Alex Mason

Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University

“Centered on creativity, joy, and service.”

Hometown: Dallas, TX

Fun fact about yourself: I once auditioned for the TV show Survivor

Undergraduate School and Degree: MIT – B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis – M.S. Mechanical Engineering

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Northrop Grumman – Sr. Principal Quality Engineer

Where did you intern during the summer of 2024? Lincoln International – Chicago, IL

Where will you be working after graduation? Lincoln International – Investment Banking Associate

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: Dean’s List, Course Assistant (multiple), Co-President of Old Ezra Finance Club, Academic Liaison for Consortium students

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I’m most proud of helping lead our finance club, Old Ezra. It was incredibly gratifying to be a part of so many first-year students’ career journeys to help them secure investment banking internships. I’m also humbled to help lead this club given its long history, and I hope the fact that I’m the first Black co-president helps inspire other MBA students of color to pursue leadership roles in finance.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? As a design engineer in the aerospace industry, I’m most proud of helping design some amazing airframe structures that serve an important purpose in protecting our country and working alongside so many talented engineers.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose Cornell Johnson because it has the rare combination of being excellent at both career development and actively fostering a real sense of community. No other MBA community embraced me and my wife (also a second year with me) quite like Cornell. We immediately felt at home here and feel so fortunate to be part of Johnson!

Who was your favorite MBA professor? This one is so tough because there are many amazing professors here. I’m not the first person to say this but I really appreciate Prof. Risa Mish and her work here at Johnson. She goes above and beyond to not only teach critical thinking skills, but routinely helps students connect with others to expand their opportunities.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? My favorite course is the Investment Banking Immersion, taught by Drew Pascarella. It was the most practical preparation for my summer internship that I could have received – lots of work but well worth the effort. Part of the reason I’m excited to be a course assistant for it this year is so I can re-immerse myself in a lot of the concepts and see the first-year students grow.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? I really enjoyed J.O.E. (Johnson Outdoor Experience). It was a fun time at the beginning of the program, where I met many new faces in a fun environment. I also got to meet my core team and work with them for the first time – they’re some of the coolest people I’ve met here.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? I’d consider saying no to being a course assistant for one class. While valuable for helping the professor and renewing my knowledge of course materials, I could have redirected this energy elsewhere.

What is the biggest myth about your school? The biggest myth about Johnson is that there is nothing to do in Ithaca. I think if people have only ever lived in big cities, moving here will certainly be a shock, but I think Ithaca unfairly gets a bad rep. I’ve lived in small towns, mid-sized cities and big cities, and have realized that every place has something great to offer. Ithaca has incredible opportunities to experience nature, great people, restaurants, etc. These things are just not as in your face as they are in a big city.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? I love Lake Cayuga and Stewart Park, particularly in the fall and spring. During my first year, I rowed with the Johnson rowing team, which was a great way to experience the natural landscape while making friends too.

What movie or television show best reflects the realities of business and what did you learn from it?

I really love the movie Inception, and I think it reflects the realities of both life and business. First, there are different layers of understanding to everything. Second, people at the core are emotional creatures, and we are driven to behavior primarily by emotion and psychology, not logic.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? We’ve integrated AI in a few courses that I know of so far here at Johnson. Experimenting with it, I’ve realized it’s amazing for research and calculations. I’ve also learned that while it’s great at speeding up learning, it is most effective when I come to it with great clarity about what I want to achieve (just like with any tool).

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I most admire Selenia Caraveo – though I’m certainly biased because she’s my wife, I’m confident that many of my other classmates would agree she’s one of the most giving people at our school. She adds so much vibrant energy to everyone she interacts with at Johnson – I’m not surprised that out of 300+ student nominations she was just one of five selected for the prestigious Fried Fellowship here on campus! Over the past two years, she has given so much to the community and I know that she’s made a huge impact on the experiences of many students here.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? First is becoming a Manager Director in investment banking and doing so in the most fun and impactful way possible. Second is to impact the lives of 100,000 aspiring investment bankers through my career-focused podcast, Investment Banking Insights.

What made Alex such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2025?

“What makes Alex a standout is not merely that he is a smart, excellent student (though he is that). Rather, it is his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and his generosity as a leader. Alex doesn’t just want “the answer”; he wants to understand how to arrive at a compelling answer, and to understand the alternate rationales for that answer, and then to decide whether another answer might be equally persuasive, if not more so. Once Alex feels he has mastered a subject or a process, he wants to share what he has learned with others who are at an earlier stage of their own learning journeys, including those who might not have access to the resources we have here at Cornell. Alex has not only served as a Course Assistant for multiple Johnson classes and co-led our Old Ezra Finance Club and served as our Consortium Academic Chair, he has also more widely scaled this knowledge-sharing beyond Cornell through his two different podcasts — one designed to demystify the investment banking recruiting process and the other to analyze the stocks in the S&P 500. And, he has done all of this while maintaining a genuine sense of humility, gratitude, and community. We were so lucky to have Alex here with us at Johnson, and it has been an honor and a pleasure to see him “pay it forward”, at Johnson and beyond, in so many different, and impactful, ways.”

Risa M. Mish
Professor of the Practice of Management and Day Family Senior Lecturer of Business Ethics
Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

DON’T MISS: MBAS TO WATCH: CLASS OF 2025

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