Adora Ajuzie

Texas A&M University, Mays Business School

“I consider myself an intellectually curious creative with a knack for problem solving. Simply put – I am a problem-solving enthusiast!”

Hometown: Lagos, Nigeria

Fun Fact About Yourself: One of my favorite movies is Vanilla Sky, and I have seen it 7 times.

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Calabar, Biochemistry

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Portfolio Manager & Program Coordinator, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of the Mays MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? One of the key aspects that attracted me to Mays Business School MBA program is its emphasis on experiential learning through the capstone consulting projects. I am drawn to the idea of learning by doing, and a program that offers me the chance to not just get classroom experience but practical and real-world experience stood out for me.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Texas A&M Mays? I am super excited about the operations, strategic management, and leadership courses. I got an insight into the operations course during our core training. While it seems pretty daunting, I am looking forward to what all that I can learn and how I can apply that to future problems.

I am also really excited about the Aggie Women in Business Network. It’s actually one of the things that drew me to Texas A&M, and while I am yet to get into this, I’m certain it will be an amazing experience!

Looking at your recruitment, what was the moment when you realized that Mays was the right graduate program for you? Why? During my interview, I felt seen, I felt heard, and I did not at any point feel rushed or anxious. The program staff provided a lot of insight about a lot of things, and expanded on my answers to provide more clarity to me as I thought through what my next steps would look like if I got into the program.

The interview pretty much solidified things for me. Prior to this, I had read a lot from past Aggies and spoken to a few people. I loved how inclusive Texas A&M was. Looking back now, I’m still definite that this was a great choice!

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Restructuring the program coordinator/portfolio manager role at the Gates Foundation. When I joined the Gates Foundation, my role wasn’t well-defined. Hence, the deliverables and the way that I work with the team wasn’t very clear as well. I had to work independently to change that.

I defined my role at the Foundation, I structured the way that I support the team and our stakeholders. I built a template around my understanding of the role and my value-add and piloted and initiated it. It worked, increasing my efficiency and results to a 100%. This, in turn, increased team productivity and responsiveness by at least 50%.

Practically, this means that before I left the Foundation, I designed a blueprint for onboarding trainings for new joiners and onboarded multiple new joiners in the process. My role definition and value-add was institutionalized and used to hire new candidates in similar role for the Nigerian Office.

The exciting thing about this is that I made space for other people to have a softer-landing. I created a new system that boosts productivity at the Foundation and reduces the lag time between being a new-comer and a more reliable professional.

What is your unique quality that will enable you to make a big contribution to the Class of 2026? Why? My unique quality is my cross-cultural perspective, cultivated through diverse international experiences. Traveling a lot and having studied and worked with a diverse set of people across the globe, I bring a global mindset that will enrich discussions and foster inclusive thinking within the Class of 2026.

Looking ahead two years, what would make your MBA experience successful? The first thing would be a visible transformation in my person. I am not exactly hoping to change who I am. At the end of the program, I am hoping to have transformed into a better communicator, a better problem-solver, a better listener, a better analyst, and a better person all round.

I am also hoping to have gained some useful classroom experience. This would translate into being able to efficiently apply the finance class to real world problems. In the case of operations, it would mean understanding concepts and being able to apply them. Ultimately, that would mean bringing value to wherever I find myself because using skills I acquired from the MBA.

Finally, I hoping that, in retrospect, I would have had so much fun, that I would have passed through this and let it pass through me too. That my memory of an MBA would not be limited to just the hard practical stuff, it will include the fun human stuff too. That would make it a 360 experience for me.

DON’T MISS: MEET THE MBA CLASS OF 2026: THE ‘DO ANYTHING, BE ANYONE’ COHORT