Benjamin Vester

University of Washington, Foster School of Business

“Servant-leader and heterodox thinker who is excited about what comes next.”

Hometown: Morgantown, West Virginia

Fun fact about yourself: I hold three citizenships: American, Italian, and French: my dad’s American, and my mom is half-Italian, half-French. I’m lucky enough to hold a French passport as well, which makes traveling in Europe easy, although I don’t take advantage of it nearly as often as I’d like. In fact, I’m going on a backpacking trip in the Alps with my dad between graduating from business school and starting to work.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Roanoke College, BA in Economics and Political Science (Double Major)

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Office of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, Legislative Aide

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? T-Mobile

Where will you be working after graduation? T-Mobile, Business Analysis Manager

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

1. Executive Vice President of Operations, Foster MBA Association
2. Co-President, Huddle
3. VP of Events, Foster Consulting Society

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I was honored when my classmates elected me as EVP of Operations of the MBA Association. It’s one of four positions on the Executive Committee, which oversees student life at Foster and represents the student body to administrators and other stakeholders. My responsibilities were to facilitate and support student clubs, which drive much of the MBA experience’s value.

It’s normal for a handful of students in a class to choose not to participate in the association. Still, during my tenure, we successfully recruited every first-year student. With the help of our club presidents, we also succeeded in getting every student club at Foster recognized as a student organization by the University of Washington.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Before business school, I served on U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s team for nearly six years. I got my start with the Senator as a campaign volunteer. I was interning at a nonprofit during undergrad for the summer and decided to see what it was like to be around a political campaign. At the end of the summer, the campaign manager asked me if I’d take a semester off from school and stick around through November. I took a chance and said yes. I spent the fall knocking on doors and making phone calls, got brought back the next summer as an intern in the official office, and the Senator offered me a full-time job after undergrad.

My goal was to work my way up the ladder and eventually get a shot at working on policy. After several years on staff, I spent my final year-and-a-half as a legislative aide working on appropriations and commerce issues.

The apex of my time as a staffer, however, was the time I spent as Senator Manchin’s special assistant during a period when he was the deciding vote in a deadlocked Senate. The role sounds flashier than it actually was. I drove the Senator to work in the morning and home in the evening, and made sure he was where he needed to be with the necessary materials and support in between. Early mornings, late nights, weekends – each day had a start time but no end time. I look back on my time as a “body guy” with the most pride.

My time on staff was formative because it taught me how to lead teams and how high-functioning organizations are structured. I was privileged to have a front-row seat to how Senator Manchin operated as an effective servant-leader at the highest level. Two big lessons stand out in my mind. First, the Senator’s north star was always his constituents. Whatever decision was on hand, the question was always: how will this help or harm the people I work for? (And never, how will this benefit me?) Second, the Senator brought out the best in the people he led. He did so by maintaining high standards, pushing his staff hard, asking questions, and never being satisfied with the first draft of a proposal. Sometimes, he might be a little too tough on staffers, but, importantly, he always apologized when that happened. That accountability, combined with the desire to acknowledge how privileged we were to be in the position to represent others and bring about positive change through our work, was inspiring to witness.

The experience also taught me how high-functioning teams work. As a special assistant, I was responsible for execution. But that was putting in motion the work of the talented people behind the Senator, who allowed him to make the most of his platform. I delivered the Senator to where he needed to be, but it was our scheduler who juggled the innumerable moving parts to set the day’s schedule and adjust on the fly. I guided the Senator to his meeting rooms in the Capitol Building, but it was our communications director who guided his messaging and media strategy. I sat at the desk in front of the Senator’s office and welcomed those he was meeting with, but it was our chief of staff who advised the Senator on strategy behind closed doors. The experience was an invaluable first chapter that taught me the importance of surrounding one’s self with talented people and building successful teams. Whether it’s Senator Manchin or a Fortune 500 CEO, I learned none of our most impressive leaders do it on their own.

As I mentioned, I achieved my goal of working on policy. Like many young people, I wanted to make the world a better place. I still do. However, I came to believe that the ability to affect positive change is greater outside of the policymaking process. One project I worked on drove this point home for me. I was working to secure access to the funds allocated to build out broadband infrastructure in West Virginia. The required bureaucratic process was complex. It had been years since the bill passed, and the state still hadn’t seen a cent. Furthermore, it was going to cost over a thousand dollars per household to pull the physical cable up these isolated mountain hollers. I couldn’t stop asking myself, why are we jumping through hoops and spending all this money when we could buy Starlink terminals for a fraction of the cost and set them up tomorrow? It was a light bulb moment. I came to the conclusion that the private sector is at the forefront of change. Policymaking is fundamentally reactive; it’s downstream of private-sector innovation. That realization inspired me to go to business school. With that said, I couldn’t be prouder of the work I did during my time on the Senator’s staff.

Why did you choose this business school? UW Foster’s tight-knit and student-driven culture was central to my decision to matriculate here. Our cohorts range around 100 students, which is roughly half the size of the other programs I considered. I could feel the difference in both the number and depth of connections I formed when I came to visit. Because we’re a small program, everyone knows everyone, so counter-intuitively, I’ve gotten to know a wider range of people than I would have in a bigger program. And we all care about community, so our culture is genuine, uplifting, and collaborative. Collaborative is really the keyword for me. Foster doesn’t rank students against each other, which I don’t think would make a difference if it did. Either way, it sets the culture from the top. Students support each other. Classrooms are places for learning, not competition. That’s the culture I felt the first time I visited.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? If I had to choose one, I’d say my favorite MBA professor was Thomas Gilbert, Associate Professor of Finance and Business Economics. Thomas teaches the core finance class during our first quarter, and he’s an excellent teacher. He takes a foundational topic that many students struggle with and makes it accessible. On top of his pedagogical skills, he brings personality and humor to the classroom, making lectures fun. Thomas truly cares about his students – and not just whether they can correctly forecast cash flows and calculate NPV. He strives to help students develop a holistic understanding of business.

Another way Thomas thinks deeply about how best to serve his students and deliver meaningful learning experiences is through AI. Thomas is at the forefront of incorporating AI into the MBA experience. It’s not easy to teach a topic that evolves so quickly that the course you delivered a year ago is outdated. Yet that’s exactly what Thomas does. As an MBA embarking on a career in this new AI age, I couldn’t be more grateful to Thomas for that.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? Entrepreneurial Finance with Lance Young, Teaching Professor of Finance and Business Economics. This course grounded me in a practical framework for how businesses use capital to acquire assets and generate value. It’s elementary and a little embarrassing to admit, but it was incredibly helpful as an MBA from a non-business background. I chose it, in part, to build on the skills I acquired in core finance and in part because of Foster’s and Seattle’s strengths in entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship piece surprised me with how valuable it was. I think entrepreneurial skills apply to every role, probably increasingly so with the adoption of AI. Understanding the business model, the financial implications, and how it will be affected by decisions are important muscles for all business leaders. And to top it off, Lance taught the class with enthusiasm and plenty of one-liners, making each session a can’t-miss experience.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? An important part of life at Foster is Challenge 4 Charity (C4C). C4C is an annual philanthropic effort to volunteer time and raise money for local charities that has been running for over 40 years. C4C brings our community together, builds and strengthens relationships, and allows students to use their talents for a great cause.

Foster C4C’s flagship event is its Gala Auction, which is entirely student-run. I’ve volunteered as a butler during both auctions, and both times have been absolute highlights of my MBA experience. It goes like this: the first item auctioned off is student “butlers,” (rocking tuxedo t-shirts, who a table can employ to serve them for the evening, which mostly boils down to refilling drinks and fetching desserts). The first time I volunteered, I was a butler for the Class of 2000 alumni celebrating their 25th reunion. Over the course of the evening, I got to know the alumni I served and formed genuine connections with them. To my great delight, I ended up serving the same group of alumni this year.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? It’s hard to say because I have had such an amazing MBA experience. But if I had to do something differently, I think I’d have been more open to non-linear career pathways in my MBA journey, especially during my first year. As a student with a non-traditional background, I felt more comfortable and safe sticking to more standard, structured MBA pathways, especially around recruiting and extracurriculars. The time I invested in those pathways was valuable, However, in hindsight, I could have afforded to “trust the process” more. I would be more willing to indulge my curiosities and cast a wider net, knowing that things would work out in the end.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school, and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? The first case in the Entrepreneurial Strategy course. It’s called MacGregor Carbon, and it was created for the class by Lance Young based on a business owned by his friends. As you’d expect with the first case in the course, it doesn’t do anything too advanced mechanically. But conceptually, it was like the last piece of the puzzle of “what is finance all about anyway?” Everything from core finance clicked into place. It taught me how the knowledge I learned in my finance classes could be leveraged (pun intended) to glean information about core business functions and strategy. It was a light bulb moment.

What business leader do you admire most? I’m inspired by what Palmer Luckey is building at Anduril. I could list many reasons, but two are especially relevant here. The first is what it means to leverage technology to remove service members from danger. The products that Anduril is building have the potential to save lives.

The other reason concerns the former industrial regions of the United States that MBAs tend to overlook. When MBAs think about recruiting for full-time roles after graduation, our minds go to the coasts: New York, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and what-have-you, with the exception of major inland cities like Chicago and Dallas. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But when I think about the folks back home in West Virginia, I’m reminded of what a rebuilt industrial base could mean for so many communities. As we’re taught in macroeconomics, investment spending in fixed assets is a key to a nation’s long-term growth. Palmer Lucky is at the forefront of a new wave of private sector interest in industrialization. I think that’s a good thing for the United States, and I think it’s a topic that MBAs don’t think about enough.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? As an MBA student, I consider myself lucky to be at Foster at this moment, given the advent of AI and the school’s focus on incorporating it into programming in both formal and informal ways. To mention just one way Foster is integrating AI, Thomas Gilbert teaches a course titled Leading AI Business Solutions. At least that’s what it’s titled right now. As I mentioned above, AI moves so quickly that Thomas is consistently innovating on the material he teaches in the course.

Although the course was technically taught in the winter quarter, I’d say it actually started when we returned for our second year this fall. Thomas hosted weekly “AI Office Hours” during the lunch hour, where we could gather and share our thoughts and questions, discuss recent developments or interesting articles, and philosophize about the big questions: How will AI affect the labor market? Education? Who will be the big winners? Should it be regulated? How? Will it make humans better? Worse? All were welcome, and the exchange of ideas was great, especially when there were differences in opinion.

Once the course transitioned into the classroom, so to speak, I found it immensely helpful to grasp what AI means for business. Thomas equipped us with a level of technical knowledge that enables business leaders to speak intelligently about the technology and frameworks, understand the menu of AI options, and leverage those options to solve narrow business problems that deliver ROI. The substance of the course was miles ahead of a prompt engineering workshop. Furthermore, we learned how to build prototypes with various AI tools.

I’m not just confident in my ability to navigate AI in the workplace; having taken Thomas’ course, I’m excited about the ideas I now have for incorporating AI into my workflows.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that Thomas’ course is just the tip of the iceberg of what Foster has planned for its students. I’m limited to mentioning one thing here, but for any prospective students or employers reading this, I encourage you to Google AI at Foster.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire?

This is another incredibly difficult question, but if forced to choose, I most admire Conner Swan. Conner is the president of the Foster MBA Association. I’ve been fortunate to work closely with him in my role as EVP. I’ve learned so much from observing Conner’s interpersonal, stakeholder management, and organizational skills. Working with him has enhanced the leadership model I gained from my experience on Senator Manchin’s staff. What’s more, Conner’s a sharp intellect who makes insightful contributions to classroom discussions and group projects. And he’s a great partner if you’re ever looking to play a game of pool. All in all, Conner personifies the character and talent of those you hope to be surrounded by in an MBA program.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? One item that’s definitely on there is spending a stint working abroad. I’d love to have as positive an impact as I can through my career, and I think an international perspective is important to that. More personally, I was fortunate enough to have two experiences of living abroad for a year while I was growing up, once in Italy and once in England. Those years were incredibly formative for me. If I have kids of my own one day, I’d love to advance my career while giving them a similar experience.

I’ll give item number two the name “have a well-attended retirement party.” I’m an MBA, so it goes without saying that I’m ambitious and hope to serve in leadership, responsibility, and decision-making roles. But it’s a closely-held personal belief that the impact I have on the people with whom I work matters more than the shareholder value-creating actions I take. In other words, it’s my ambition to serve the people whom I lead. I think a good indicator of whether I succeed in that ambition will be how many people show up to my retirement party. So, I hope a lot of people turn out.

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

“From the time I met Ben, he has impressed me with his curiosity, honesty, and dedication to making a difference. He has been a standout leader among his classmates from the beginning.

My interactions with Ben have focused on career development. He has been committed to finding roles where he is making a difference through his work post-MBA. He has taken that mission seriously. During company visits, he is well prepared and an enthusiastic learner. From digging into research to asking insightful questions, Ben consistently demonstrates how he wants to be at the forefront of problem-solving. His collaborative approach – building bridges to find solutions that stakeholders appreciate – shows up in his questions of alums and company representatives, too.

Ben has been a pleasure to work with and I’m pleased to submit this recommendation.”

Leslie Meagley
Senior Associate Director, MBA Career Management

DON’T MISS: THE 100 BEST & BRIGHTEST MBAS: CLASS OF 2026

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.