA and understand how Notre Dame fits into the picture and be able to communicate that vision and the uniqueness of your own personality, cohesively throughout the application process.

What is the biggest myth about your school? Notre Dame MBA only has a strong finance program. I experienced that the program has several other strengths and offerings in the field of data analytics, marketing, and consulting.

What was your biggest regret in business school? I couldn’t spend a lot of time engaging in activities on the Notre Dame campus outside of the Mendoza College of Business.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? There are too many outstanding individuals in my class, who I admire for their intellect, empathy, and ability to build relationships. I have a deep admiration for the veterans in our MBA class, who are the kindest and most friendly individuals in the program.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? My father. I saw him build our family business from scratch and he has been my biggest inspiration to pursue business studies.

“If I hadn’t gone to business school, I would be…working for a start up in India.”

If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience? We have a variety of experiential learning classes, but I would add some more skill building classes for different career concentrations that’ll make the MBA students ready to roll on the first day of their jobs.

What are the top two items on your bucket list? Skydive in Mauritius, Spend a year in Norway

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? As a spirited and hardworking individual, and a kind friend.

What is your favorite movie about business? The Big Short. A key learning was the fact that timing is very important to be successful in business.

What would your theme song be? Kinare, Amit Trivedi

Favorite vacation spot: London

Hobbies? Love to dance, Travel with family

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

“I believe that Sonakshi has displayed the first rate intellect and creativity in problem solving, maturity and leadership among her colleagues, and the character, commitment, and compassion toward her teammates that the Poets & Quants program is looking for in MBAs.

To start, Sonakshi presents a truly unique combination of talents: creativity and pragmatism, leadership among her peers, and commitment to getting to the solution despite difficulties. As a retired former partner of McKinsey & Company, I can spot talent. I taught Sonakshi in two MBA courses at the University of Notre Dame. The first MBA class is a rigorous problem solving one that fosters judgment through the use of client cases from my own ten years of experience and research. Its emphasis is around diagnosing the problem from multiple symptoms, disaggregating the problem in to issues and then driving to practical solutions. Sonakshi thrived in such an environment. Both her individual and team’s solutions to a range of problems involving product launch and acquisition, major capital expenditures under conditions of uncertainty, and core microeconomics revealed tenacity in data gathering, subtle understanding of the main issues, and creativity in driving to solutions.

In addition to possessing a first rate mind, Sonakshi is also a natural leader. I assign the problem solving teams randomly, which inevitably results in a mix of strengths and weaknesses among team members. Sonakshi met the challenges within her team in her usual way – by acting as a quiet and trustworthy catalyst, bringing the best out of her teammates. From my observation, she accomplishes this in two ways: first, by asking insightful questions; and second, by patiently listening to her teammates to get to good ideas. Her team developed stronger answers as the term progressed, as Sonakshi took over its leadership.

Further, Sonakshi has the stamina needed to wrestle down even the toughest problems. Sonakshi led her team in market assessment, competitor profiling, and an analysis of the company’s capabilities in order to judge what sort of solution they could indeed implement. Under heavy questioning, Sonakshi withstood the questions and presented a compelling case for the recommendations.

Finally, what distinguished Sonakshi from the many other talented graduate students is her tremendous insight, maturity, and compassion to serve by asking more of business. Sonakshi also took my other class, “Business on the Frontlines,” which is dedicated to exploring the role of business in rebuilding war torn societies. In addition to course work on development economics, politics, and international relations, during which Sonakshi displayed her uniquely versatile grasp of diverse issues, the course requires an in-country service on a business and peace-related project with a local partner in Uganda. The project focused on building a construction business to build low cost, high quality rural elementary schools. Sonakshi naturally rose to the lead the team of five Notre Dame MBA students interviewing businessmen, civic and religious leaders, journalists, professors, and others on their unique perspectives on the possible development of such a construction business in Uganda with the World Bank as a major customer. Indeed, Sonakshi became my right hand; I depended on her organizational abilities to complete the project and the Uganda visit successfully, and make recommendations for business development for our partners in country.”

Viva Bartkus

Associate Professor

Department of Management

Mendoza College of Business

University of Notre Dame