Neva Unsal

MIT, Sloan School of Management

“Turkish woman passionate about retail and toys, bridging cultures, salsa dancing, and travelling; e-commerce geek.”

Hometown: Istanbul, Turkey

Fun Fact About Yourself: Despite being allergic to cold weather (cold induced urticaria), I earned my undergraduate degree and am now working on my MBA in the Boston area because I’m in love with New England.

Undergraduate School and Major: Tufts University, Medford, Mass.; Economics major with a double minor in Entrepreneurship & Leadership Studies and Finance

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Amazon Turkey, Senior Vendor Manager for Toys

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of MIT Sloan’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? With its emphasis on doing, Sloan’s experiential curriculum is a privilege in its own right. What excites me the most about the program is MIT Sloan’s certificate programs, which align with my professional interests. I’m eager to launch an e-commerce venture and am particularly excited about the Enterprise Management and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation certificates. By earning these certificates, I’m confident that I will be equipped to launch my own venture. My goal is to provide a platform full of opportunities for local manufacturers, artists, artisans, women business owners, and many others who are willing to go the extra mile to expand their businesses throughout the world.

I have worked within a diverse range of business areas including supply chain, procurement, and sales and marketing. I realized that I wanted to continue exploring more about these topics along with new ways to generate strategies and create projects to enhance further growth as well as automatizing systems, which will all help me achieve my professional goals. Once I do that, MIT Sloan’s impressive network will guide me at every step of my journey.

Action Learning Labs are one of MIT Sloan’s biggest attractions. Which lab interests you most? How does it fit with your interests? I would like to be exposed to as many innovative projects as possible. MIT Sloan’s Entrepreneurship Lab provides an opportunity to be a part of many E-lab startups within a variety of sectors. I would like to observe AI and tech-based companies that operate in their own fast-paced environment with the goal of making consumers’ lives easier.

When you think of MIT, what are the first things that come to mind? How have your experiences with the MIT Sloan program thus far reinforced or upended these early impressions? The first thing that comes to mind when I think of MIT is the concept of “humble leaders.” Before I interviewed for Sloan, I had the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session with a member of the Sloan Women in Management (SWIM) Club. One of the many useful insights she gave MBA candidates is that MIT embraces and educates humble leaders; for instance, a person sitting next to you on campus may have founded three impactful companies, but you wouldn’t be able to tell. The students and program advisors I have met virtually so far have been very kind, modest, helpful, and inclusive. As a woman leader in the Middle East, I have had my share of challenges in being seen and in exercising my own methods. It is MIT’s open-mindedness and distinctive culture that makes me believe I will be a step closer to achieving my goals and help others in the process.

What excites you about earning an MBA in the Boston area? As a Tufts University graduate, I believe living in Boston is a privilege due to the city’s vibrant atmosphere created through the distinguished academic institutions in the area. Each day, Bostonians experience a vibrant mix of culture and education. As you ride on the T (subway line) you can observe that learning extends beyond the classroom as each stop exposes you to a new crowd and some of the world’s most compelling conversations. This unique blend of intellectual energy and cultural richness makes Boston a special place to call home.

What is your unique quality that will enable you to make a big contribution to the Class of 2026?  I would like to believe that I embody the proverb, “Still waters run deep.” My parents raised me to be modest, and I quickly learned that in the business world this could be interpreted as being passive. My experiences at Amazon taught me that it is crucial to defend my mode of leadership while recognizing the importance of shifting gears and switching management styles when collaborating with partners from different backgrounds. All the while, I’ve learned to acknowledge the importance of leading as a lifelong exercise in mutual learning, empathy, resilience, humility, and self-regard.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: It was bringing global giants to Turkey where Turkish customers would have access to global brands that they did not have access to before. In the process, this brought more traffic to the Amazon Turkey website. I also onboarded local vendors to Amazon Turkey, which allowed them to get familiar with Amazon’s way of working in addition to providing them with an opportunity to sell to a much larger audience. As a next step, we supported vendors in opening accounts in other global Amazon platforms in Germany, the UK and the US, which allowed them to ship products from Turkey. I took a similar approach in my previous roles at Amazon in such categories as Small Domestic Appliances, and Apparel, among others. After I became Amazon Turkey’s Senior Vendor Manager for Toys in 2021, my ambition was to create the biggest toy store in Turkey. Now, we are not too far from meeting this goal!

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into MIT Sloan’s MBA program? I believe the key to gaining admission into MIT Sloan’s MBA program is to genuinely tell your own story and share what has gotten you to where you are today. I did not give up on my distinctive leadership characteristics in business, and success followed as a result of staying true to what I believed in. As I shared this story with the admissions committee, it helped them recognize the unique qualities I could contribute to the MIT Sloan campus. Recognizing that no application is devoid of imperfections, the genuine articulation of one’s unique narrative and accumulated wisdom promises to foster personal growth once you are admitted, both for oneself and your fellow students, within a supportive academic environment.