At Tepper, Teyonna Jarman Turns Advocacy Into Impact – And Wins Forté’s 2026 Edie Hunt Award

The work of expanding access in business education often shows up in small, deliberate acts – a mentoring session, a recruiting conversation, a student who decides she belongs.

At Forté Foundation, those acts are the point. And each year, the organization singles out one MBA student who turns that mission into something visible on campus.

This year, that student is Teyonna Jarman.

A STUDENT LEADER ROOTED IN ADVOCACY

Jarman, a second-year MBA at Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business, has been named the 2026 recipient of Forté’s Edie Hunt Inspiration Award, an annual honor recognizing MBA students who advance opportunities for women in business.

The award, established in 2009 and named for longtime Goldman Sachs executive and Forté Board Chair Emeritus Edie Hunt, comes with a $2,500 prize and recognition at Forté’s MBA Leadership Conference. More than that, it serves as a signal – to schools, recruiters, and peers – of the kind of leadership Forté believes the next generation of business leaders should embody.

Jarman’s path to that recognition has been anything but conventional.

A native of Barstow, California, she trained as a mechanical engineer at Stanford before building a career that spanned digital media, entrepreneurship, and creative consulting. Profiled by P&Q for our Meet the CMU Tepper MBA Class of 2026 feature, she describes herself as a “creative storyteller” with interests that range from tech and strategy to entertainment – and “all things Mariah Carey.”

She has even performed on one of the world’s biggest stages, as a paid performer in the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show – a detail that hints at the range of experiences she brings into the classroom.

BUILDING PIPELINES – AND CONFIDENCE

At Tepper, that range has translated into a leadership style grounded in access and visibility.

“As a queer, mixed-race woman with experience supporting other-abled individuals, I bring a personal stake to this work,” she says.

As a mentor with Tepper Women in Business, Jarman works directly with first-year MBA students, helping them prepare for recruiting while translating their experiences into stronger professional narratives. The work is as much about confidence as it is about resumes.

She has also served as an admissions fellow, playing a front-line role in bringing more women into the MBA pipeline – often the first step in changing outcomes at scale.

Beyond those roles, Jarman has been active across student organizations, including the Black Business Association, student government, and the Out & Allied club, where she has focused on programming that reflects a broader definition of inclusion.

Her reach extends outside the school as well. Jarman mentors prospective MBA students through the South Pacific Islander Organization and serves on the Pittsburgh chapter board of TiE Global as a Golub Capital Board Fellow. There, she is working to strengthen the TiE Women program, with an emphasis on building more durable pathways to funding for early-stage women entrepreneurs.

It’s a portfolio that reflects a consistent theme: not just opening doors, but making sure others know how to walk through them.

‘CARVING OUT SPACES’ FOR OTHERS

In announcing the award, Forté CEO Elissa Sangster pointed to that focus.

“Teyonna Jarman has demonstrated a passion for carving out spaces for underrepresented voices to truly build their confidence and strengthen their professional narrative,” Sangster said. “We are so thrilled to honor her commitment to this advocacy.”

The organization reviewed nominations from across its network of member schools before selecting Jarman and naming five finalists – each representing a different approach to advancing women in business.

A FINALIST CLASS THAT REFLECTS THE MOMENT

The 2026 finalist group underscores how broadly that work now shows up across MBA programs.

At Columbia Business School, Larissa Bandeira has focused on representation and outreach, building on earlier work in Brazil to create support networks for women navigating finance careers.

At University of Michigan Ross School of Business, Alexis Black has pushed to make the MBA experience more accessible to parents, including through admissions partnerships and student-led resources for navigating recruiting while raising a family.

At Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business, Isamar Lopez has led one of the school’s largest conferences, mobilizing dozens of students and allies around women’s leadership programming.

At Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management, Grace Titilawo has worked on both recruiting and retention, helping admitted students envision themselves in the program – and stay once they arrive.

And at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Parul Verma has focused on the harder, less visible work of belonging, organizing programming around identity, confidence, and leadership.

DON’T MISS LAST YEAR’S FEATURE ON THE FORTÉ FOUNDATION’S 2025 EDIE HUNT WINNER

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