Mano Wunnava

University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management

“Someone who is eternally curious, a strong leader with a great heart, and a lame sense of humor.”

Hometown: Visakhapatnam, India

Fun fact about yourself: I love food and can recreate dishes based on my memory. I have a pretty good sense of smell and taste!

Undergraduate School and Degree:

Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai, India

Bachelor of Technology, Production Engineering

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Deloitte India

Where did you intern during the summer of 2023? McKinsey & Company, Minneapolis

Where will you be working after graduation? Associate at McKinsey & Company, Minneapolis

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: (Include school awards and honors)

President, Carlson for Community (C4C)

Vice President of Communications, MBA Association (MBAA)

Vice President, Global Business Student Association (GBSA)

Managing Partner, Graduate Volunteer Consultants (GVC)

Sands Fellow

Board member of Graduate Women in Business (GWIB), Carlson Consulting Club (CCC), and Technology & Analytics in Business (TAB)

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I am proud of this year’s C4C’s annual charity auction. This event marked our 19th year, and I am super proud of my team for pulling together a great event that everyone enjoyed. We had around 225 attendees and collectively raised around $39,000 for Cookie Cart, a local enterprise that teaches life, leadership, and employment skills to teens of color through on-the-job and classroom experiences in non-profit bakeries. Ours was the biggest MBA club with 26 MBAs from both classes of ‘24 and ‘25. This year, both cohorts volunteered for more than 100 hours over the academic year. Not only did we plan the charity auction, but also further supported Cookie Cart’s mission by bringing their members to Carlson, bonding with them through Family Feud, and helping them picture an innovative future here at our campus. It was heart-warming when the kids told me that our tour was the best campus tour they had and that all the business students they met were cool people! C4C is a club that truly embodies Carlson’s motto – “Business as a force for good”, and I am proud to have continued to serve this purpose. This was also a place where I put a lot of business school lessons into practice.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Oh, that feels like a lifetime ago. In my second year at Deloitte, I had to work with another company, a competitor within the technology implementation space, to build a web-based solution for our common client. This solution involved working with internal and external stakeholders simultaneously to provide improved outcomes to our client. This was a great learning experience for me since I was owning the overall implementation, which required me to constantly convey the client’s business use cases to technical teams and vice versa. I was heading the project’s user experience and training side as well, communicating with client teams across 25 countries. We ended up getting the contract for all the remaining implementation waves for that web-based application, which eliminated dependencies from our competitor. Despite having no prior experience in dealing with big data and cloud engineering platforms, I was able to get familiar with technical terms quickly. I played a critical role in this ownership transfer to our firm.

Why did you choose this business school? For me, it was Carlson’s motto – “Business as a force for good”. Alongside working with Deloitte, I volunteered at a non-profit called U&I for 5 years and have always wanted to make a greater positive impact in the world. I wanted to learn how to balance making profits and doing good for the community around me. The fact that Carlson has so many opportunities to explore this idea through courses, fellowships, and student-led clubs got me excited. I was also sure that I would meet a lot of people at Carlson who would value their community and I would find a great support system in them. I am glad that all my reasons for choosing Carlson hold true!

Who was your favorite MBA professor? One of the best things about Carlson is the experiential learning program. We have four amazing programs, and I was a part of Carlson Consulting Enterprise. Our director, Dr. Siddharth Chandramouli, has been a great mentor to me throughout my journey at Carlson. From helping me with case interviews to mentoring me through difficult leadership situations, he has been an integral part of my MBA journey and will continue to be post-graduation.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? We have amazing courses and professors at Carlson. If I have to choose one, I would say Pricing Strategy taught by Mark E. Bergen is my favorite course. I am sure a lot of students who have taken his course would agree on how amazing he is both as a professor and a human being. I will never forget to think about the customers and the economic value provided when thinking about any pricing strategy. I have used a few of his teachings to set the ticket prices and discounts for our C4C charity auction. He was also gracious enough to take time and make a few recommendations that helped us a lot with the auction.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? I have mentioned C4C enough times already, so instead I want to mention another one of my favorite traditions at Carlson! We were able to revive our Global Gala, organized by the Global Business Student Association (GBSA), to its past glory after the pandemic! This is one of Carlson’s most colorful and fun events. We all dressed up in our ethnic wear (I draped a saree for the first time in 2 years!), danced, sang, and celebrated the various cultures our classmates represented. The best part was a cooking contest in which we got to eat amazing food from different parts of the world cooked by our classmates. I can’t forget to mention the Cupid shuffle. We all got to do this in the atrium with our classmates and their kids, and it was definitely a highlight!

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Everything happens for a reason and a few not-so-great choices I have made taught me the greatest life lessons. However, if I were to give myself or any other international student a piece of advice, it would be to ask for help sooner rather than later! It’s wise to learn from the experiences of others and there is no harm in asking a genuine question, such as “Why is football called football and soccer not called football!?”

What is the biggest myth about your school? The common myth around the school is its unbearable winters! While I won’t deny the fact that the lack of sun during winter can make it hard, the warmth in the people around you will make up for it! I had classmates who made my winters so memorable by teaching me how to ice skate and rock climb among many things.

What did you love most about your business school’s town?  I have never seen snowfall before coming to Minneapolis. It felt like I was in a snow globe, and it was enchanting. This is something I will never forget. The Twin Cities have so many activities to choose from throughout the year. I have especially loved watching Christmas Carol for the first time at the Guthrie Theater and walking on the Lake of Isles during the Luminary Loppet.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? This is a tough one, I admire a lot of people for different reasons and it is very difficult to pick one so I will give a shout-out to my core team! At Carlson, we are put in core teams in our first semester and we have to work with the team on multiple projects. I cannot ask for better people and wouldn’t trade any of them. A3 has been my A-team, from studying Econ together to practicing STAR stories to being each other’s loudest cheerleaders to closest confidants,! Josh Hansen-Connell, Celina Her, Alex Jones, and Jeremy Binder you guys are the best.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

Work on problems that intellectually stimulate me and make a positive impact in the world. I want to be able to work on things that will allow me to use both my brain and my heart.

My dad emphasized this teaching my entire life – “Be good, do good, and be doing good”. I want to be a good teammate, leader, and person at work and in the community every day. Make an incremental impact each day on the world around me through work and at work!

What made Manognya such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2024?

“Manognya “Mano” Wunnava has consistently shone as a standout student at the Carlson School of Management. Right from the program’s outset, Mano embodied Carlson’s ethos of “business as a force for good.” Her dedication extended not only to CSOM but also to the broader Twin Cities community. Serving as a 1st-year Representative and later as the VP of Communication in the student government association (MBAA), Mano tirelessly advocated for the MBA students, both publicly and behind the scenes, fostering engagement and enriching the Carlson community. Beyond her campus commitments, Mano’s commitment to giving back led her to support local non-profits through Carlson4Community, notably contributing and raising funds for Operation No Limits (2023) and Cookie Cart (2024), enabling these organizations to advance their missions. Renowned for her integrity and generosity, Mano consistently seeks ways to uplift her peers and foster a supportive class environment.”

Kelly McLennan
Senior Associate Director & Career Coach
Carlson Business Career Center

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