Courtney Fondufe

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

“An ex-investor with operator aspirations and a deep dissatisfaction with the US healthcare system.”

Hometown: West Orange, NJ

Fun Fact About Yourself: Ever since I was a kid, I have disliked cheese. This was never a problem until I went to high school in France. Disliking cheese was socially unacceptable, so I used to tell people that I was lactose intolerant to escape judgment.

Undergraduate School and Major: Columbia College, NY; Economics

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Senior Research Associate at Redesign Health (US healthcare-focused VC)

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Chicago Booth’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Booth has an appealing reputation as an academically rigorous and data-driven institution, but I was most attracted to its curriculum because of the flexibility it offers to students. I am currently entertaining concentrations across the 3 topics of Healthcare, Operations, and Entrepreneurship & Innovation–a level of freedom that is only possible due to not having a set of fixed “core” classes that I am required to take. As someone entering their MBA journey with a relatively strong amount of certainty on their focus, I was attracted to the idea of being able to curate every second of my journey to best fit my needs.

The Booth MBA is also known for being highly data-driven. Why does the program’s focus on quantitative analysis and decision-making appeal to you? How have you been able to leverage this approach in your career so far? As an incoming MBA student, one of the very few certainties I have about my future is the knowledge that I want to work within the healthcare sector. My previous work experiences of writing investment research and doing due diligence on both private- and publicly-traded healthcare companies alike has made me realize the importance of incentive alignment in the business of healthcare. I want to further invest in my ability to skillfully interpret data for the sake of predicting behavior, as well as my ability to use data to create a historical basis off which to base future decisions.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Chicago Booth? One of the classes I am most excited to take at Chicago Booth is the Healthcare Analytics Lab (HAL). One differentiating factor of Booth’s educational approach is the deep emphasis on applied learnings and bridging the theoretical frameworks of academia and real-world business scenarios; this class is just one example of exactly that. In the Healthcare Analytics Lab, students leverage real patient data to derive operational insights and work with real-world stakeholders to improve how healthcare is administered and received. This is the exact type of work I would like to do post-MBA, so I’m excited to get early exposure to these types of projects in the HAL.

What has been your first impression of the Booth MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far. Tell us your best Booth story so far. I have already been so welcomed by the Booth community. The WhatsApp group and Slack channels for Class of 2026 are full of students helping orient each other to Chicago, offering up difficult-to-find information, and sharing memes.

My favorite Booth story so far occurred recently when I was invited to a Back to School event hosted by a fellow first year. I later realized that not only was this Back to School event also doubling as a birthday party for her, but that we shared the same birthday! She quickly added my face to the event flyer to ensure we would both be celebrated on that day, and I really appreciated her going out of her way to welcome me.

What makes Chicago such a great place to earn an MBA? I spent my undergraduate years in New York after having grown up partially across other large global metropolitan cities like London and Paris. I strongly believe there is a wealth of opportunities that only a large city can offer. It is easier to engage and network with other students with the excuse of “exploring” a beautiful city with many establishments and events. Even more, there are many job opportunities in Chicago which makes it easy for students to recruit. I also think Chicago is a great place for an MBA program because of the number of industry-specific events that occur, even those entirely unaffiliated with the University of Chicago. Ths gives students a further chance to network with people in their aspirational line of work.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: In 2023, during my time working at a venture studio, two ideas that a co-researcher and I pitched to our internal investment committee were identified as compelling opportunities for new standalone healthcare startups. In turn, they were given seed funding by my employer (as per the venture studio model). Each pitch was the culmination of months of strenuous primary and secondary research, and I was proud of having challenged myself to think creatively while rationally questioning aspects of the status quo to identify a potential business model.

Describe the best memory of your life. Why does that moment resonate with you? I am lucky enough to have experienced many beautiful moments in my life, the most recent of which occurred this summer. As is common for African families, my cousins and I were raised like siblings—despite both of my parents having large extended families. On my mom’s side of the family, most of my cousins live in America, but I have one cousin who was born and raised in London. Nearly two years ago, she welcomed a beautiful little boy into the world, and he was able to meet all of his aunts and uncles for the first time only this past summer. They traveled to New Jersey for only one week, but all of my cousins flew in from across the country and arranged to take as much time off work as possible. We spent the majority of the week together—introducing ourselves to her son and making sure that he knew how loved and supported he was. Those moments we spent eating and laughing together while singing nursery rhymes and running around with her son are so cherished. Not only were they reminiscent of the times we would gather as children, but it was a glimpse into the future and a reminder of the beautiful community I am a part.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Chicago Booth’s MBA program? The one piece of advice I would give to potential applicants is not unique for admission into Booth specifically, but it stands for any potential student applying to any grad school program: it is very important to have a strong understanding of your “why” and to be able to articulate it. Throughout the grad school application process, both in live interviews and in written statements, students are asked about their intentions for applying to a school as well as their goals and motivations. As long as you have a clear internal sense of what your reason for applying to a program is – even if your reason is that you simply want to “explore something” or you are unclear about your post-MBA route – the admissions team will be better able to envision the role you will play on campus and what you will contribute to the community.

DON’T MISS: MEET CHICAGO BOOTH’S MBA CLASS OF 2026