MBAs To Watch: Class Of 2020

AN ENTREPRENEUR, A FARMER, AND A GEOLOGIST

Some MBAs To Watch served – others built. Nona Black once worked as a bouncer – a position requiring a mix of saintly patience and occasional roughness necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur. Although her early ventures struggled, she found her stride in Atlanta’s Tech Square – a short walk from where she’d ultimately pursue her MBA: Georgia Tech’s Scheller College. Here, Black helped build The Garage, an event venue that enabled her to learn from her past – and taste the fruits of her success.

“I don’t think I would be the person I am today without experiencing both failure and success. Failure taught me to be more cautious and strategic in my actions, but success taught me that I could both overcome failure and build something of which I could be proud.

Indeed, you’ll find this year’s MBAs To Watch hail from all walks of life. IMD features Cosima Suter, who is the attending physician at the Department of Hematology at the nearby University Hospital Zurich. In the Russian Far East, McGill University’s Anastasia Budaeva, a geologist by trade, would spend 10 months a year in terrain that would often hit -40…Celsius. Looking for a fish out of water story? Meet Lance Skiles – a man who isn’t afraid to work. After high school, he farmed from dawn-to-dark. Eventually, he left Indiana for California, working full-time while earning his Bachelor’s degree.

“While this experience was not easy, it is a key part of what prepared me for USC and a career at BCG,” he writes. “It’s not a traditional story, but I’m extremely proud of my journey and what I’ve accomplished.”

ACHIEVEMENTS YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE

At their core, the MBAs To Watch are builders. At JP Morgan, the University of Oxford’s Michael Philbin helped to launch and manage the firm’s Futures and Options US Treasury trading book, which he says has emerged as on the firm’s most profitable trading desks. Boston College’s James Gethings was responsible for developing the mobile banking credit card app for the Bank of Ireland UK. Before earning her MBA at the University of Rochester, Jazmine Carter was part of a select Southwest Airlines team that revamped the company’s uniforms and in-flight food and beverage program. Think that’s impressive? Check out the accomplishments racked up by INSEAD’s Bruh Ayele Terfie. Once Namibia’s highest-ranked high school he is now COO of Octagon Construction. Since his arrival, the company has quadrupled in size from 50 to 220 employees (along with quadrupling its revenue to $10 million Euros). At the same time, he has built over 150 kilometers of water and sanitation networks.

The Class of 2020 also possesses a flair for marketing. Growing up, Brittany Ouyang aspired to be a ballerina, studying at the San Francisco Ballet School until she was 18. Her credits feature over 200 performances (including The Nutcracker, of course). Ouyang’s artistic DNA was further on display in New York City. Striking up a partnership with famed designer Tanya Taylor, the U.C. Irvine MBA worked with the 100 Gates Project. The result: you’ll find Taylor’s prints on storefront roll-down gates across the Lower East Side and the West Village. The same is true for Rosemary Williamson’s work. Before Rotman, she ran the largest vehicle drive-away event for Fiat-Chrysler with its Pacifica Minivan. The event required her to orchestrate the movements of 230 minivans, replete with volunteers and police protection. In the end, the event generated over 6 million social media impressions.

“I’m proud of this achievement because I grew leading this initiative: I embraced my managerial and leadership skill sets to energize large groups and developed a better understanding of budgeting, long-term planning, and building teams,” Williamson writes.

MAKING CHANGE FOR THE GOOD

The MBAs To Watch also boast an impressive track record in the public sector. Working as a consultant and advocate for The Forum For Youth Investment, UCLA’s Makda Sara Matthew expanded Performance Partnership Pilots across the United States to help underserved young people and their families. At USAID, the University of Texas’ Amie Harris negotiated multi-million dollar deals with Google and the Norwegian government to supply open-licensed materials to children across the world. As the Flint water crisis made the headlines, Danielle Mayorga decided to take action. A senior program manager at the U.S. Water Alliance, the Berkeley Haas MBA authored a white paper on implementing socially responsible water practices.

“I was proud that these recommendations were adopted by cities, businesses, and environmental groups across the nation,” she explains. “This project exposed me to the power of coalitions to champion for change, regardless of the industry.”

While Detti Belina earned his MBA at the Marshall School in 2020, he began contributing to the USC Trojan community long before business school. “I’m most proud of the work during my first three years of medical school as founder of a student group called Social Justice in Medicine,” he writes. “I advocated for curricular changes to reflect the health disparities of our affiliated public hospital, LAC/USC, and our surrounding community of predominately low-income immigrant residents. Through forming close relationships with administrators and relaying student feedback to curriculum faculty, we worked with administration to formulate a 5-year curriculum revamp process to include an emphasis on health justice as well as the hiring of a full-time dean of social justice and inclusion.”

 

PROMISING STARTUP ATTRACTS 100,000 USERS IN 4 MONTHS

Many MBAs To Watch gained their first exposure to leadership in military service. Andrew Hoverson trained nearly 1,900 military personnel as a Close Quarters Battle Instructor. As the Curriculum Director and Course Chief of the program, the U.C. Irvine grad literally wrote the book on the subject. Hoverson could probably add some lessons from Jeremy Stratton into the programming. His outnumbered platoon beat back a Taliban assault on a remote outpost – one where bullets “kicked up dust 8 inches from where we took cover” and RPGs “landed a few feet away.” Still, the experience – harrowing as it was – taught Stratton some critical lessons about what to expect in business.

“In a tech-driven economy, firms are consistently fighting for a competitive advantage,” writes the University of Maryland MBA. “This requires flexibility, maneuverability, and creative solutions to compete and succeed in a complex market.”

Agility and problem-solving – with a dash of audacity: those same ingredients made the MBAs To Watch equally successful when they arrived in business school. Kruti Kanojia is a case in point. Think business school is two years of digesting theories and hitting the networking circuit? In Kranojia’s case, it was the time to build her business. Noting the addictive quality of video gaming, she launched a community, Healthy Gaming, to coach gamers through recovery. The result? Her solution attracted 100,000 followers in just four months.

“She started diligently testing solutions with both kids and their parents,” writes Boston University senior lecturer Ian Mashiter. “Leveraging her digital marketing background, she has also been testing different channels looking for the optimal way to reach her customers. This “test and measure” approach to building your startup reflects the teachings of entrepreneurial thought leaders such Eric Reiss and Steve Blank and it has been great to see Kruti following these best practices.”

MAKING AN IMPACT IN CLASS PROJECTS AND INTERNSHIPS

Business school also opened doors to people that the Class of 2020 assumed were out of reach. Going to work, Orlando Gutiérrez would tune into Wharton Business Radio to listen to Wharton Moneyball, hosted by Eric Bradlow and Cade Massey. Fast forward two years and Gutiérrez is taking a class from Massey and serving as Bradlow’s TA. Oh, and he plans to continue listening to Wharton Business Radio too! Similarly, ESADE’s Rishabh Chaturvedi landed his internship at Restaurant Brands International (i.e. Burger King) after a phone call with CEO Jose Cil. A few months later, when Chaturvedi delivered his final recommendations at the company’s Miami headquarters, guess which executive sat in on his presentation? That’s right: Mr. Cil.

Class projects also exposed MBAs To Watch to industry leaders – and tested their mettle in the process. As a second-year, MIT Sloan’s Steve Tuekam signed up to work in the Innovation Lab for one of Latin America’s largest industrial conglomerates. Soon enough, he was presenting the strategy and methodology to CEOs and the project sponsor’s board of directors. No pressure there, right? Dharmarraj Sunthar has already notched a $52 million dollar deal on his resume. At the University of Miami, he was able to lead a consulting project with Boston Scientific. A medical doctor by training, Sunthar conducted intensive research and leveraged his team’s technical expertise to forge a “cost-effective” hardware-software integration that was also “seamless” and user-friendly.”

At IESE, Maria de Oca designed a long-term sustainability plan for a Coca-Cola bottler in Africa. Her reward? She landed a second project involving bottles and aluminum covering five countries. “It renewed my zeal and commitment to continue working on business solutions for environmental problems,” she writes. It also was my opportunity to apply all that I had learned in the first year of my IESE MBA. During our first year, we were continuously pushed to our limits and in this process one can lose sight of the personal transformation taking place. Over the summer, I found myself approaching and solving problems in a completely new way and I enjoyed it tremendously!”

See pages 4-6 for 142 in-depth profiles of this year’s Best & Brightest MBAs.