Tyki Wada

Emory University, Goizueta Business School

“Relentless and all-in, with a lot of luck to support me!”

Hometown: Tokyo, Japan

Fun fact about yourself: I love futsal. It’s essentially soccer played with a heavier ball in an area the size of a basketball court. It is fast, technical, and requires you to play well as a team to succeed. I invite people to play where I can; it’s my way of connecting deeper with individuals around me.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Brigham Young University, B.S., Statistics

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? The Coca-Cola Company, Senior Business Analytics Analyst

Where did you intern during the summer of 2024? Whole Foods Market

Where will you be working after graduation? Undecided

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• Robert W. Woodruff Scholar
• Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation Fellow
• Techstars Founder Catalyst 2025 Cohort
• Hatchery Incubator 2024 Cohort
• Teaching Assistant (Leading Organizations and Strategy, Operations Strategy)
• Volunteer – Goizueta Ambassadors
• Dean’s List (1st Year)

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? Oddly enough, my greatest achievement during school was a moment of personal learning as an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fellow in my first year.

I struggled to clearly identify where my strengths and contributions intersect. As someone with a data science background, I solved a variety of fascinating problems across industries and verticals—I stood between the love of being a part of every process and the lack of a clear focus.

Actively volunteering through the Fellowship encouraged me to study and meet founders up-close. There was something inspiring about those passionate about breathing in the innovation ecosystem. Those that are innovating, building, supporting are the people building our future. That’s exactly where I need to be.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? A few years ago, I was thrown into a newly-formed analytics group at The Coca-Cola Company to build strategic decision frameworks for the North America unit. The question from the CSO was a futuring exercise: “Are we positioned to win in the next 10 years?”

I played an important role in studying macroeconomic trends to uncover inherent risks totaling half a billion dollars and in building a data-driven segmentation framework that uncovered over $10B in future opportunities for our brand and revenue growth teams to act on.

The icing on the cake was how our strategic recommendations didn’t end as strategy. I also held a product ownership role that connected our uncovered opportunities to in-market execution activities by building out a store plan optimization product with developers and data scientists. It was amazing to watch hundreds of internal stakeholders and external customers get excited over our new frameworks and capabilities to better actualize their business plans.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose the Emory MBA for its academic rigor and I’d say they have delivered. Understanding the structure of the world and studying the decisions of leaders in an ever-changing economy has made me more well-rounded as a problem solver.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? I would call out Professor Karl Schumacher. He taught our Managerial Accounting class, guiding us through ways to think holistically about performance, drivers, and ways to manage planning and decision execution for a company. I loved how invested he was in our learning and wasn’t afraid to embarrass himself for our sake—like making us watch him dance to make a point. If there was anything I learned, it was the importance of organizational design as a manager. Carefully thinking through decision rights, incentives, and architecture leads us to balance competing motivations and guide control over decision making in any company system.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? One of the more eye-opening classes for me was Multinational Firms and Strategy taught by L.G. Thomas. It was a real application on analysis, using econometric methods to identify structural and operational markers of performance for emerging countries like Taiwan or global companies like Uber and Banco Santander. Growing up in an expatriate community in Japan always had me curious about “what it takes” for companies to succeed globally and the short answer is, “A lot. And it’s not always the right decision.”

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? I took a short course on Practical Humor held by Ryan Hamilton, who has a background in physics and marketing and spent time performing stand-up comedy. Through the course, we were exposed with theories of humor, but more importantly, we were required to do a stand-up routine in front-of our class. Although I’m not as funny as I thought I was, I don’t think I laughed harder my whole semester. It was my most memorable experience I forced myself through.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? I would have loved to explore our partnerships with some of our neighboring schools in the area. Goizueta offered some cross-enrollment options to take respective classes at schools like Georgia Tech, which could have increased my exposure to the existing innovation ecosystem.

What is the biggest myth about your school? I had heard that our school was a “consulting school.” Turns out, this myth was true! Many of my friends performed greatly and landed roles at top firms. Unfortunately, this made all the surrounding opportunities seem like consulting opportunities which made it tough during a difficult tech recruiting year. Yet, the school has plenty of resources to help you succeed.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? Atlanta is a beautiful city in the forest. My wife and I have two little children. Because of this, we live our lives through her eyes. Luckily, there is always something we can do as a family! Chastain Park, the Aquarium, and Fernbank Science Center are a few places we enjoy.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? I coded an AI grader as a teaching assistant for our core strategy class. The program took five hours to build, graded everything in 20 minutes, cost 2 cents, and required human intervention only for setup and revisions. The model performed more consistently and accurately than an MBA TA. This outcome solidified my belief that vertical tasks can be automated away from the workplace, and that they provide real economic and strategic benefits.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I have really enjoyed spending time with Omid Razmpour. Omid is a dual PhD/MBA in nursing. What’s most admirable is what he is building to disrupt nurse care by quantifying the burden of nurse turnover for healthcare organizations. He is bold and has a great ability to capture support. We’ve bonded over the importance of analytics, love for entrepreneurship and for soccer; it is a lot to share and admire!

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

* Start a venture entrepreneurially and as an intrapreneur. My intention is to remain a part of the innovation ecosystem for the long-haul. I’ve made the first-step by enrolling my startup as part of the Techstars Founder Catalyst.

* Develop a community through owning an indoor soccer facility. Many of my life opportunities have been enriched through soccer. I hope to give back to people by building a place where people can connect and build relationships just as I have.

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

“I am honored to give my highest recommendation for Tyki Wada as one of Goizueta’s Class of 2025 Best & Brightest MBAs. Tyki has expertly balanced the demands of being an MBA student with the additional responsibilities of being a devoted husband and father having just welcomed his second child this semester. As a Woodruff Scholar, which is the highest-level scholarship offered to incoming students in the Full-time MBA Program, Tyki’s potential was clear even before his first day on campus. Since then, he has not only excelled in the classroom, earning Dean’s List honors in 2 out of 3 semesters, he has also established himself as a unique and authentic leader outside the classroom. MBA students have many opportunities to establish themselves as leaders including elected and appointed positions in clubs and student government, but the respect and admiration that Tyki’s classmates have for him has evolved much more organically. Whether it’s his thoughtful contributions to class discussions or the quiet and deeply genuine care for his community that he demonstrates every day, the impact that Tyki has had at Goizueta cannot be overstated.”

Amy Bentley
Director of Full-time MBA Academic Success
Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

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

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