Meet Indiana Kelley’s MBA Class Of 2025

Too small and too rural.

A program for marketers who want to stay in the Midwest.

And it’s not ranked high enough, either.

You’ve probably heard the myths about the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. So has the Kelley MBA community – and they could care less. After all, Kelley has honed a distinct identity that accents professional development and academic excellence, a safe harbor for seasoned professionals and career changers alike.

UNEXPECTED SCALE

Too small, you hear? Picture over 14,500 students across its undergraduate and graduate programs – nearly three times the size of the Wharton School. And they’re taught by 325 faculty members, a scale of expertise and support that’s hard to match. This size translates to graduates you can find in every imaginable role, firm, or locale.

“I always tell people that coming to the Midwest has allowed me to get a breath of fresh air while pursuing my career switch,” writes Jack Dieber, a former Warner Bros. Discovery financial analyst who joined the MBA Class of 2025 last fall. “Regarding the alumni network, Kelley has over 100,000 alumni worldwide, ranging across all industries. Everybody who I’ve met has been kind, encouraging, and willing to do whatever they possibly can to help steer me in the right direction as I aim to achieve my goals.”

While Dieber’s class features 96 students, it is highly diverse as 58% of the class hails from overseas. Ever more, a smaller class offers significant advantages according to Sarah Kiley, a ’23 MBA grad.

“The Kelley class size has allowed me to get to know not only members of my class, but the classes that came before and after mine, as well as their partners and families. The tight-knit Kelley community welcomed my husband and I with open arms, and Bloomington has left an indelible mark on our lives in less than two years.”

BEST OF BLOOMINGTON

The Bloomington Location? A New York City native, Jack Dieber also relishes the Midwest college town lifestyle over the “concrete jungle” pace – not to mention the “historic academic buildings and beautiful green foliage.” Not surprisingly, the campus produced the 5th-highest score for “Family Friendliness” in The Princeton Review’s latest student survey. Among alumni, you won’t hear that Bloomington is a dull, conservative small town. Instead, they’ll chat up the music scene, nature trails, and underrated restaurants.

“I love that there’s so much to do and explore,” explains ’23 alum Ben Krebs. “I completed my undergraduate degree at IU Bloomington, so I was already very familiar with the city. However, being here as a graduate student is a completely different experience. There are new restaurants to try, different bars to frequent, and fun activities to fill my time. I got to experience a new side of a town that I thought I already knew, although I usually just ended up spending a lot of time at Switchyard, the unofficial brewery and sponsor of the Kelley MBA program.”

With international students making up 58% of the Kelley MBA Class of 2025, the school is outright cosmopolitan compared to most of its peers. Even more, it occupies a convenient spot on the map. Bloomington is just three hours from Chicago and Cincinnati and four hours from St. Louis, Nashville, and Columbus. And Indianapolis is an hour up the road. Getting around Bloomington, home to 80,000 people, is pretty easy too, says ’23 grad Brittany Bolden.

“Coming from Los Angeles, which is spread out, it could take an hour to drive 10 miles sometimes. And if you want to meet your friends after work, forget about it. But here, people live either within walking distance or a 10-minute car ride from each other. It makes getting together or social activities or doing homework so easy, and you get to build a deeper connection with your classmates.”

MUCH MORE THAN MIDWEST MARKETERS

“Just a marketing school” is considered a slur at Kelley. Not that there isn’t anything wrong with the school’s programming excellence in the field (or proximity to marketing-oriented employers like Procter & Gamble, Eli Lilly, and Yum! Brands). Notably, the Kelley MBA ranks #3 in Marketing according to The Princeton Review (and #9 for the quality of professors). Of course, Kelley also notched Top 10 scores for its Entrepreneurship and Accounting curriculum based on U.S. News’ annual survey of business school deans and MBA directors. What’s more, just 29% of 2023 grads accepted jobs in Marketing – a few points less than consulting.

“Kelley’s MBA program offers diverse opportunities to learn about different career interests through our Academies,” says ’23 alum Cedrick Agorbia. “In recent years, we have made even more strides in consulting and capital markets. During my last year in school, Kelley MBA students participated in more than 10 national case competitions and won six. Plus, close to half of my classmates had internships and fulltime roles in consulting and finance combined. Only less than a third students are going into marketing.”

Kelley graduates aren’t sticking to the Midwest en masse either. In the Class of 2023, just 42.1% of the class remained Midwesterners. “You can be successful in almost any industry, and Kelley moves all over the U.S. (the only caveat is that most marketing jobs happen to be in the Midwest),” adds Brittany Bolden. “Students move into Bloomington, but we don’t stay here.”

RANKINGS DON’T MEASURE KELLEY’S STRENGTHS

Finally, rankings are bound up to come up with Kelley. The full-time MBA program can consistently be found among the Top 25, sometimes creeping into the Top 20 depending on the ranking. In Kelley’s case, rankings miss certain elements. The school’s online MBA program ranks #1 in the world according to Poets&Quants, a testament to the program’s excellence in alumni satisfaction, career outcomes, and academic performance. The same is true of its undergraduate business program, which places among the country’s best. In terms of cutting-edge expertise, Kelley ranks 7th worldwide for the quantity and influence of its faculty research according to The Financial Times. At the same time, Kelley finishing 4th in The Financial Times’ career services ranking seems on par for a program catering to career transitioners. In fact, it was one of the big reasons why Ishna Sachar joined the program last fall.

“Unlike most competitive schools with a great long-standing reputation like Kelley, Kelley focuses on the well-being and prosperity of the student at the forefront, before anything else,” Sachar writes. “The diverse, global-focused program has a strong Career Services team that is earnest and welcoming, while also providing sound guidance and coaching in moments of duress. This aspect was of profound importance to me while making my decision. To me, an environment that strengthens my core competencies and smooths over my areas of improvement will enable my success as a confident, assured professional in the future.”

In fact, you could make the case that one reason why Kelley ranks where it does is because it devotes less resources to playing the rankings game and more to providing opportunities to their MBA students.

“I have been exceptionally impressed with the placement of my classmates for both internships and full-time jobs,” adds Ben Krebs. “Our Consulting Academy is placing students in the MBBs as well as other top boutique firms. Our Business Marketing Academy is sending people to Microsoft, Dow Chemical, and Chevron. You might think that a school in southern Indiana would have difficulty placing MBA candidates in investment banking, since we’re so far away from New York and other traditional financial hubs. On the contrary, our Capital Markets Academy members have almost a 100 percent success rate in placement for Investment Banking…During my time at Kelley, the only inhibitor of success was my own self-doubt. I had every resource available to me to improve and feel supported through the process. When you come to Kelley, the only thing limiting your success is yourself.”

A CREATIVE CLASS

Ishna Sachar didn’t accept any limitations during COVID-19, which cut deeply into sales of the top brand in his portfolio: Michael Kors. Instead, she looked for “unconventional” ways to reach Indian customers, ultimately creating an online auction over Zoom to reach prospects stranded at home. Her first campaign, which didn’t cost anything, ultimately attracted $20,000 in under 30 minutes.

“The success of this campaign paved the direction towards creating Reliance Brands’ recurring digital property called “Luxury Shopping Festival”, Sachar explains. “[It was] a first-of-its-kind virtual sale festival that engaged more than 3 million unique customers during the 21-day sale, keeping 42 RBL brands afloat during the pandemic slump. It makes me fulfilled to think that I was at the heart of this inception.”

Lakshmikar Reddy Chitimireddi also embraced the unconventional – this time in agriculture. Rather than apply the same traditional techniques in cultivating dragon fruit, he decided to implement software to enable him to boost yield.

“I meticulously developed a comprehensive model for sustainable farming that revolutionized the approach by overcoming the traditional farming challenges. This achievement goes beyond personal success; it honors enduring wisdom while utilizing the help of modern technologies. My journey is a testament to trusting my instincts: blending age-old traditions with the sparks of technology to create something genuinely enchanting for the farming community.”

MAKING AN IMPACT IN EYE CARE

Aki Kiyomiya comes to Bloomington after being a scientific researcher in Japan. Here, she helped spearhead an innovation in eye drops.

“I was researching corneal stem cells and found a combination of ingredients that could decrease the damage of cells caused by oxidative stress,” she explains. “Then, I collaborated with members from other departments, and we developed this technology into a new eye drop. We also did new trials in the process of promotion, such as calling out buyers from drugstores to the laboratory and directly explained the technology and our passion to buyers. This product sold out very well and became the top brand in the premium eyedrop market soon after its release and still remains among the top sellers.”

If Class of 2025 members are looking for tutor, they can always turn to Jack Dieber. He passed the CPA. Rex Rumsey achieved a perfect score on the National Physical Therapy Examination, before earning designations as an Orthopedic Certified Specialist and a Therapeutic Pain Specialist. After collecting a series of promotions at Deloitte, Constance Nkomosi Cole became involved in helping to lead complex audits. When it comes to leadership, Nick Hagen would say there is no better preparation than the U.S. Green Berets.

“I was the executive officer for my Special Forces Company during the liberation of Raqqah, Syria in the Fall of 2017. In the position, I led multinational and cross-functional logistical teams, overseeing the overall sustainment for Special Forces combat units at the front lines. Aside from the historical significance around that deployment, the role exposed me to many functional areas that introduced me to skills I would later find here at Kelley.”

FROM TEACHER TO MOGUL

Before business school, Lívia Bragança Claudio planned her company’s annual shareholder meeting, setting the bar for future events. At the CPO Food Closet at UCLA, Roberto Vasquez worked to prevent food insecurity for students. In the case of Emily Meyer, she went from being an English teacher in Korea to leading her family’s real estate firm.

“My greatest accomplishment was giving my first presentation for a new construction $20 million hotel development to a zoning approval board made up of eight elected officials with the general community present after two years at the company,” she tells P&Q. “In those two years, I went from knowing nothing about business to creating and presenting a business plan for public approval. The feeling when the plan passed unanimously was incredible.”

Outside of work and academia, Loretta Abdul-Ghani has given a TEDX Talk that was viewed across 43 countries. This fall, Brooks Gill performed in the Indianapolis Colts drumline for the third year. Let’s just say that Lakshmikar Reddy Chitimireddi is probably the class athlete.

“I swiftly pick up sports. I started with cricket at age 10, then represented my school and college in badminton, tennis, squash, basketball, and volleyball. Recently, I’ve also started playing pickleball since coming to the U.S.”

Next Page: 12 student profiles and an interview with the associate chair of the Full-Time MBA Program.