Meet Rochester Simon’s MBA Class Of 2024

P&Q: If you were giving a campus tour, what is the first place you’d take an MBA applicant? Why is that so important to the MBA experience?

Mantena: “I would be sure to provide the applicants a tour of the study rooms and other collaborative workspaces located in the Simon buildings and elsewhere on our beautiful River Campus. Teamwork is an integral part of the MBA experience at Simon. Our students spend a very significant fraction of their time working with their teams in these workspaces on cases, assignments, and projects during their first year. They also spend a fair amount of time working with their club and organization boards ideating, planning, and debriefing various club programs and events in the same spaces during their second year.”

P&Q: In recent years, there have been several areas that have gained increased prominence in business school programming, including STEM, analytics, artificial intelligence and digital disruption. How does your full-time MBA program integrate these concepts across its curriculum?

Mantena: “At Simon we like to say that “we were big on data before data got big!” As already mentioned, economics and analytics are the cornerstones of our MBA curriculum and have always been. Analyzing problems using appropriate economic frameworks and supporting decisions based on data and analysis permeate our entire curriculum. We have four courses in our core curriculum that build the necessary foundational skills and concepts. These are then deepened through our electives, projects courses, and extracurricular activities.

For students looking to build more specialized skills in the tech/analytics fields, we offer a couple of different career tracks. Our tech consulting specialization includes courses in business analytics, digital platform management, digital business strategy, fintech, and social media, among others. Our product management specialization builds the core skills needed for this career path in the tech industry—from product ideation and design, to developing a product vision and roadmap, to launch and growth planning. Students also have a variety of analytics courses to choose from depending on their career interests including causal and predictive analytics, pricing analytics, supply chain analytics, reporting analytics in financial markets, etc., or they can combine them to get an analytics minor.”

P&Q: What have MBAs told you is the most memorable, signature experience they’ve had in your program? Why did it resonate so much with them?

Mantena: “The experiences that resonate most with MBA students, the ones they consider most memorable, are often those that provide them with measurable personal growth, not just professional advancement. We offer a whole portfolio of such experiences. All of them share certain attributes—they encourage students to relate to the lived experiences and perspectives of their peers and make deeper connections with them; they improve social and cultural fluency; they compel students to reflect deeply on their personal values, strengths, and blind spots, and provide opportunities to experiment and build on their identified areas of development.

Two good examples of such experiences are our Coach and Workshop Leader programs. Both programs engage second year MBA students as peer leaders and coaches for first-year MBA teams. The participants receive training on leading small task-oriented teams including strategies for building team cohesion and facilitating group work, providing feedback, and conflict resolution. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their personal leadership styles and experiment with different strategies to improve the effectiveness of teams under their care.”

P&Q: Simon is known for its pricing program, considered one of the best in the world. What types of coursework, activities, and partnerships do you offer around pricing that differentiate you from other programs in this area?

Mantena: “The pricing program at Simon is not just differentiated, we believe it is the only pricing MBA specialization offered at a leading business school. Pricing is inherently cross-functional. This, along with its importance to firm performance, fits very well with the economics and analytics focus of our curriculum. Our specialized pricing courses include pricing strategy, pricing analytics, B2B pricing, advanced pricing theory, and a pricing projects course. These are augmented with coursework in related areas such as marketing research, negotiations, and game theory to form the pricing curriculum.

Simon has a Center for Pricing, and a fifteen-year partnership with the Professional Pricing Society with whom we collaborated in developing their practitioner certification exam. Simon has also collaborated with firms with industry-leading pricing capabilities such as Simon-Kucher & Partners, Deloitte, and Parker Hannifin for our pricing offerings. These are complemented by offerings from the student-run Pricing Club which hosts speaking engagements by thought leaders, organizes case competitions and firm visits, and takes on small consulting projects. All of this has translated into tremendous career success in terms of pricing internships and full-time positions for Simon MBA students, with hiring managers returning year after year as their pricing teams and roles expand.”

P&Q: Who is a standout in your faculty or administration – the kind of person whom graduates talk about a decade after they leave? How does he or she personify your school culture and the best of your MBA program?

Mantena: “Not an easy question to answer. Off the top of my head, I can pick at least half a dozen faculty and administrators who can comfortably fit the bill. A great example is Prof. Carol Shuherk, the head of our Managerial Communications area. Most MBA students come into the program thinking they are already great communicators, and they don’t need further instruction in this area. Prof. Shuherk and her team quickly get them to see not only how much more they can learn, but also how dramatically they can improve their communication and interpersonal skills in a relatively short period of time.

Prof. Shuherk exemplifies everything that makes Simon special. She gets to know each of her students intimately—both through their work, and at a personal level. She is demanding and uncompromising in expecting quality work from students, yet kind and sensitive in her interactions with them. She pushes students to the edge of their comfort zones, while scaffolding their growth to a higher level. Students readily see her commitment and hard work and are in turn inspired by it.”

10 REASONS TO CONSIDER A SIMON MBA

1) Experiential Learning: “I am eager to participate in experiential learning opportunities at Simon, where students learn by doing. I love being able to problem solve on the go and work with a team to come up with creative solutions. I am looking forward to participating in international immersions, case competitions, and the project elective class. I am particularly excited for the project elective class because it’s like a mini-internship—you’re given the opportunity to do a real life project in the career field you’re interested in prior to diving into the summer internship to gain valuable first-hand work experience.”
Chagan Sanathu (’24)

2) STEM Designation: “The STEM designation was a major attraction. In particular, Simon being the first MBA program to earn the STEM designation for any MBA specialization showed that “unabashedly analytical” isn’t just a clever quip. The most important takeaway was that Simon delivered on their promise, and they continue to do so in every aspect.”
Connor Hutchison (’24)

3) Supportive Culture: “Simon is dedicated to the students and the students’ success from when you first agree to come here and way past your graduation. For example, I was fortunate enough to be part of The Consortium and Forté, which meant I attended some conferences and started recruiting even before I started school. Since April, Simon has been preparing me on how to recruit, interview, and network for these conferences. The efforts have not gone unnoticed by recruiters and even students from other schools. We had career advisors travel with us to these conferences and be on hand to practice mock interviews and company research. Meanwhile, many other students went in without preparation. This goes to show that the level of Simon’s investment in their students is truly unmatched.”
Jasurbek Tursunov (’24)

4) Intimate Class Size: “I chose Simon for the people. I wanted a diverse experience, and we are the #1 most diverse MBA program in the US. The cohort size is small for the full-time program (100-120 per year) and the staff and faculty are very present on campus and in students’ lives. Though I wasn’t initially planning to attend business school in a small city like Rochester, living here has defined my experience because the lack of big city distractions has made the community that much closer-knit.”
Kelly O’Brien (’22)

5) Fun Traditions: “My favorite MBA event was during orientation when we traveled as a class for team bonding activities at Bristol Mountain Aerial Adventure. The event included zip lining and rope courses. Zip lining is not an activity that I would choose to engage on my own. However, I loved the experience and the opportunity I had to get to know my classmates during that event.”
Andrea Bell (’21)

6) Diversity: “I also knew I would enter an excellent learning environment when I saw that Simon was ranked the #1 Most Diverse Top-50 MBA program by U.S. News & World Report in 2021. Diversity isn’t meant to be a box checked to make others happy and say it’s done. Simon is intentional about acquiring diverse candidates, cultures, and experiences from all over the world and prioritizes every single one of their candidates throughout the entire process. This has created one of the most unique learning environments I have ever been a part of. We all benefit immensely from this shared capital of knowledge, experience, culture, and opportunity.”
Terrell Smith (’24)

7) Rochester: “Going to school in Rochester would be a dull experience. OK, so Rochester is not as sexy as a city like New York or San Francisco, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed living in Western New York for the last year-and-a-half. The region is historic and beautiful, which helped contribute to a nice quality of life. As a lifelong city dweller, I grew to appreciate the relaxed environment that a city like Rochester offers.”
Keenan Heyward (’21)

8) Consulting Opportunities: “I am looking forward to joining Simon Vision Consulting, where I will provide pro-bono consulting services to organizations who may otherwise not afford access to such services. When I worked in the non-profit sector prior to starting my MBA, these types of student clubs really helped my organization gain services and I would love to give back in a similar way.”
Chagan Sanathu (’24)

9) International Immersions: “While I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with individuals from other countries during military exercises, experiencing a foreign country through a business lens can provide insights and experiences that few will ever understand. This exposure is invaluable from a personal growth perspective. Given our degree of global connectivity, these experiences are essential for responsible stewardship moving forward.”
Connor Hutchison (’24)

10) Pricing: “I really want to take Pricing—it will be a great asset to my education, especially within the marking realm. This will make me even more valuable to any company. It will also challenge me since I have never taken a pricing class or anything that sounds close to it.”
Jaquelinne Cervantes (’24)

ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE SIMON APPLICANTS

“Think about your core values. Ask yourself: how can those values can be embraced by Simon and your own community? Figure out how to make them—in the words of the University of Rochester’s motto, Meliora—’Ever better.’”
Jeong Kim (’24)

“Beyond the academic class profile, ask yourself what kind of experience, community, and impact do you want to have? At Simon, our class is not afraid to rip the Band-Aid off and be their authentic selves. I encourage you to do the same should you consider Simon. Yes, a part of why you’re coming here is to have a successful career, but what else? We would love to hear what makes you tick, what you overcame, and what kind of leader you want to be.”
Salar Malik (’24)

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergrad Alma Mater	Last Employer
Jaquelinne Cervantes	Houston, TX	University of Houston	Exxon Mobil
Priya Chapagain	Kathmandu, Nepal	Kathmandu University School of Management	Grepsr Pvt Ltd
Connor Hutchison	Ortley Beach, NJ	Saint Leo University	U.S. Navy
Olga Ivanishchuk	Kolomyia, Ukraine	Portland State University	Sparkloft Media
Jeong Kim	Seoul, Korea	University of Rochester	KPMG (Korea)
Maureen Lungahi Voreza	Nairobi, Kenya	Kenyatta University	Jitokeze Wamama Wafrika
Salar Malik	Lahore, Pakistan	Knox College	BMO Wealth Management
Hannah Mathieu	Hebron, Maine	University of New Hampshire	Raytheon Technologies
Chagan Sanathu	Kolkata, India	Goshen College	The Greenlining Institute
Pablo Santiago Conchos	Ponca City, OK	Oklahoma Baptist University	Houston Independent School District
Terrell Smith	Rochester, NY	St. John Fisher University	Coordinated Care Services
Jasurbek Tursunov	Tashkent City, Uzbekistan	Westminster International University in Tashkent	JSIC Ipak Yuli Bank