Ernesto Amador Mesa

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

“Social impact driven financial lawyer who’s passionate about analyzing and finding solutions to complex problems.”

Hometown: Bogota, Colombia

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have sung in the opera, as a part of the children’s choir in a staging of Puccini’s Turandot.

Undergraduate School and Major: Universidad de los Andes, Bogota. Double major in Law and Economics

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Financial Superintendency of Colombia. Advisor for the Deputy Directorate of Regulation.

What word best describes the Chicago Booth MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far and why? Helpful. From second years reaching out even during the admission process to everyone being eager to help in deciding which classes to take or where to live, I underestimated the “pay-it-forward” culture at Booth.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Chicago Booth’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Coming from a non-business background, the flexible curriculum idea was scary at first because I thought I needed a more structured approach to business school. Along my application journey I had the opportunity to talk with alumni and students and ended up convinced that the flexible curriculum was going to help me discover and chart my own path for what I really want to do post-MBA.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Chicago Booth? Fintech Revolution with Luigi Zingales. Zingales’ work on the vital role of government intervention to sustain free and efficient markets and the role of financial markets in society had a profound impact on my work as a financial regulator, and his class is on the subject that I want to specialize in.

When you think of the Booth philosophy, what is the first word that comes to mind? Why? Analytical. Analysis is a focus at Booth, and this reputation was something that convinced me that I was a fit for Booth. A strong focus in analytical thinking will give me a very useful and flexible framework to tackle any problem that presents itself in a post-MBA role.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest accomplishment so far is working on an inclusion of a legal provision aimed to create a regulatory sandbox for fintechs and innovative financial products in Colombia. The sandbox is meaningful to me because it was born out of a challenge in which I had the creativity and vision to propose and convince people of a solution that would have an impact. Though it has not been implemented yet, I hope that innovations tested in the sandbox will shape the future of the financial system in Colombia.

How did COVID-19 change your perspective on your career and your life in general? Personally, COVID-19 was a reminder that I’ve had the luck to be in a very privileged position, but most people in my country don’t have the same opportunities I’ve had. Alongside COVID-19, in the past year, Colombia had a reckoning driven by the months-long social protests. One of the issues raised during the protests was the perceived role of financial institutions in furthering income inequality, which contradicts a long-held belief of mine that financial markets and institutions can be agents for change by providing opportunities to people that have historically been left behind.

Overall, both COVID-19 and the protests reinforced my thought that I could be doing more to have an impact, and that the best way I could do that is by leveraging my knowledge of the financial sector and having a hand in guiding financial institutions to be agents for change.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? In my job as a financial regulator, I got to a point where I came to a realization. No matter the opportunities public policy creates, it is ultimately up to businesses to seize them. Therefore, I concluded that if I really want to have an impact through financial inclusion and education in Colombia, I needed to get a business degree.

What I hope to do after graduation is continue learning in a role with a fintech company that will allow me to continue to pick up skills, knowledge, and connections for when I eventually go back home and do something with fintech startups focused on financial education and inclusion in Colombia and Latin America.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Tuck, Cornell, MIT Sloan, HBS, Stanford GSB, Wharton.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Chicago Booth’s MBA program? Know yourself and reflect who you are in your application. The MBA applications process is in hindsight a great overall experience to reflect on what you have done and what you want to do. This process will help you to get to know yourself better, and what I think helped me in my application to Booth was being very authentic in the way I was telling my story.

Also, get to know Booth and really get a feel for how exactly it is that Booth will help you achieve your goals. Reach out to alumni and current students for this. When you find out your story and how Booth will fit into that story, everything clicks and the essays and the application will feel like a breeze.

DON’T MISS: MEET CHICAGO BOOTH’S MBA CLASS OF 2023