Fearless Execution To Entrepreneurial Impact: My UCLA Anderson Capstone Journey

When I began my journey toward the Chartered Accountancy exams, my “campus” was a cramped study nook at home, and my classmates were fellow aspirants scattered across India. After conquering those rigorous tests, I joined my family’s audit and consulting firm in Hyderabad, where I worked in oil and gas, transportation, and green energy.

Those early years taught me the art of uniting teams around a common goal and executing with meticulous precision—capabilities that UCLA’s Anderson School would sharpen even further. In client meetings, I would see a new generation of executives—many armed with international business degrees and fluent in global strategy. To speak their language and deliver greater value, I realized I needed that same global outlook. Los Angeles’s vibrant mix of industries and cultures made UCLA Anderson the perfect place to broaden my perspective and elevate my consulting impact.

LEARNING THROUGH EXPERIENCE

Stepping onto UCLA Anderson’s campus as a first-year MBA felt like entering a global marketplace of ideas. Surrounded by classmates from over 40 countries, I dove headfirst into leadership opportunities. As director of the Energy & Clean Tech Association, I spearheaded the Energy Innovation Conference, forging connections with C-suite executives and industry pioneers. At the same time, I served on the organizing committee for Anderson’s inaugural Search Fund Conference. In this role, I curated multiple panel sessions, liaised with school leadership, and managed vendors under tight deadlines. At the same time, I led the Spotlight Association’s “Anderson Got Talent” showcase, bringing our cohort’s creativity to center stage.

By securing more than $100,000 in combined sponsorships across all three events, I not only broadened my network, but also drew the attention of a Boston Consulting Group alum whose referral launched my summer internship.

That early experience in high-stakes, time-sensitive event management proved invaluable during my three-month summer internship at BCG. During this time, I joined a cross-border value maximization engagement for a leading Mumbai financial institution.

My role involved owning two end-to-end workstreams. First, I mapped and re-engineered the auto-loan origination process—drawing on benchmarks from New York, Singapore, and London. In the process, I conducted over 200 interviews across 20 teams and evaluated five technology vendors. I then designed and delivered hands-on coaching for 150+ relationship managers to embed our new digital platform.

Within one quarter, we slashed turnaround time by 30%. Concurrently, I developed a real-time dashboard to track 60 new branch openings—aggregating weekly updates from 20 department heads, flagging risks, and coordinating rapid mitigations so every location launched on schedule. Monthly executive briefs, co-signed by the bank’s CEO and BCG’s senior managing partner, were vetted for flawless accuracy and clarity.

These experiences ingrained two core principles. First, you must take complete ownership from concept through delivery. Second, you must give relentless attention to detail.

INTENSIVE SUPPORT DURING THE CAPSTONE

Returning to Anderson. I had to complete my Applied Management Research (AMR) capstone with a global architectural design firm. I set out to quantify the ROI of “people-first” design interventions—a complex challenge that demanded deep data, razor-sharp storytelling, and unrelenting follow-through. Throughout this journey, I discovered Anderson’s often-overlooked resources. They included the following:

AMR Office: I had regular interaction with Paulo de Rezende, the faculty director of Applied Management Programs, to dissect our assumptions and point us toward critical data sources. Once, he even extended his office hours overnight to secure CoStar licenses, ensuring we woke up to the precise market data we needed.

Faculty Advisors: Assigned to every AMR team, our advisor, Professor Brian Frons, held weekly check-ins that kept us accountable. From midpoint presentations to two full-dress final rehearsals—each with candid feedback from cross-team faculty observers—our narrative evolved from a rough draft to a polished, high-impact pitch.

Library & Research Centers: UCLA Anderson’s integrated research ecosystem was invaluable. The Luskin School’s Public Affairs Library granted us access to municipal policy databases, while the Ziman Center for Real Estate provided proprietary market reports and hosted guest lectures from industry leaders. One deep dive into municipal zoning ordinances—facilitated by a diligent librarian—uncovered nuances that significantly strengthened our model.

Communication Support: In a one-on-one session with the Leadership Communication Program director, we uncovered a key gap: our conclusion didn’t tie back to the opening challenge. He advised reframing the final slide to echo our initial problem statement—creating a narrative “bookend” that reinforced our core insight. This guidance enabled us to tailor our story for both technical finance audiences and non-specialist stakeholders, ensuring clarity and impact across the board.

Professional Networks: Clubs like the Bruin Real Estate Association (BREA) and the Anderson Real Estate Association offered mentorship pairings, panel discussions, and networking mixers. Connecting with seasoned practitioners validated our metrics—14 developer-focused KPIs (IRR, ROI, payback, NPV, cash-on-cash return, equity multiple, etc.) and six government-oriented indicators (direct employment created, tax-revenue uplift, amenity utilization, pedestrian footfall, social-impact scores, etc.). It gave us the industry nuance no textbook could provide.

FROM CONSULTANT TO ENTREPRENEUR

Midway through our capstone, our progress was threatened by competing client priorities and a looming deadline. However, we were kept on track by Anderson’s collaborative ethos—anchored by the AMR Office’s unwavering support, faculty counsel, and on-demand data access. By our final rehearsals, we’d transformed uncertainty into a clear, actionable plan: we presented a fully scalable financial model to the architecture firm’s co-founders and finance team, complete with items like the ROI uplift from accelerating project completion by six months. To prove its versatility, we piloted the model on two additional firm projects, validating its efficiency under real-world conditions.

That rigorous work earned us a top-five finish out of fifteen AMR teams and an invitation to present to senior partners at a global consulting firm. Their enthusiastic feedback—and strong recommendation to productize our model as a SaaS solution—sparked the next phase of our journey. Emboldened by that endorsement, my teammate and I founded a startup to bring our capstone work to market. We transformed our financial model into an intuitive SaaS platform—with interactive dashboards and automated data feeds—and crafted a go-to-market strategy tailored to architectural firms. We saw a clear market gap: companies need data-driven placemaking insights but lack affordable, scalable tools. Our platform meets that need head-on.

My path has taken me from consulting in my family’s Hyderabad firm to entrepreneurship in Los Angeles. The journey has crystallized one insight: genuine impact arises when fearless execution is paired with strategic support. At Anderson, I didn’t just sharpen my analytical toolkit; I joined a community that helps students uncover hidden resources, embrace bold experimentation, and turn ideas into ventures that reshape real environments. Whether you’re tackling a capstone, competing in a case tournament, or launching a startup, the formula is clear: ask boldly, collaborate deeply, and then watch your ideas take flight.

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Sree Charan Kummamuru is an FTMBA ’25 candidate at UCLA Anderson, former family-business consultant, and BCG intern, who led a high-impact Applied Management Research – capstone with a globally renowned architecture firm quantifying the ROI of people-first design. He has now co-founded an LA-based SaaS startup delivering affordable, data-driven design solutions to architectural firms.