Meet The 2021 CentreCourt Distinguished MBA Alumni

Who says you canā€™t have it all?

Just ask Christina Glorioso, who earned her MBA at Notre Dameā€™s Mendoza College in 1999. At NBCUniversal, she is the senior vice president of sales effectiveness. Translation: she is responsible for driving billions of dollars of activities at MSNBC, CNBC, Meet The Press, Nightly News, and Meet The Press ā€“ not to mention the USA and SYFY cable channels. Before that, Glorioso was designing successful campaigns that brought the Little League World Series, U.S. Womenā€™s Soccer Team, and MTVā€™s Rock Band video game franchise to the masses.

Impressed? Outside work, Glorioso is a certified master SCUBA diver who has summited Mount Kilimanjaro. On top of that, she is raising four sons, all under nine years old. Not surprisingly, Glorioso was named a 2019 She Runs It Working Mother of the Year recipient, which honors women in advertising who serve as positive role models at work and in the community.

MEET MBA ALUMNI AT THE TOP OF THEIR FIELDS

Christina Glorioso is one of the MBA alumni whoā€™ll be joining Poets&Quants for our first Centre Court MBA Festival of 2021. A free all-day event held from February 23-24, CentreCourt brings together admissions heads and distinguished alumni from 16 elite business schools. Among them, youā€™ll find leaders from INSEAD, Virginia Darden, London Business School, Indiana Kelley, IESE, and Notre Dame Mendoza. Here, you can join panels to get answers on topics like securing scholarship support and weighing the value of GMAT scores in a test-optional world. In other words, you can gain proven strategies that give you an edge in getting accepted and working in your target industry ā€“ all from the comfort of your home at no cost.

Glorioso is typical of the participating alums. Her upbeat, can-do spirit was apparent as a Mendoza MBA student. Working as a ā€œrunnerā€ during NBC Sports football broadcasts, Glorioso told a sideline interviewer that she would be ā€œthe best water fetcher youā€™ve ever hadā€ ā€“ and she delivered. She even cold called Ken Schanzer, then President of NBC Sports, to dine with the schoolā€™s Entertainment and Media Club. Not only did he accept the invitation, but gave club members his cell number to further network with him!

Christine Glorioso, Notre Dame (Mendoza)

Looking over her career, Glorioso has adopted a guiding philosophy that can be summed up in six words: Leadership is a form of service. ā€œWhen was the last time you built something or left an organization better off than when you started,ā€ she asks.

A PIONEER IN THE SHARING ECONOMY

This yearā€™s alumni participants include executives from Google, Goldman Sachs, and Anheuser-Busch. They are entrepreneurs whoā€™ve built far-flung enterprises and leaders in functions like brand management, social impact, private wealth management, supply chains, and the arts. Take Alexander Pollak, a 2008 MBA from Zicklin School of Business. As a student, he balanced his studies with three paramedic jobs. That work ethic enabled him to build a company, ParaDocs Worldwide, that put him on Crainā€™s New York ā€œ40 Under 40ā€ list, Before the pandemic, Pollak tells P&Q, his company provided medics to events ranging from movie sets to photo shoots. However, his MBA education prepared him to adapt and capitalize amid disruption too.

ā€œI successfully pivoted my company during the pandemic so that 95% of our business is COVID testing. We have built up our reputation so that we had the opportunity to test the participants in the Presidential inauguration and we are expanding worldwide.ā€

Pollak isnā€™t the only accomplished entrepreneur among this yearā€™s CentreCourt alumni. Growing a startup is often filled with onerous trials and painful errors. Timo Buetefisch is a testament to that. As an IESE Business School student, he launched his first startup, where he ā€œlost considerable amounts of money.ā€ That didnā€™t stop Buetefisch. A few years later, he founded Cooltra, which started as a motorcycle rental company in Barcelona. Fast forward 15 years and Cooltra now stretches to 6 countries and 20 cities and employs over 400 people. Buetefischā€˜s fleet now includes 16,000 motorcycles, with two-thirds being zero-emission electric scooters. What is one secret to his success? He adopted the shared model years before Airbnb and Uber came along.

ā€œWe were ahead of the game in offering sustainable and shared mobility between cities,ā€ he tells P&Q.

TURNING THE NON-TRADITIONAL INTO THE INDISPENSIBLE

Shannon Watkins, Indiana University (Kelley)

Some CentreCourt MBA alums have even made their mark in business after switching careers. That was the case for Shannon Watkins. A Biology major at Fisk University, Watkins arrived at Indiana Universityā€™s Kelley School without ever taking a business course. Since earning her Kelley MBA in 2002, Watkins has held various leadership roles at Coca-Cola, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble before joining Aflac as its Senior VP for Brand and Creative Services. A self-described ā€œAfrican-American motherā€ and ā€œkid from Atlanta,ā€ Watkins is most proud of being authentic and redefining what success looks like in her industry.

ā€œToday, there are many leaders across the marketing landscape who donā€™t fit a stereotypical mold ā€“ and are killing it! It brings me great joy to be a part of a profession where diversity ā€” in image, thoughts, and words ā€” is celebrated.ā€

Watkins is also thrilled to be a Kelley MBA, a program that has continued to support her long after graduation. ā€œAs a student, the staff helped me understand the employment landscape, prepare for interviews, and ensure the right fit with prospective employers,ā€ she notes. ā€œThe advice and counsel I received during my time at Kelley was invaluable. As an alumna, I continue to use the Career Services Center for executive development and career coaching.ā€

PROFILES OF TOP MBA ALUMNI AT CENTRECOURT

Indeed, youā€™ll find that MBA alumni view their classmates and instructors as more than a network. For them, business school became a community ā€“ or even a family says Lexie Cegelski, a 2016 University of Florida MBA who is now the senior procurement director. ā€œIn comparison to bigger programs, I realized it was rare to know everyone in the full-time program by name. Because the class sizes were small, no matter someoneā€™s differences in career goals and hobbies, we quickly got to know each other. I wouldnā€™t trade that experience for the world.ā€

It is a sentiment shared by Yizhen Fung, an Oxford-trained policy advisor to the Malaysian Securities Commission who earned her MBA with the Asia School of Business. ā€œThe 20 months will fly by like a breeze. It will be near impossible for all 47 of my classmates to ever be in the same place again, so make every moment count!ā€

Want to learn more about MBAs like Yizhen Fung, Christina Glorioso, and Alexander Pollak before you meet them at CentreCourt? Hoping to get some insights on the best classes, favorite moments, and biggest surprises at business school? Click on their alumni profiles below.

To reserve your free spot in P&Qā€™s Ā CentreCourt MBA Festival from February 23-24, click here.

MBA Alum MBA Program Current Location Current Employer
Yizhen Fung Asia School of Business (with MIT Sloan) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia airasia the Asean super app
Alexander Pollak Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business New York City, NY ParaDocs Worldwide, Inc.
Allison Zmozynski Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management Cleveland, OH Google
Luca Antonietti ESIC International MBA Rome, Italy Green Energy Plus
Lexie Cegelski University of Florida MBA St. Louis, MO Anheuser-Busch
Timo Buetefisch IESE Business School at the University of Navarra Barcelona, Spain Cooltra
Shannon Watkins Indiana University, Kelley School of Business Columbus, GA Aflac
Camila Scaranelo IMD Business School Lausanne, Switzerland Hach
Chen Chowers INSEAD London, UK Overstone Art
Ayo Gabriel London Business School London, UK Goldman Sachs
Christina Glorioso Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame Rockville Centre, NY NBCUniversal
Ryan Gray Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Logan, UT Gattaca Media
Felix Artmann University of Virginia, Darden School of Business Munich, Germany GiftsApp

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