Jamie Rosenstein Wittman

Vanderbilt University, Owen Graduate School of Management

“A curious, hard-working, life-long learner focused on using business to improve society.”

Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky

Fun Fact About Yourself: I was in a pentathlon club while studying in England. (Pentathlon includes swimming, running, fencing, shooting, and horseback riding).

Undergraduate School and Major: Cornell University, Economics and Psychology double major

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Google, People Analyst

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of the school’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The personal scale aspect of Vanderbilt’s MBA program was really appealing to me along with the breadth and depth of the course offerings. While most of my courses have been virtual, I’ve still been able to get to know the majority of my classmates and professors. Both the students and faculty care deeply about learning from one another and building a strong community.

At Owen, you are part of one of the most dynamic business environments in the country. What has made Nashville such a great place to live and learn for you? Even in the midst of the pandemic, it has been rewarding to plug into the broader Nashville community through networks such as the Urban Land Institute and non-profits such as Backfield in Motion. Nashville is also home to a rich blend of industries and people, making it an exciting place to live and learn.

What quality best describes your MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? Genuine. My classmates are all supportive and hard-working, but genuine is the first word that comes to mind. Even in this virtual world, I can rely on others to be authentic and honest.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I worked on many rewarding projects at Google, but one of my biggest accomplishments was programming, testing, and launching Google’s company-wide employee survey known as “Googlegeist” in 2018. The survey provides an opportunity for Google employees to share their experience at the company, and survey responses often influence everything from strategic planning to company-wide norms.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far? I hope my biggest accomplishment as an MBA student is yet to come, but the most rewarding accomplishment the past couple of months has been working with fellow Google/ Ex-Google employees to create a “Careers in Tech” discussion for the boys at Backfield in Motion, a Nashville-based non-profit that offers mentorship, education, and athletics to at-risk males. One positive from our current virtual world is that location is no longer a limitation. By working with Backfield in Motion, we were able to bridge tech employees and Nashville students to broaden the students’ idea of the types of people who work in tech. A special thanks to Reggie Ford, Todd Campbell, Micah Kimble, Marco Herndon, Demma Rosa Rodriguez, Joseph Abankwa, and Alexandra Russell for making the Backfield in Motion: Careers in Tech session possible.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? While I really enjoyed my work at Google, I felt it was the right time personally to try something more entrepreneurial. I’m using business school as an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of core business concepts and to iterate on startup ideas with students across the university and people in the broader Nashville area.

What was your defining moment and how did it prepare you for business school? I wouldn’t say I had one specific defining moment per se, but my experience working on several complex projects at Google taught me the value of a strong team. We’d often say, “Teamwork makes the dream work,” and this continues to be true in business school. Not only does teamwork make projects more rewarding, but it also enables us to achieve things we never could on our own.

DON’T MISS: Meet Vanderbilt Owen’s MBA Class Of 2022