MBAs To Watch: Class Of 2024

Whitner Chase doesn’t fit the MBA profile. He didn’t start in banking, consulting, or engineering. Before joining UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 2022, he worked for a foundation dedicated to conservation and advocacy. Among his accomplishments, he designed a grant that carved out an 8.9-million-acre national park – the largest in Australia. On a personal level, Chase describes himself as “driven by a sense of justice and a passion for nature.”

No wonder his classmates dubbed him, “Most likely to leave corporate America and become a zookeeper”.

MAKING THE PROGRAM MORE INCLUSIVE…AND FUN

In reality, Chase personifies the MBA spirit: restless phenoms seeking identity and community, a platform to wield their gifts and pursue the greater good. To them, business school is the great equalizer, a place to test their mettle, fill their gaps, and turn convictions into careers. For Chase, business school also presented an opportunity to broaden the conversation. That started with leading Haas’ Native American & Indigenous Business Association – the only student group of its kind among top graduate business programs. With the club entering its second year, Chase wanted Native Americans to continue receiving a spot at the table, despite founding affinity members graduating in the previous class. His efforts inspired other clubs to reach out to him to learn how to weave indigenous perspectives into their programming. Even more, the club’s partnership with Haas admissions team produced results.

“We found in admissions data that Native applicants are the most underrepresented in the suite of minority groups tracked by Haas’ full-time MBA program and that most Native applicants are denied after the interview stage,” Chase tells P&Q. “So, I worked with admissions to build infrastructure where we can better support Native American and Indigenous applicants with interview prep. As of this writing, every applicant we’ve worked with since implementing this system has been admitted to the program.”

At the same time, Chase shared his love for the outdoors by organizing Haasemite for two years. The school’s annual camping trip to Yosemite National Park, Haasemite draws roughly 500 students each year – many camping for the first time. Such efforts – including bringing 141 extra large pizzas to the campground – endeared Chase to his classmates. Even more, they reflected that he was far more orthodox than an outlier among his Haas classmates. It was a point that was quickly hammered home as Chase transitioned to recruiting, he jokes.

“Before business school, I dressed mostly in shorts and a T-shirt, so I thought I’d have to step up my fashion game on campus with my cosmopolitan classmates. In reality, the typical dress code at Haas is almost as chill as my aforementioned casual outfits. Every time I wear something from Brooks Brothers to class, people ask me if I’ve just come from a job interview!”

A TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE

You’ll find plenty of unconventional personalities and pathways among the 126 members of this year’s “MBAs to Watch” class. To compile the 2024 list, P&Q reached out to 78 top full-time MBA programs in January. Ultimately, P&Q received 226 nominations, which were split between May’s Best & Brightest MBAs and MBAs To Watch. Overall, the 2024 MBAs To Watch hail from 69 programs, ranging from the Asian School to the Yale School of Management. This year, women (again) outnumber men – this time by a 70-to-56 margin. Non-American students also beat out their American counterparts by a 69-to-57 margin. As a whole, the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company onboarded the largest number of MBAs To Watch, hiring 7 each. Deloitte landed 5 members of the class, followed by Bain & Company at 4. Bank of America, EY-Parthenon, Bristol Myers Squib, and Pfizer each attracted 3 members. Among the ranks of employers adding 2 members, you’ll find Citi, Eli Lilly, Ernst & Young, Nike, and Strategy&.

What makes someone an MBA To Watch? Think raw talent, the classmates who viewed the world differently and made every class discussion richer as a result. These graduates didn’t fly under the radar: they grabbed the reins and led by example, bringing an energy that made classmates look to them. More than that, they possessed a knack for elevating their peers, bringing an unforgettable experience to everyone. Like Whitner Chase, the MBAs to Watch didn’t follow the customary path to business school. Instead, they started out as dentists, speech-language pathologists, media researchers, and dog trainers. These experiences set the stage for some profound transformations.

Take Ross Dixon. At Boston College, he transitioned from being a correctional officer to a strategy and management associate at Bank of America. Before enrolling at Duke University’s Fuqua School, Stephen Chinedu Ezekoye worked at Teach for America. Two years later – including a stint as class co-president – he moved into financial management with Citigroup. Then again, Dan Hawkins underwent several transitions before business school. A stage actor and stand-up comedian who has performed at Carnegie Hall, Hawkins eventually turned to digital advertising before become a Hershey brand manager after earning his MBA. Along the way, he tapped into his entertainment background to turn business school into something unexpected.

“I saw an opportunity to transform our usual Thursday afternoon Carolina Casual into a spectacle that’d be free and fun for all members of the Carolina Community,” he writes. “We brought several professional comics to campus and, with myself hosting, held a comedy show on the steps of the business school! The show was a hit, and it has become an annual tradition, with the next show occurring just before graduation.”

FROM BAND DIRECTOR TO INVESTMENT BANKER

Looking for a student with the courage of his convictions? Meet UCLA Anderson’s Nkemdilim Chukwuma. After five years at Goldman Sachs and UBS, she jetted off to South Korea to become a teacher. Taylor Williams followed a different blueprint. She started in education as a band director – a role few would associate with a banking future. As an MBA student at Ohio State’s Fisher College, Williams recognized the synergies between teaching and her new role at JPMorgan Chase.

“Fisher helped me realize that I essentially ran my own small business while leading band programs: handling finances, marketing the band program to parents, students, and administrators (stakeholders), planning the logistics of travel and instrument and music inventory – not to mention the other roles that a band director takes on to run a successful band program.”

Looking for more non-traditional starting points to business school? Ellie Wachtel came to the Yale School of Management after designing and developing ski resorts. During COVID-19, INSEAD’s Alice Garner controlled Sotheby’s auctions in New York City from a modest apartment in London. At the same time, IIM Ahmedabad’s Viswanath Ramaswamy co-founded Kabir Café, which he describes as a “a folk-fusion music band exclusively performing the verses of the 15th Century mystic.” To date, the band has held 850 performances in 14 countries. In contrast, his classmate, Ambika Nautiyal, traded being a medical doctor in the Indian Navy for working in business development. After earning her MBA at IIMA, Nautiyal moved into driving artificial intelligence initiatives for Accenture. If you think that’s a punishing transition, just picture Melissa King. She completed her MBA at BYU’s Marriott School…as a single mother raising six children.

Some MBAs To Watch distinguished themselves in startup ventures. How did Ben Ferris get accepted into the University of Chicago’s Booth School? It didn’t hurt that he built a real estate firm with a dozen employees and $20 million in assets. Rather than use her Chemistry degree for research or teaching, Jamie Woodrum started a business: Humble Honee – a “bee-free alternative” to honey.

“I spent all summer formulating a recipe that perfectly replicated the sweet taste of bee honey,” she explains. “I had the final product sent to a university laboratory for safety testing and I obtained FDA approval. I sold my product online, and within two months of opening, Humble Honee was available in 11 brick-and-mortar stores across the United States. As a one-woman business, it was really special to be able to bring an idea to life and mold my vision into reality. I built the brand from the ground up and my product has been featured on more than six media outlets.”

SALES AND STARTUPS GOOD PREP FOR VENTURE CAPITAL

Other class members followed a more traditional path. Entering INSEAD, Arturs Loze had already completed 40 international engagements with Deloitte before being elevated to management. That doesn’t counter a later stint as CFO for a global fintech. In India, Prathiba Pandiarajan partnered with Indian state government to identify new markets for rural artisans.

“I spearheaded the development of an e-commerce training program to empower the artisans with digital business tools so that they can be self-sufficient in reaching their customers. This program concentrated on enabling artisans to identify their target market and execute transactions entirely through online channels. The participants of this program saw an increase in their revenue through new avenues on social media and e-commerce platforms.”

How coveted is the MBA experience by employers? Buddy Foster switched sides of the table, moving from selling elevators to working in venture capital. However, he laid the groundwork for this change by opening a coffee shop in Alabama, where he absorbed the most powerful lessons in business.

“Entrepreneurship is an incredibly hard and lonely path,” admits Foster, a graduate of Washington University’s Olin School. “Most careers help you to learn what you are good at—your strengths. However, entrepreneurship highlights your weaknesses. It shows you a million times why something won’t work and forces you to push past that to find a slight chance of success. At the same time, entrepreneurship is also a vibrant and beautiful ecosystem. Starting Side Track opened me up to this world. It changed the trajectory of my life and my career. It will forever be some of the proudest moments in my career.”

FROM GAMER TO PILOT…AND BACK TO GAMER

After serving as a company commander in the U.S. Army, Andrew Elgin joined the Wharton School’s MBA Class of 2024. Here, his mastery of core courses enabled him to tutor classmates in areas such as Statistics and Microeconomics. That experience will come in handy for Elgin, who joined the U.S. Military Academy as a faculty member after graduation. The Ivey School’s Amanda Jones, a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force, points out that she earned a private pilot license three years before she started driving. Before becoming an aviation officer in the U.S. Army, Brady Lemons shared that he was a college dropout due to “playing [ing] too many video games.” Ironically, Lemons joined a game development company after earning his MBA from the University of Washington’s Foster School – a success grounded in his determination to prove his detractors wrong.

“Making it through the Army’s helicopter flight school and becoming a Blackhawk pilot [was my biggest accomplishment],” he tells P&Q. “I was told multiple times in my career that I wasn’t smart enough, strong enough, or fast enough to be an officer, let alone a pilot. It was important to prove that I can do hard things.”

Pages 3-4: 126 profiles of the MBAs To Watch (Class of 2024)