Meet Emory Goizueta’s MBA Class Of 2027

BIG OPPORTUNITIES IN THE BIG PEACH

While the Goizueta MBA is deliberately small, it operates in the larger Atlanta ecosystem. Home to 6.3 million people and 150,000 businesses, the Atlanta metro features 18 Fortune 500 companies the 3rd-largest concentration in the United States. Aside from Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Delta, Atlanta boasts UPS, Aflac, and AGCO. Overall, the Atlanta region is headquarters to 37 Fortune 1000 companies. Downtown, you’ll find Technology Square, which includes nearly 50 corporate innovation centers, accelerators, research labs and venture funds – not to mention over a hundred startups. In fact, from 2022-2024, Atlanta startups raked in nearly $900-million in investment, with exits totaling $26.9 billion from 2020-2024.

Beyond that, Atlanta encompasses 57 college and universities that educate nearly a quarter million students, making it easy for students to find peers with common interests and unique skillsets. Even more, it is home to Hartfield-Jackson, the busiest airport in America, enabling Goizueta students to travel anywhere at any time. More than its amenities, Atlanta is a spirit, adds Varun Sheel – “a city that just buzzes with momentum.”

“There’s an incredibly creative pulse here, not only in the arts, but in the way every person thinks and builds something for themselves,” Sheel continues. “As someone who’s trying to bridge business and music, it’s a perfect place to start something truly special that may not fit in a conventional mold. It’s a city that will let you stay grounded and true to who you are, all while providing you with opportunities to expand how you operate.”

Yolanda Mariah Morgan frames the city in similar terms. “Atlanta is a cultural and creative capital on the rise. With a booming film industry, startup scene, and deep Black business ecosystem, it’s the perfect backdrop for me to scale a media venture that’s rooted in storytelling and entrepreneurship.”

A REVAMPED CURRICULUM

Morgan will find plenty of resources to launch her venture, with Morgan herself pointing to the student-run Peachtree Minority Venture Fund. The school also contributes to The Hatchery, an innovation hub run in partnership with Techstars. At the same time, Goizueta houses the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which delivers nearly two dozen courses, while hosting workshops, panels, and competitions. Even more, the center sponsors a summer entrepreneurship immersion, all while facilitating networking with area entrepreneurs, investors, government leaders, and executives.

Among Goizueta’s MBA entrepreneurs is Jeff He. The founder of TandemAI, he has raised over $60—million dollars for his venture since 2021. Such alumni serve as an inspiration to Chinmay Kulkarni, a ’25 alumni who is launching his own venture in the AI space.

“The university fosters an entrepreneurial mindset, offering resources such as the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, The Hatchery, and access to experienced mentors and professors who guide students from ideation to execution. These experiences eventually helped refine the vision for Voltage Learning.”

This year, Goizueta has also rolled out a revamped curriculum, with an emphasis on one-on-one coaching, analytics, and “Day One Career Readiness.” Notably, the school has rolled out a pre-term Quantitative and AI Foundations Bootcamp, to expose students to discipline basics. This is followed up with a core Tech Trends and Transformations course, which will be overhauled every year as new developments emerge. At the same time, Goizueta has devoted greater room to taking spring electives during the first year, along with carving out “Flexible Fridays” so students can spend more time on areas like passion projects, job searches, and networking.

A MODEL FOR LEARNING

Along the same lines, Goizueta has re-designed core courses to be more multidisciplinary. This includes co-teaching arrangements, partnering sing professors from different disciplines, and introducing shared case studies, where cases are analyzed from a more cross-functional perspective. Even more, the program has added a Growth Week, where students can better synthesize the lessons across various courses earlier in the program. Gavin Cote, in particular, is looking forward to the Growth Week capstone.

“This week-long project at the end of the semester gives teams a real-world challenge from a company partnering with Goizueta. It’s designed to be a culmination of the entire core semester, allowing first-semester MBA students to apply everything they’ve learned to a practical business problem in a collaborative, competition-style format.”

More broadly, Jasia Barrett is looking forward to being exposed to the philosophy guiding this revamp: the Goizueta Effectual Model (GEM). “It’s not just a framework but a mindset that teaches you how to lead in real-time, when there’s no perfect playbook,” Barrett explains. GEM’s focus on navigating ambiguity, influencing outcomes, and taking intentional action feels especially relevant in today’s business world, where adaptability and authenticity matter more than ever. As someone who thrives at the intersection of innovation and strategy, I’m drawn to how GEM challenges students to lead with clarity and conviction—even in the face of uncertainty. It’s exactly the kind of learning experience I was looking for: one that sharpens your instincts while giving you room to grow into your own style of leadership.

CREATIVE WAYS TO LEARN LEADERSHIP

This commitment to leadership is embedded in many of Goizueta’s most popular offerings. Each year, students have the opportunity to complete the Leader’s Reaction Course (LDR). Held at Fort Moore and run by U.S. Army officers, student team complete tasks like crossing streams and scaling walls. In the process, they practice leadership skills like delegating tasks, managing personalities, solving problems, and handling stress. GALA – the Goizueta Advanced Leadership Academy – is another popular leadership development course. Over a semester, students receive intensive leadership coaching while being immersed in the latest research on leadership styles and effective communication methods. However, it is the capstone that students never forget. Over the holidays, they spend a week in the Virgin Islands, where they learn to sail and compete against other boats. This requires them to devise winning strategies while rotating roles on their vessels. Not only does this exercise boost their confidence, but trains them how to execute amid uncertainty and accept and deliver feedback.

Alas, LDR and GALA aren’t the only creative ways that Goizueta uses to teach leadership. Sasha McNair, a 2025 P&Q Best & Brightest MBA, points to Professor Dye’s Lessons in Leadership From American Literature course. Using texts from authors like Ernest Hemingway and Ralph Ellison, she says, the class explored issues ranging from interpersonal relationships to communication strategy. It even required students to use AI to produce creative writing pieces in the style of their favorite authors to personify good and bad leadership styles. By the same token, McNair’s classmate, Tyki Wada, points to the Practical Humor course as providing a template for connecting with people more deeply.

“[It was taught 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.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN MITCHELL

Rankings-wise, Emory Goizueta inched up from 18th to 17th this year with U.S. News, while climbing from 21st to 16th according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Dean Gareth James frames Goizueta this way: “A Top-20 MBA program with Top-5 career outcomes” (An opinion reinforced by Goizueta achieving a near 100% MBA placement rate for internships year-after-year). What’s ahead for the program? This summer, P&Q reached out to Brian Mitchell, the program’s associate dean, to learn more about upcoming developments. Here are his thoughts on Goizueta’s future, along with how AI is influencing its programming.

P&Q: What have been the two most important developments in your MBA program over the past year? What type of impact will they have on current and future MBAs?

Mitchell: “Our faculty approved a revised curriculum, which is being launching this semester and includes two exciting innovations. First is the creation of a core capstone experience that will integrate all of the core courses into an experiential learning project completed at the end of first semester. The project will focus on value creation and growth, which are areas of deep expertise among our faculty. Second is the introduction of a core course called Tech Trends and Transformations. Initially the course will focus heavily on the applications of artificial intelligence. As technologies continue to evolve, the course is designed to evolve as well, to develop leadership skills that are relevant to the times. Both of these innovations will impact our MBAs by preparing them as critical thinkers who are also agile in their ability to understand business and evolving challenges.”

P&Q: What do you see as the main differentiator that distinguishes your MBA program from other schools? How does it enhance the student experience and make them more attractive to employers?

Mitchell: “Our revised curriculum really focuses on growth across several dimensions, including business performance, personal development, and career trajectory. The student experience is truly holistic, and our students show up for employers as highly capable and also highly empathetic professionals.”

P&Q: What types of services do you provide to first-year MBAs to ease their transition into business school?

Mitchell: “This is another area of strength and differentiation for Goizueta. Rather than a traditional new student orientation, we deliver a full onboarding experience for our first-year MBAs. Our onboarding experience includes a full week of community and team building, in addition to a full week of AI and quantitative preparation. And the experience continues throughout the first semester, as best-in-class onboarding programs are designed to do. In fact, we redesigned a staff position to solely focus on full-time MBA student engagement with a special emphasis on the first-year experience. Students have consistently raved about this approach!”

P&Q: What types of support do you provide to international students before and during business school to enable them to better acclimate to your country?

Mitchell: “Of course, we have a very high-touch ISSS team at Emory. We work closely with them to communicate with our incoming international students early and often. We have an assistant dean on our full-time MBA program team who is dedicated to supporting our international students before they enroll, and who leads their onboarding process before the arrival of the full student body. Their onboarding experience includes several cultural immersions, which are also very highly reviewed by the students and their families each year.”

P&Q: How does your program integrate other disciplines, such as the liberal arts and STEM, across your curriculum to provide students with a more interdisciplinary experience in business school?

Mitchell: “Goizueta has been fully STEM designated for several years now. Our program is heavily quantitative, and our new Tech Trends and Transformations course will bring some of our faculty expertise in technology into the core of our program this year. As part of a liberal arts university, we make sure our students have opportunities to take electives at other Emory schools and encourage them to grow in areas outside of their typical academic comfort zones.”

P&Q: What are two ways that your program is incorporating Artificial Intelligence into your programming? How do they better prepare students for the future world of work?

Mitchell: “By adding the Tech Trends and Transformation course into the core of our curriculum, we are intentional about ensuring every Goizueta MBA student has a baseline of knowledge in this critical area. In our electives, we benefit from having several faculty members who teach in our Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program and cross-over into our MBA program. As our specialized masters programs have grown, we have added significant range and depth to our AI and machine learning course offerings.”

P&Q: What types of educational and career support do you provide to alumni after graduation? How does it make them more valuable to employers during their careers?

Mitchell: “Our Career Management Center has a dedicated staff resource for alumni after graduation. That has proven to be a highly utilized resource as our alumni have evolved in their respective careers. Goizueta also offers discounted Executive Education for alumni who often come back to campus to sharpen executive level skills.”

Click on the links below for in-depth profiles of members of the MBA Class of 2027.

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Ornella Adekoye	Newark, NJ	Seton Hall University	BizGuider Consulting
Jasia Barrett	Charlotte, NC	Spelman College	Accenture
Gavin Cote	Dexter, ME	Ithaca College	ESPN
Jessica Essel	Tema, Ghana	Ashesi University	Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
Akshansh Mehra	Kolkata, India	Vellore Institute of Technology, India	Aptiv Corporation
Jeongwon Min	Seoul, Republic of Korea	Ewha Womans’ University	CUSKIN
Anna Moceyunas	Los Altos, CA	Northeastern University	The Philanthropic Initiative at The Boston Foundation
Yolanda Mariah Morgan	Raleigh, NC	USC	Twentieth Century Fox Animation (King of the Hill)
Varun Sheel	Amherst, MA	University of Massachusetts-Amherst	Professional Songwriter
Jenna Shin	Suwanee, GA	Yale University	Fiserv
Trevor Tucker	Ripley, WV	U.S. Naval Academy	U.S. Marine Corps
Brian Waldrep	Winston-Salem, NC	St. Edward’s University	Alberta Ballet

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