Daniel Cortez 

Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management

“Lifelong learner with a passion for understanding how effective organizations lead their people to success.”

Hometown: San Antonio, Texas

Fun Fact About Yourself: During undergrad, I led a student-taught course on Russian Music History. It was a fun way to explore my interests in Russian history and classical music.

Undergraduate School and Major: Rice University, Latin American Studies and Policy Studies

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Deloitte Consulting, Consultant

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Instead of a single accomplishment, I am most proud of my ability to forge a lasting relationship with a client. Towards the end of my first year at Deloitte, I began new project building reports as part of an HR information system implementation. As is typical of most roles for younger consultants, my role had low visibility to the client or project leadership. However, I managed to perform well and build trust with the client and my manager. Rather than move to a new project, I was asked to stay and lead system testing. From there, they gave me responsibility for training users to use the new HR information system. By the end of the second year, the client personally requested that I oversee organizational change management for a separate project implementing a new payroll system. Ultimately, the relationship I built with the client and my track record of success helped Deloitte sell new work and establish itself as the client’s preferred partner for large-scale HR transformation projects.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? Authentic. Every Owen student I have interacted with comes across as genuine and comfortable with who they are.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? Business schools stick to buzzwords when marketing their programs: “collaborative”, “transformative”, “entrepreneurial”. You hear them so often that they lose their meaning. So, when I heard about Dean Eric Johnson’s commitment to “personal scale” at Vanderbilt, my first instinct was to be dismissive. However, after visiting the campus and getting to know students and alumni, I became convinced he was onto something.

More than any other program I considered; Owen inspired confidence that I would have the school’s full attention while I pursued my MBA. At every step of the application process, I was blown away by the level of personal attention I received from students and faculty. During one of my visits, I had lunch with several current students and professors. The conversation was engaging, and I was impressed that everyone took a genuine interest in getting to know me despite the fact that I had not yet applied to the school.  At Owen, I will attend a business school that operates on a personal scale while offering the resources of a large, elite research university.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school? The Turner Family Center for Social Ventures is a huge draw for me. It is a student-led organization focused on driving social change through market forces and entrepreneurship.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process?  have a hard time answering questions about my long-term plans. It’s not that I don’t have goals or a roadmap for the future. In fact, I tend to be an obsessive planner. Rather, I have found that many of my best career moves occurred when I least expected them. It is important to have a guidepost. However, I like to remain flexible and open to new opportunities.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? My undergraduate degree is in Latin American Studies and Policy Studies, not business. While I wouldn’t change anything about the past, I recognize that a solid foundation in core business principles will help me succeed in the future. Additionally, my experience at Deloitte was focused on supporting HR technology projects. While this gave me a technical skillset and helped me learn about HR functions at large organizations, I want to take a step back and think about business on a holistic level.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? University of Texas (McCombs) & Duke (Fuqua)

How did you determine your fit at various schools? The primary factors I used to determine which business schools to apply to were location, culture, and career opportunities. My goal is to stay in Texas or the Southeast, so it was important to me that the programs I applied to have strong ties to the region. Cultural fit was equally important. I wanted to be in an environment where I would feel encouraged to take risks, expand my worldview, and build meaningful relationships. Finally, my interest in human capital pushed me to focus on business schools with a strong focus on talent management. Owen happens to excel at all three factors.

One word of advice I would give to prospective students: avoid tunnel vision when it comes to rankings. Like most people, I started my search by combing through rankings from various sources. This was useful up to a certain point. While it helped me narrow down a list of schools, it quickly became an obsession. Fortunately, an honest conversation with a manager at work helped me take a step back and shift my focus to the programs that best fit my goals.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? A few years ago, I went to Germany to visit several of my client’s worksites. I was responsible for demoing a new HR information system in an effort to convince workers that their data would be safe. Until this moment, most of my work took place in a corporate office in the United States. This was my first interaction with the people who would be impacted by the system we were implementing. During one of the meetings, the workers expressed their discomfort with the new system. Loudly. I could not understand why they were so worried. After the meeting ended, a worker representative explained that many of these people grew up in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall. They remembered how the government took advantage of workplace data to gather sensitive information about their people. It suddenly made sense why the workers were so concerned with who had access to their data.

This moment sticks out to me for many reasons. First, it reminded me that business doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I need to be mindful of how history, culture, and politics shape the business environment. Second, it forced me to think deeply about how the decisions made in a corporate office have real-world implications for workers in faraway places. Finally, it reinforced my interest in talent management. The process of navigating workplace change with workers is exciting and something I look forward to in my career.

Where do you see yourself in ten years? At the moment, I see myself in a position of leadership over an organization’s HR department. We are living in a moment of constant disruption. Increased automatization, rapid technology adoption, and a changing political and cultural environment are transforming the workplace. Businesses need to adapt if they hope to be successful in the future. I want to help organizations and workers manage this change. That being said, I always strive to be flexible and open to opportunities as they arise.