Veterans Day: More MBAs With Military Backgrounds Find Their Place At Stanford GSB

BUILDING THE MILITARY PIPELINE AT GSB

Andrew Alexander Beck, inspired by stories of his grandmother as a nurse during World War II, joined the Army in the spirit of service.  He was commissioned from West Point in 2011 and spent 9 years as an infantry and Green Beret officer. 

“I had a phenomenal experience in the military,” Beck tells Poets&Quants. “I got to travel around the world and see the impact that we had. But what I also saw was the impact of commerce and investment and how transformative that can be.”

Beck, Stanford MBA ‘22, recognized that an MBA was a relatively well-trodden path for a lot of veterans, one that allowed them to spend two years transitioning to civilian life while using their military experience and leadership to leapfrog into a challenging new career. At Stanford, he found a forward-looking MBA program that surrounded him with experts from both the academic and practical worlds. As the current president of the Stanford GSB Veterans Club, he spends a lot of time telling prospective veterans about his MBA experience. 

“So why Stanford? What I tell veterans who are thinking about it is that Stanford allows you to see into the future. It’s not just world class academics, you are surrounded by world class practitioners, and you get to see that debate in the classroom. You’re mixing the person who wrote the textbook with the person who’s running their own fund,” he says. “Being here really teaches you how to think through another lens. When I’m facing a problem, I feel like I can come at it from several different perspectives: From my expertise in foreign policy from working overseas, or looking at it through an investment perspective, or from a social impact perspective. It just gives you so many different viewpoints of how to see a problem and understand the opportunities out there.” 

Using veteran voices, like Beck and Welch, to connect with prospects is an essential piece to building the military pipeline, Torres says. The community support veteran MBAs find at Stanford in turn encourages them to pay that support forward to new recruits who then pay it forward to more prospective veterans. “Our Veterans Club has been so active in supporting our efforts, and also helping us to figure out different ways to reach folks and meet them where they are,” he says.

For example, Veterans Visit Day was created in partnership with the veterans club as an in-person meet up at Stanford in 2018. Coronavirus forced it to go virtual in 2020, but the format actually allowed more veterans to participate because veterans are normally spread out across the world. The Veterans Club also updated its website to be more accessible and inclusive, organizes meetups to build community, and actively engages with veteran alumni.

REMOVING THE FINANCIAL BARRIERS

  Of course, a large part of building a strong veteran pipeline is removing the financial burden a top-ranked B-School can impose. Some people may look at Stanford’s $150,000 ticket price and self-select themselves out of even considering it. But, like many top-ranked B-Schools, Stanford offers many financial aid packages and incentives available for military veterans.

While GSB was close to a full match of the Yellow Ribbon Program in previous years, it went to a 100% match two years ago. That means qualifying veteran MBA students have 100% of their mandatory tuition and fees paid. The school also waives the MBA application fee for military veterans.

“From a financial aid lens, it’s about eliminating financial barriers wherever there is an opportunity for us as an institution to do so,” Elizabeth Llamas, director of financial aid at the GSB, tells Poets&Quants. “Letting veterans see themselves here and part of this community with that financial burden eliminated is just another step for veterans to say that there is nothing holding them back from applying, at least financially.”

Beck agrees.

“The GI Bill and Stanford’s match is life changing. It’s an incredible opportunity for veterans to realize that everything is covered,” he says. “It’s also important to remember that the Stanford GSB Veterans Club has both international and U.S. veterans. Members from the international military community also bring incredibly diverse perspectives.”

That diversity extends to what Stanford veteran MBAs plan to do in their careers after graduation. There is a stereotype that veterans transition to more traditional industries and occupations after leaving the military. That’s certainly not true with GSB’s MBA veterans, Beck says. Both he and Welch will go into consulting after graduation. Beck is joining Bain & Company in San Francisco while Welch is headed to McKinsey. 

“We have vets who are going into entrepreneurship that are starting their own companies, vets who are working in venture capital, and some who did internships in private equity. We have veterans in the social impact space,” Beck says. “I mean, you name it, and you’re going to see that path as a possibility here. I think that’s important for veterans to understand that there really isn’t a limit. The resources and support network is here.”

Read more: In honor of Veterans Day, Poets&Quants reached out to MBAs with military backgrounds at several top B-schools. See them here.

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