Alyssa Marie Uy

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

“A small-town Filipina turning curiosity into meaningful impact through products, leadership, and community.”

Hometown: Bacolod City, Philippines

Fun fact about yourself: Before my MBA, I was a travel writer for Spot.ph, a leading Philippine publication. I created one-stop guides for trips across the Philippines, like Boracay and Palawan, and for international itineraries, like Japan and South Africa, translating messy planning into practical recommendations.

Undergraduate School and Degree: University of the Philippines-Diliman, BS Business Administration and Accountancy

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? GCash, Senior Strategy and Planning Manager. GCash is the Philippines’ leading fintech super app, serving about 80M consumers and businesses, and one of the country’s most valuable tech startups (valued at roughly $5B).

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Amazon, Senior Product Manager

Where will you be working after graduation? Undecided

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

Career Fellow: Coached 50+ first-year Wharton MBAs through internship recruiting via resumes, storytelling, and mock interviews.

Admissions Fellow: Connected with 30+ prospective MBA students and led 10+ Team-Based Discussion interviews, helping Wharton identify high-impact candidates.

Wharton NYC Tech Trek Lead (2025): Relaunched the NYC Tech Trek post-pandemic and led 50 MBAs through visits and panels at Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

Wharton Tech Treks Board (2026): Co-led SF and NYC Treks and recruited alumni hosts from Google, Waymo, Cursor, and Adobe, expanding access to candid career paths in tech.

Wharton Alumni Executive Speaker Series Lead (Amazon): Led end-to-end planning for a speaker series with Amazon executives, giving Wharton interns direct access to Amazon executives and real-world leadership insights

Moderator (Wharton Tech Conference, Wharton Tech Treks, Amazon Leadership Panel at Wharton): Drew out thoughtful, practical insights from tech leaders on industry shifts, emerging trends, AI developments, and building careers in tech.

Southeast Asia Club, Yoga and Wellness Club member

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? My curiosity for learning has been a throughline at Wharton. It helped me earn an endowed fellowship and a spot on the Director’s List. But what I am most proud of is taking what I learned in class and turning it into work that extends beyond Wharton through independent study projects.

I partnered with Professor Ronnie Lee, my strategy professor, to write a case on Prose, a hair and skincare brand using technology to disrupt beauty. I interviewed Prose CEO Arnaud Plas to understand his strategic thinking firsthand, and I visited the company’s factory to see how tech and AI power a personalized production process. To deepen my interest in AI products and real-world applications, I am currently doing an in-semester internship with Casper Studios, an AI product studio, where I help build AI-powered tools for client engagements and internal automation. That combination of academic rigor and real-world building reinforced what I now believe deeply: everything is a learning opportunity.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? At GCash, I led strategic planning for the organization, partnering with executives and teams across the business to align our short-term priorities with our long-term mission. That mission mattered deeply to me: expanding digital and financial access for millions of Filipinos, especially those historically underserved by traditional banks. In 2019, about 70% of Filipinos were unbanked, often because opening a bank account required money upfront, maintaining balances, and extensive documentation. Through our planning work, I helped drive plans that made financial access meaningfully more attainable. GCash made entry friction close to zero by enabling a basic wallet that was free to open; reduced onboarding barriers through digital verification that could be completed in-app with as little as one government ID; and designed around real transactional needs rather than minimum-balance requirements that can penalize low or irregular-income users.

That strategy translated into tangible product growth. We launched and enhanced consumer offerings across payments, lending, wealth management, and insurance, while expanding access for small and medium businesses and overseas Filipino workers. I am most proud of this work because it connected strategy to the financial services needs of every Filipino. It is fulfilling to know that the plans I helped shape made it easier for people to save, pay, send money home and participate in the economy, even if traditional banking had been out of reach.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose Wharton because of its alumni network. Before business school, I spoke with many Filipino MBA alumni across programs. Wharton consistently stood out as the place with the strongest, most responsive community of investors in my country who are willing to open doors, pressure-test ideas, and help founders move faster.

That support system mattered because I have always planned to become a founder in the long-term. My goal is to build a company that makes everyday life a little better for Filipinos. The dream is personal. I watched my parents and brother run our family wholesale rice business in our hometown, and I saw how a well-run business can enrich the community, from rice farmers to retailers. I wanted to continue that entrepreneurial path, but build something of my own in an area I am deeply passionate about. I chose Wharton because I wanted a network that would challenge me, support me, and help turn a founder dream into a real company.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? My favorite professor at Wharton was Professor Krishna Padmanabhan, who taught Applied Machine Learning in Business. It was one of the most technical, statistics-heavy classes I took, but what stayed with me most was not a model or a formula. It was one of his first slides: “Being kind is way more important than being smart.”

In a class where it would have been easy to prioritize rigor over people, he lived that principle. When students had conflicts, he looked for fair alternatives like make-up quizzes instead of defaulting to a rigid, “take it or miss it” policy. Those small accommodations were not small to the people receiving them. They reminded me of what my parents taught me growing up, and they pushed me to bring more kindness into how I lead and show up every day.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? Two courses stand out as favorites because they strengthened both how I think about technology and how I build with it. Enabling Technologies with Professor Kartik Hosanagar gave me a clear, structured view of the modern tech stack and how the pieces interact, from the internet and mobile platforms to cloud infrastructure and AI. It helped me move from knowing concepts to understanding systems, which is what you need to make good product tradeoffs.

AI, Business, and Society with Professor Vitaly Meursault pushed me deeper. We unpacked how foundational models work, how they can be integrated into real organizational workflows, and the second-order effects they create for society. After my Amazon internship, where I went deep on technical work, I wanted to keep building that muscle in a more rigorous way. Together, these classes gave me both the foundation and the depth, and they made me more confident translating emerging technologies into real products and responsible decisions.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? My favorite Wharton tradition was Follies, especially this year as it celebrated its 50th anniversary. It felt like a tribute to generations of students who built something joyful and kept the legacy alive, while giving our class a chance to add our own chapter.

Follies showcases how multidimensional Wharton students are. Classmates become actors, musicians, directors, producers, and the behind-the-scenes team that makes everything work, from costumes and set design to production and crew. It brings to life the stories that happened throughout the year, turning shared moments into something everyone can laugh about and recognize, in a way that feels like a true closing moment. To me, Follies reflects what I value most about Wharton: the balance. We take academics and careers seriously, but we also make space for creativity, community, and fun.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Looking back, I would have started reaching out to Wharton alumni earlier. During my first year, I felt intimidated contacting alumni I did not know and I often assumed I needed a warm introduction to justify the outreach.

That changed when I joined the Tech Treks team and began sourcing alumni to host and speak with students. I grew more confident with each conversation, and I realized how willing Wharton alumni are to share their experiences and lessons. Many were paying forward what others once did for them because they remember what it felt like to be in our shoes.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it?

Trader Joe’s is five minutes from my place, and I am almost always there because I am always drawn to it – just like everyone else. In Strategy and Competitive Advantage with Vice Dean Nicolaj Siggelkow, the Trader Joe’s case helped me see why. The magic is not one tactic. It is an integrated activity system: a curated assortment, private label focus, frequent new items, everyday value, and a distinctive in-store experience that all reinforce each other.

The biggest lesson I learned is that competitive advantage comes from fit and tradeoffs, not isolated best practices. When the choices reinforce each other, the whole becomes hard to copy. And when you are disciplined about what you will not do, you protect the strategy from dilution. It changed how I think about building products: pick a clear position, design the full system around it, and stay focused even when “more” is tempting.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? What I loved most about Philly was its food scene. One of the first things I heard was that it is underrated, and it completely lived up to that reputation. There are so many hidden gems that make the city feel endlessly explorable. I joined Wharton’s Food Club to discover new spots and share that joy with classmates, and some of my favorite MBA conversations happened over long dinners. My top three must-go restaurants in Philly are Mawn, Kalaya, and Perla.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? Wharton has integrated AI into the MBA in a meaningful, program-level way. The clearest example is the launch of a dedicated AI-focused major, signaling that AI is not a side topic but a core part of the curriculum and how future leaders will operate.

On a day-to-day basis, many professors encourage us to use AI tools for ideation and project work, but they hold us accountable for the quality of our thinking. The insight I gained is that AI does not replace judgment. It rewards it. The best results come from being specific about the problem, asking better questions, and refining prompts based on clear hypotheses and constraints. In other words, using AI well is less about having the tool and more about sharpening how you think.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I really look up to JV Pineda, a fellow Wharton MBA classmate and my fiancé, because he is genuinely fearless in the way he approaches life. I know that might sound biased, but what I admire is not the relationship. It is the consistency of his character. He chooses discomfort on purpose, not for show, but because he believes growth is on the other side.

I have watched him take on experiences that would intimidate most people and commit fully even as a beginner. He went from his first ski lessons to tackling blue slopes within days. He also joined Wharton Fight Night’s boxing prep team, training for something most of us would rather watch than do. Just as importantly, he is unapologetic about being himself and he walks away from spaces that do not allow him to be authentic. In my own life, he has been both a challenger and a steady support. He pushes me to aim higher, keeps me grounded in who I am, and is the first to cheer me on when I fall short.

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

Write for Condé Nast Traveler: Take my travel writing worldwide and tell stories that help people explore more thoughtfully.

Build a passion-project product end-to-end: Use new AI tools to go from idea to launch all by myself.

What made Alyssa such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2026?

“Alyssa is deeply trusted by the students she works with. She approaches advising with patience and thoughtfulness, helping classmates refine their resumes, articulate their stories, and navigate uncertainty with confidence. Even while managing her own recruiting process as an international student in a volatile market, Alyssa continues to show up fully for others. Most recently, she volunteered her time at the MBA Career Management Enterprise Recruiting Lab to review resumes and answer questions for first-year students, demonstrating her unwavering commitment to the Wharton community even during periods of personal ambiguity.

During her MBA, Alyssa interned at Amazon, where she earned an inclined-to-hire rating, reflecting both her strong performance and professional maturity. While awaiting the conversion of that internship to a full-time role, she has remained focused not on outcomes alone, but on being present and supportive for those around her. Her even-keeled demeanor and positive energy make her a stabilizing force in high-pressure environments.

Beyond formal advising, Alyssa is fully immersed in the Wharton experience and engages deeply with the broader community. She contributes meaningfully to student life through her involvement in Wharton clubs and informal peer mentorship, often serving as a quiet connector who helps others feel grounded, capable, and supported.

What truly sets Alyssa apart is not visibility or volume, but consistency. She leads with kindness, reliability, and integrity, and she gives her time and attention generously without expectation of recognition. Through her presence as a Career Fellow and as a peer, Alyssa has helped make Wharton a more supportive, humane, and collaborative place. She exemplifies the spirit of service and resilience that defines the very best of the Wharton MBA Class of 2026.”

Nadir Sharif
Career Advisor, MBA Career Management

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