James Wang

University of California-Berkeley, Haas School of Business

“An empathetic, data-driven, lifelong learner seeking to create sustainable change within the circular economy.”

Hometown: Foster City, CA

Fun fact about yourself: I used to be a bike and Segway tour guide in Washington, D.C., and manage my own travel website: www.wanderwithinaday.com.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Santa Clara University, BS in Electrical Engineering and BS in Environmental Science

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Technical Project Manager at a startup called Odyssey Energy Solutions that worked on accelerating minigrid development in developing countries.

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Business Development Intern at Tesla on the Residential Solar team, focused on techno-economic modeling to scale adoption of Powerwall battery systems given shifting utility tariff structures and funding incentives.

Where will you be working after graduation? Supply Chain Manager at Tesla in their Solar division to scale the production of solar panels. This will serve as an opportunity to learn more about solar panel supply chains.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• VP of Clubs, MBA Association
• VP of Social, Haas Asian Business Club
• VP of Academics, Net Impact club
• Social Chair, Full-time MBA Blue Cohort
• Graduate Assembly Delegate, Data Governance Committee
• UC Office of the President Climate Action Fellow, investigating Scope 3 Emissions in UC Health Supply Chains.

I have also been a part of five different experiential learning courses:

Social impact consultant for an Indian artisan market platform, Memeraki, for handmade goods to address their financial sustainability.

Sustainability consultant for STT GDC Philippines, a data center company in the Philippines, through the International Business Development course, where we helped determine methods to reduce their carbon emissions across the entire supply chain.

Strategy consultant for a climate venture fund, Virta Ventures, through the Impact and Climate Investing Practicum course, where we helped to refine their thesis and analyze the landscape for Fund II.

Strategy consultant for the nonprofit Real Food Challenge, through the Plant Futures Challenge course, investigating the scalability of their efforts and resources to different campuses to promote more plant-based purchasing options.

Leading a team of students in a strategy consulting project for a nonprofit called Bright Saver for the Social Sector Solutions course, investigating improvements to revenue streams within the plug-in solar industry.

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I am most proud of leading a team to win the international Net Impact Circular Plastics case competition. I worked with three other students to develop a proposal and pitch a new product to improve recycling infrastructure, focusing on servitization models as a new form of financing. It was an incredible opportunity working with intelligent people who all cared about making an impact, networking with professionals, and learning about different circular economy solutions from other teams. This was the third case competition I had done, and it was rewarding to end the school year on a high note.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Completing my first large-scale contract with USTDA to deploy 100 MW of solar minigrids across 150 sites in Nigeria. As my first project at Odyssey Energy Solutions, I owned a steep learning curve to coordinate stakeholders, navigate procurement and feasibility, and explore different facets of minigrids while creating an over 1,000-page report. What I’m most proud of is proving I could take responsibility for a complex, high-stakes project early in my career and enable energy access, impacting many local communities.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose UC Berkeley Haas because beyond the four Defining Leadership Principles, it’s one of the few business schools that treats social impact as a core responsibility rather than a side interest. I came in with experience deploying renewable energy and working on climate and development challenges, but I wanted to deepen my understanding of how institutions, markets, and policy can create impact and shape large-scale change. Haas offered the space to dive deeper, learn from professors and students who care deeply about doing things the right way, and translate values into action.

Having grown up in the Bay Area, this was also an opportunity to return after living on the East Coast to be closer to family. Finally, Haas also has a surprisingly strong scuba diving community. It has been incredible to have a chance to go on five diving expeditions with other Haasies.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Hands down, Steve Nagai-Ma is one of my favorite instructors. He taught the revamped Large-Scale Social Change class. He brought such passion, knowledge, and humility to a course that’s generally not taught to business students. He created a space for growth, reflection, and honest dialogue, modeling what values-driven leadership looks like in practice. The one thing I will always remember about his dedication to the students is that for our class presentations, he would take notes when we presented. Then after class, he would go home and watch the recordings and provide more feedback and commentary, which he would share directly with us!

What was your favorite course as an MBA? My favorite course at Haas was Business Models for Social Impact. It was the first noncore class I took, and it fundamentally changed how I understood the relationship between business and impact. While I had previously taken a class on social entrepreneurship in undergrad, this course pushed far beyond the idea of impact as something that sits adjacent to profit. Instead, it explored how impact, financial sustainability, and scale must be intentionally designed together.

Each week, the instructors, Kristin Groos Richmond and Gloria Lee, anchored the class in a case built around the Impact Triangle framework, then invited a leader from the featured organization—often the CEO or a member of the executive team—to speak candidly about their journey, insights, and wisdom. Hearing directly from leaders about what worked, what failed, and what they would do differently brought the material to life in a way few classes do.

The course broadened my horizons and gave me a more rigorous, nuanced lens for evaluating impact-driven businesses. I left feeling both inspired and challenged, and that experience motivated me to return the following year as a teaching assistant so I could help other students engage with the same questions that reshaped my own thinking.

A close second would be the Wine Industry Speaker Series, an interactive course that teaches students about the wine industry, but also provides a chance to learn about one’s own wine palette through wine tasting.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? One of my favorite MBA traditions was Haasemite, a class camping trip to Yosemite National Park. I loved the intentional break from screens, schedules, and constant availability – it was a chance to step outside, slow down, and reconnect with people and nature. That balance felt very “Haas” to me: reflective, grounded, and community-oriented.

Yosemite also holds a special personal meaning. It’s a place shaped not only by natural beauty, but by stories that often go untold such as Tie Sing’s. He was a Chinese immigrant but also the head chef for the U.S. Geological Survey, whose extraordinary cooking helped persuade the Mather Mountain Party to preserve the land, ultimately contributing to the creation of the National Park Service. Cooking, especially outdoors, became a way for me to honor that history and bring people together. Serving twice as camp captain, I tried to make cooking come alive as a shared experience that built connection. Haasemite reflected what I value most about Haas: a community that makes space for humanity, storytelling, and belonging.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? I would want to be more intentional about where I invested my leadership energy. I took on the role of VP of Cubs for the MBAA because I genuinely wanted to improve the experience for all students, but the scope and responsibility of the role made it difficult to engage deeply with the clubs and communities that mattered most to me personally.

I wish I had invested more time in fostering the Asian community at Haas and helping build a stronger, vibrant, more visible space for cultural identity. Culture is central to who I am and how I lead, and I came to understand that impact isn’t only about scale or formal responsibility but about presence, belonging, and consistently showing up for the communities that shape me.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? “Karya: Elevating Ethical Data for AI & Data Workers to the Middle Class,” a Berkeley Haas case written by Gloria Lee and Jayson Wang, discusses ethical business models in emerging technologies, specifically in training AI models. The biggest lesson for me was that values only create impact when they are enforced through operations and scale through disciplined design choices that hold under real market pressure.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? Berkeley Bowl. I have never seen a grocery store that has such a variety of produce. Berkeley is also home to some very niche and fascinating places like the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents, which is a museum dedicated to smell that’s only open on weekends!

What business leader do you admire most? Lisa Herring, CEO of New Leaders, is one of the leaders I admire most. She focuses on building people and institutions that endure, creating impact through thoughtful, sustained action. What resonates deeply with me is her belief that identity, equity, and belonging are foundational to effective leadership, grounding her work in a truly human-centered approach. She also speaks with a passion and conviction that makes her leadership both inspiring and deeply credible.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? AI has been lauded in most classes to enhance learning through synthesizing information and exploring alternatives. Given how the world is changing, professors are very open about its usage as another tool in our arsenal. AI has been integral to fleshing out ideas and serving as a thought partner, especially in areas that are new to me and require more intentional learning time. I have also appreciated having the chance to see how classmates are utilizing AI in their startups to help turn their ideas into reality.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? There are so many wonderful classmates in the program that have helped me grow and taught me a lot. Having to choose one, Kevin Hak Hyun Yu stands out. He is deeply intentional with his time, a thoughtful and engaging conversationalist, and someone who balances many aspects of life with a true growth mindset. Having had the chance to work with him on a case competition and group projects, I’m always enthralled to see how his mind works. What stands out most is his consistent and genuine positivity. He shows up with kindness, encouragement, and genuine curiosity in every interaction, even while he spends countless hours building his own startup, teaching finance at the undergraduate level, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. He truly approaches challenges with humility and resilience.

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

1. I would like to lead the end-to-end scaling of a climate or circular economy solution to reduce the footprint of supply chains and hopefully create a more cradle-to-cradle outcome.

2. I want to become CTO or COO of an impactful company.

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

“James is truly one of those rare students who leaves a program better than he found it. As the VP of Clubs for the MBAA, he moved the needle on engagement and accountability by at least 30%, which is a staggering feat for a single year. With a load of over 50 diverse graduate student organizations, he managed this by being incredibly intentional with how he restructured our community. He trialed several new initiatives, like the President’s Circles and the Club Recognition Dinner that gave student leaders a much-needed sense of belonging and appreciation. These have now been codified into our club programming. Whether it was organizing club tabling events or creating subcommittees to share the workload, James was always looking for ways to lower the barrier for participation and make the club ecosystem more accessible to everyone. He has set the new standard for how the role of VP of Clubs will function from now on.

James was honestly my favorite student to work with because he has this unique ability to be both a visionary and a pragmatist, and an all-around good guy. He didn’t just talk about improving the student experience; he did the heavy lifting to ensure the VP of Clubs role became a strategic pillar of the MBAA. His efforts have set a new standard for our program, and he has been an absolutely invaluable part of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.”

Joy Bianchi
Associate Director of Student Life and Leadership Development at the Full-time MBA Program Office
Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

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