MBA Handicapping: Unemployed Pot Exec Goes For Top MBA. We Say Maybe. Are We Smoking Something?

Like so many young professionals, Orlando was laid off from his job as a corporate development analyst at a cannabis company in February as the COVID pandemic hit. The capital markets froze and his company was no longer able to raise funds. Until then, he had built a fantastic career for himself, first as an i-banker for a regional mid-market player where he worked in M&A for three years and then for a private equity firm for two years before joining the cannabis company, a national operator called Acreage Holdings,  little more than a year ago.

A first-generation college grad, the 29-year-old has thrown himself into nonprofit work at Leftover Cuisine, an organization that distributes leftover food from restaurants to shelters. With a 710 GMAT and a 3.71 GPA in finance and accounting from Drexel University, he now wants to take the next step in his educational journey to get an MBA.

His targets express his ambition: Wharton, Columbia, Chicago Booth, Michigan Ross, Yale, and Dartmouth Tuck.

What are his chances? In this episode of Friday’s With Sandy, HBSGuru.com founder Sandy Kreisberg and Poets&Quants founder John A. Byrne handicap his MBA odds and provide advice on how he can best shape his candidacy.

If you would like to participate in a future Fridays With Sandy webinar, you can contact Sandy and P&Q Founder John A Byrne here.

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