Meet TCU Neeley’s MBA Class Of 2025

Dr. Stephen Jenkins, Senior Director of Graduate Recruiting and Admissions

P&Q: What are the most exciting developments at your program in the past year and how will they enrich the MBA experience for current and future MBAs?

Dr. Jenkins: STEM designation and inclusive excellence partnerships in the TCU Neeley Full-time MBA program hold great promise for enriching the experience of current and future MBA students.

First, the program’s strategic partnerships with community organizations, including Leadership Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber and the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber, provide students with enhanced networking opportunities, promote diversity and inclusion, and offer valuable experiential learning opportunities.

Second, the program’s STEM designation broadens our reach, open doors to a wider range of career opportunities, fosters interdisciplinary learning, and equips our graduates for an increasingly technology-driven, data-centric business landscape.

David Stein, Director of Full-time Graduate Recruiting and Admissions

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?

David Stein: We start our tour of the Spencer and Marlene Hays Business Commons, which is home to the TCU Neeley School of Business, at the main campus entrance that opens into our iconic Dan D. Rogers Rotunda. As you step into our commons, your eyes are drawn to an impressive, modern staircase with purple-and-silver marble flooring leading into a beautiful glass-enclosed rotunda spanning three floors.

An applicant will immediately get a glimpse into the inclusive, collaborative energy at the heart of the business school. Whether it’s grabbing coffee at the Neeley Café before meeting up with fellow students for a study session, or faculty and staff crossing paths with students to catch up outside the classroom, you can see different hubs of Neeley activity happening at every moment during the day.

As you walk around the space, nearly every wall is graced with our guiding credo, the Neeley Promise: The Neeley School of Business unleashes human potential with leadership at the core and innovation in our spirit.

Jessica Cates, Senior Director of Graduate Student Success

P&Q: What is the most innovative thing you have introduced into the MBA program in recent years? How has it been a game changer for your program?

Jessica Cates: The Horned Frog Investment Network (HFIN), part of the TCU Neeley Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, brings together a community of accredited investors to support the next generation of innovators.

This membership-based network of entrepreneurs, business leaders and investment professionals sources, evaluates and invests in unique opportunities. The HFIN, led by three TCU Neeley MBA Alumni, positions current MBA students to provide due diligence support for the network’s members. To equip students for this important work, we expanded the graduate level entrepreneurship curriculum to include a course centered on raising entrepreneurial capital.

P&Q: How does the MBA program tap into the Dallas/Fort Worth ecosystem (and its alumni base) to provide school projects, mentors, employer partnerships, and job opportunities for students? What types of jobs are your students landing, and in which companies?

Jessica Cates: At TCU Neeley, we operate at the intersection of academics and industry. Texas is home to the most Fortune 500 companies of any state, of which 50% are located in North Texas.

Since our school is embedded in this community, we are able to make the classroom and the MBA student experiences a direct extension of the market. Our students serve as paid consultants for companies such as Bell, BNSF Railway, Alcon, Smith & Nephew, DISH, First Command and the DFW Airport through our Neeley & Associates Consultants program. This experience allows students to lead client-facing projects, tackle current business challenges and make a direct impact to the companies’ futures.

Students also have personalized access to the most influential business leaders through programs such as C-level Confidential and the Tandy Executive Speaker Series. Each of these opportunities allow our MBA students time and space to connect, ask questions and learn from individuals they are studying in the classroom. Recent guests included Cynt Marshall (CEO of Dallas Mavericks), Katie Farmer (President and CEO of BNSF Railway), Dan Berce and Susan Sheffield (CEO and CFO of GM Financial), Jessica Tyler (President of Cargo and Vice President of Airport Excellence for American Airlines) and Grant Moise (CEO of DallasNews Corporation).

Dr. David Allen, Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Programs

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?

Dr. David Allen: Our MBA students love to explore new cultures, so it’s not surprising that many reflect upon their global study-abroad experience as one of the most memorable, impactful aspects of their time at Neeley.

Through real-time consulting projects, opportunities to engage directly with business leaders, and local excursions that provide memorable bonding experiences, MBA students have grown their business skill sets and forged deep friendships with each other in global locations, including Chile, Italy, Spain and Vietnam.

Each year following our Global Symposium, which highlights the global study experiences available in the coming year, students enthusiastically deliberate over which destination to choose. I have yet to hear from a student who was less than thrilled with their global experience.

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

Dr. David Allen: Dr. Janice Cobb, who brings high expectations and a deep commitment to helping students learn accounting concepts that are often perceived as daunting, personifies the Neeley Promise as someone who unleashes the potential of others. Dr. Virginia Traweek, while newer to our program, is praised by students for inspiring a passion for finance thanks to her engaging approach and memorable anecdotes related to the world of finance.

The early foundational courses in an MBA program, most notably accounting and statistics, set the stage for the MBA academic experience. Our students are in the fortunate position of being taught by these two outstanding faculty members, who excel not only in their fields of study but as facilitators and mentors who connect well with students and distill, in a very practical way, the concepts most important for them to understand as aspiring business leaders.

Olivia Williams, Director of Graduate Programs

P&Q: How does the MBA program integrate DEI in its MBA programming? How does the program leverage the larger university’s commitment to diversity in building its MBA program and what dividends does this commitment provide to its students?

Olivia Williams: At the Neeley School, our dedicated Office of Inclusive Excellence is located in the heart of student-centric space, and facilitates and hosts various programming, events and learning opportunities that provide incredible dividends for our students as they prepare to work and lead with a focus on fostering equity and belonging, both of which contribute to the achievement of outstanding business results.

The Courageous Book Study program focuses on building cultural competence and promoting advocacy, and students benefit by learning from exemplary leaders through our Against All Odds Speaker Series, which brings exceptional, diverse leaders to campus for engagement with students and community members to share their stories of grit and determination as they rose through the career ranks.

We also collaborate with community organizations, such as the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber and Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber, to award scholarships and encourage diverse cohorts that enrich the learning experiences of all Neeley MBA students.

Dr. Beata Jones, Professor of Business Information Systems

P&Q: How does your B-school incorporate technology into the curriculum and how has it engaged students and faculty on the use or incorporation of such new, emerging technologies, for example like ChatGPT?

Dr. Beata Jones: Incorporating evolving technologies into the curriculum is an ongoing focus at the Neeley School of Business, including generative AI, FinTech, machine learning, and more on the cutting edge of changing business best practices. Through core classes, as well as electives available as part of our Analytics Certificate, students gain exposure to emerging technologies and engage in conversation (and sometimes debate) regarding ethical boundaries and impacts on the future of work.

Neeley faculty engage in workshops focused on the responsible application of generative AI in the classroom, organized by the Neeley School of Business Teaching Effectiveness Committee. The most recent example is a session on leveraging generative AI to engage students at all levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, taught by Dr. Eric Arseneau, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department. Faculty also opt-in to receive updates about developments in the field of generative AI and actively engage in the TCU Generative AI Faculty Interest Group.

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Deeshan Alwis	Kandy, Sri Lanka	Swinburne University of Technology, Malaysia	NDB Zephyr Partners Lanka
Joseph Simmons	Midland, Texas	Texas A&M University	PepsiCo
Angela Zuniga-Taylor	Katy, Texas	Baylor University	Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains
Yoro Sidibe	Dakar, Senegal	Norfolk State University	Norfolk State University Athletics Business Office
Thinh Lam	Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam	Foreign Trade University	Unilever
Andrew Jent	Birmingham, Alabama	University of Alabama	Cahaba Pain and Spine Care
Anthony Hill	Fort Worth, Texas	Texas Tech University	Fort Worth Independent School District
Valentina Padilla Garza	Monterrey, Mexico	Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey	Opal Finance Group
Teresa Magaña Leach	Kingsport, Tennessee	Sam Houston State University	City of Fort Worth
Mollee Frankel	St. Louis, Missouri	Elon University	McDermott Will & Emery
Colby Blatnik	Frisco, Texas	Oklahoma State University	Lockton
Parul Bhalgat	Bangalore, India	Sri Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain College	Accenture

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