Sarvie [Sage] Golestaneh

Ivey Business School at Western University

“An ambitious creative who wants to make a positive impact through design.”

Hometown: Ottawa, Ontario

Fun Fact About Yourself: I’m a piano player and earned up to Grade 8 of Royal Conservatory of Music certificates

Undergraduate School and Major: Carleton University, Majored in Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Evolution Architecture – Building Envelope Consultants; Title – Design Associate

How has the case method enriched your learning?  The case method has been an amazing way to learn for me; it combines all elements of a real-world problem and presents us the opportunity to solve it in our own ways. It has allowed me to push my thinking, consider several options and factors, and collaborate with my classmates in a meaningful way.

Aside from classmates and cases, what part of the school’s MBA programming led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Ivey is known to have a strong alumni network, supportive faculty, and a fast-paced academic schedule which are all reasons it became my top choice.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I have two that come to mind, both for different reasons. The first is being the only intern invited to visit my past company’s headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Out of undergrad, I landed a role as an intern engineer at a specialty structures engineering firm in NYC; the work was difficult and demanding but I was determined to improve my drawing sets and contribution to the team. The hard work paid off – the project manager at the time stayed patient with me through all my calls and questions and put in a recommendation to the German team for me to be able to visit and help them on a tough project we were working on. It was my first ever business trip.

The second was during my time in Seattle, for the building envelope firm where I was working. I got the opportunity to be a very hands-on member in designing the exterior of a school for deaf children. It was a very rewarding process to be able to work closely with the school’s directors and the mural artist to create a unique façade, knowing that these visual aspects would mean that much more to the children.

Side Note: Not career-related, but I am a digital artist on the side, and my biggest accomplishment with my art was releasing a collection of 100 immersive spaces and almost selling out, in addition to being exhibited at the Seattle NFT Museum.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far: Again, I have two, one academic and one that’s more personal development. My academic one was contributing frequently in my Macroeconomics class, studying rigorously for the exam, and obtaining a higher grade than I expected. Even though it’s so different from my background, I ended up liking the course very much.

The second accomplishment occurred in my final Finance class – where I got up and presented my discounted cash flow (DCF) model. Finance was a course where I had been struggling. I was scared to show my spreadsheets, for fear that people would think I don’t know what I’m doing. For the final class, I mustered up the courage to get behind the podium and show my process – I thought to myself, ‘If other people can be so confidently wrong, why can’t I’? It’s no big deal. So that felt like a win for me.

What has been your most memorable experience as an Ivey MBA thus far? It would be my two group presentations with my first learning team. I got very lucky with my first team. We all liked each other and got along so well – and we would do well in class assignments together. Our first presentation was for Communications class, where we were representing “Meta”. We even made sure to color coordinate, wearing blue and black. Our second presentation was a lot more fun. It was for the Managing Operations course. We were encouraged to be creative with this one and we made it into a gameshow – got great feedback from the class afterwards too!

Where is your favorite hang-out in London (Ontario)? Why do you (or your classmates) gravitate there? I really enjoy Lucy’s and Barney’s. Lucy’s is a restaurant I’ve gone to with my girlfriends. They have a great selection of espresso martinis and an overall fun atmosphere. Barney’s is nice because it’s outdoors, relaxed, and we all mingle there.

What do you hope to do after graduation (at this point)? I am keeping several doors open, because there’s so many things that interest me. I hope to go into design direction, consumer goods consulting, product management, or even operate my own studio/firm of some kind.

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