Jasdeep Kaur Dulay

Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Business School

“First-generation MPH/MBA who connects anthropology, strategy, and empathy to build systems where people grow.”

Hometown: Stockton, CA

Fun fact about yourself:I recently took a solo trip across Panama, which sparked a travel bug I’m excited to keep pursuing!

Undergraduate School and Degree: University of California, Santa Barbara, BA Cultural Anthropology

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? San Joaquin County Public Health Services

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? CVS Health, Pharmacy Growth & Innovation Intern – Woonsocket, Rhode Island

Where will you be working after graduation? CVS Health, Pharmacy Growth & Innovation Manager

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

Co-President, Olin Healthcare & Life Sciences Club (OHLSC)

President, The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management at Olin

Scholar, Center for Experiential Learning (CEL)

Fellow, Own-Operate-Invest Fellowship (OOI)

Fellow, Forté

Graduate Policy Scholar, Clark Fox Policy Institute

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? My tenure at the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL) has been one of the most rewarding parts of my business school experience. I first engaged with the CEL as a member of a student consulting team that was tasked with developing the full lifecycle of launching a new healthcare venture. I was fascinated and deeply engaged by this work, which inspired me to apply for the role of CEL Scholar for my second year. As a CEL Scholar, I will have worked with five additional student consulting teams delivering strategic and operational growth recommendations for corporate clients. In this role, I help guide research, validate project logic, and work with teams to encourage curiosity, creativity, and confidence in producing their final product and a strong relationship with their client.

What made this experience particularly meaningful was the opportunity to mentor leaders. In many ways, the role required me to act as a project manager by supporting multiple teams while empowering the student leaders who were guiding each project. When I recall mentors who have helped shape me as a leader, they have been available to me as a resource for support, while allowing space for my intellect and thought process to evolve. This is the same approach I took as a scholar, offering guidance when needed, while encouraging each team member to develop confidence in their voice, ideas, and problem-solving. Watching students grow throughout the semester was deeply rewarding and reinforced the kind of leader I aspire to be: one who helps others discover their own edge.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Before business school, I worked as a Public Health Emergency Planner for San Joaquin County, California. In March 2023, as a designated disaster service worker, I was deployed for a month to the county’s 24-hour Emergency Operations Center in response to severe storms and flooding affecting the rural county. As Deputy Planning Section Chief, I led operational briefings, prepared daily emergency action plans and situational reports, and represented the EOC in statewide coordination meetings while training rotating disaster service staff and maintaining cross-agency situational awareness.

In recognition of my leadership, camaraderie, and contribution during the deployment, I received the San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services Challenge Coin. This symbol is an honor awarded to individuals demonstrating exceptional commitment to protecting life and property. As one of the newest members of the EOC, receiving this recognition was very meaningful to me. It demonstrated that when you commit to a new task and a new group of people as your team, your dedication leaves an impact. The experience required agility, teamwork, and decisive leadership under pressure. It reinforced for me that effective coordination depends on strong community, mentorship, and collaboration.

Why did you choose this business school? During my first year at Washington University, while pursuing my Master’s in Public Health, I was seeking ways to expand my skill set as my professional goals became clearer. I wanted to complement my public health training with formal preparation in strategy, operations, and finance to increase my ability to create meaningful impact. The MPH/MBA program between the School of Public Health and Olin Business School offered the unique opportunity to intentionally combine these complementary skill sets and better prepare for leadership roles in systems dedicated to improving community well-being.

To develop a stronger sense of whether this program was a good fit for me, I had numerous conversations with current dual-degree students, alumni, faculty, and staff at Olin. It became clear to me that Olin was a place where, if I applied myself, I would have the support and resources to shape my career and discover new capacities in myself. One year later, this support proved true when I needed guidance on which electives would best prepare me for my summer internship, and I was able to walk into four different professors’ offices (Michael Wall, Seth Carnahan, Sam Chun, and Bradley Larsen) during the first two weeks of the semester to brainstorm. Each of them took the time to have thoughtful conversations about my summer role, professional goals, and optimal course selection to support those goals. Being in an environment where faculty were invested in my growth made it clear this was the right place to expand my impact.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? I enjoyed Professor Samuel Chun’s class for how he challenged students to think independently in Marketing Management. He pushed us to develop our own analytical structure for approaching business problems rather than relying on rigid frameworks. At the time, that steep learning curve felt uncomfortable, but as I have worked on more projects throughout business school, I have come to appreciate how valuable that skill is. The cases and simulations in his class required us to make a choice, defend our assumptions, and understand all the factors that could affect a company’s competitiveness in the market. These lessons all become very applicable once you leave the classroom and must stand by your choices at your place of work.

Additionally, as a student transitioning into business school and thinking carefully about my next professional chapter, I greatly appreciated his office hours. Professor Chun wants to help students prepare for life after business school, and he shows that by offering thoughtful insights not only about marketing concepts but also about navigating a career and approaching problems with curiosity and discipline. Looking back, his class taught me to get comfortable building my own template for analyzing complex problems — a lesson that we would all benefit from applying to the ambiguous decisions we face throughout our careers and beyond.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? My favorite event quickly became the Orientation Program (OP) for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Although my cohort’s OP shifted to a virtual experience, it served as my high-intensity introduction to the world of business. My Consortium liaisons played an immense role in supporting me and helping me identify my core values as I entered OP and the school year. I was fortunate that those early conversations at OP led to an internship with CVS Health, which later converted into a full-time role. I am deeply grateful for that outcome, which allowed me to shift my focus toward resourceful leadership and mentorship for the incoming class.

What stood out most was how those second-year mentors remained a constant source of guidance as I navigated the pivot from local public health to business. I leaned on their advice and experience as I navigated the expectations of recruiting and professional development. Inspired by that experience, I applied to become a Consortium liaison in my second year and served as president of Olin’s Consortium chapter. Returning to OP as a liaison allowed me to pay that support forward, contributing to the same culture of peer-to-peer empowerment that welcomed me into the MBA community.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? One of the cases that stayed with me most came from Professor Ashley Hardin’s Power & Politics course: the Jim Davis case. What made it memorable was that the story was incomplete. We never fully learn how the situation ends or why certain characters chose not to engage in a new process. Instead, we were asked to map the political landscape of stakeholders, their incentives, and their sources of influence, and develop our own hypothesis of what could have gone wrong.

My conclusion was that the initiative struggled because the people doing the day-to-day work had not been meaningfully brought into the process. That insight resonated deeply with my background in public health, where well-intentioned programs are sometimes designed without incorporating the voices of the communities they aim to serve. It was also grounded in anthropology, where excluding participants from the research process often leads to one-sided, culturally disconnected narratives. When those perspectives are overlooked, even strong ideas can lose effectiveness.

The case reminded me of a specific leadership philosophy: A leader is not always the loudest voice in the room. Often, the leader is the person doing the most listening and seeking to understand the perspectives, motivations, and concerns of others before moving forward. Professor Hardin’s class consistently pushed us to think beyond formal authority and consider the human dynamics behind organizational decisions. I appreciate the reminder from this case and will carry it with me as I work toward community health and well-being, where meaningful impact often begins with listening to the people closest to the problem.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? My favorite thing about St. Louis is likely a crowd favorite – there is so much to do in Forest Park. I love having a chance to disconnect by going for a run, enjoying some music and coffee on Art Hill, or enjoying my hammock at a new spot within the park. I have also created so many Washington University-related memories at Forest Park, such as Olin’s inaugural MBA Networking Bash at Ruthie’s, Night at the Zoo with the Graduate Professional Student Council, and lunches at the Boathouse with my previous on-campus job. Although Forest Park is one of my favorite places to slow down, I have absolutely loved experiencing new coffee shops, Tower Grove Farmers Market and park, and each St. Louis neighborhood’s unique personality. What I’ll miss most is how the city always felt within reach; you didn’t need a full weekend or a big budget to find something worth remembering.

What business leader do you admire most? I admire Michelle Obama for the trailblazer she is and for how she has continued to build on her values long after leaving the White House. Through her books, podcast, and initiatives focused on education access and healthy living, she shows that leadership does not have to end with a formal role. It can, and I would say it even should, evolve into new ways of creating impact. Beyond any single initiative, I admire Michelle Obama’s tenacity, sense of purpose, and grace.

I particularly enjoy her IMO podcast because it offers a personal perspective on how she has approached leadership, family, and discipline. She often speaks about the level of excellence required to succeed as a trailblazer and the preparation it takes to be the first in spaces that may not have been built for you. That message resonates with me because, as a first-generation graduate student, I understand the responsibility that comes with building a reputation and path where there may not have been one before. Michelle Obama’s emphasis on preparing yourself for that responsibility, so that you always assume you are capable of creating meaningful change, is something I know requires a strong work ethic, and something I deeply respect.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? Over my three years at Washington University, I have seen academic policies evolve to reflect the pace of the real world and support students in using AI with integrity. At the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL), we encourage students to use AI to synthesize project findings and logic-test their assumptions. I have seen AI dramatically enhance the speed and depth of what our teams can research and generate; it allows students to move from a raw idea to a structured draft in a fraction of the time it used to take. Faculty like Michael Wall emphasize that while AI can accelerate this research, and should be experimented with while in the classroom, it also raises the bar for our own judgment and analytical rigor.

My biggest takeaway is that while AI can speed up the busy work of research, you still need to understand the manual process behind the output. If you don’t know the steps it takes to reach a conclusion, you won’t recognize when the tool has led you astray. While AI is an incredible tool for creating structure and identifying gaps, AI will make mistakes and miss details. Over-reliance on the tool before understanding the “why” behind a challenge can lead to a weak foundation, leaving you spending more time on quality control than actual strategic thinking. Iteration is part of the prompt engineering process, but the goal is to be lean in how we prompt. I believe that keeping a few personal rituals that keep our creativity alive, such as AI-free activities, independent writing, or simply closing the laptop to read a physical book, will be critical to knowing yourself amid the voice of AI that is embedded into everything we do now.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? My classmate Bonnie Wall has been an amazing teammate, student, and friend during our time together at Olin. Bonnie consistently brings honesty, enthusiasm, and a genuine desire to learn and grow to everything she does. I have had the pleasure of working closely with Bonnie as co-presidents of the Olin Healthcare & Life Sciences Club. Together, along with our executive board, we reinvigorated a space for business students curious to grow careers in the healthcare industry alongside Olin’s new Business of Health initiative. Bonnie’s background in life sciences, biomedical research, and a biotech startup has made her a pivotal resource for students wanting to work at intersections similar to those in which she also has a personal interest and experience.

We have also worked together as CEL Scholars, OOI Fellows, and members of the same exceptional MBA core team alongside our peers Dorcas Aborah, Jabari Chiphe, and Ariana Tabrizi. Of course, Bonnie and I enjoyed our treetop nature walk surrounded by wild monkeys during our Olin Global Immersion experience in Singapore. Across all these settings, Bonnie brings a thoughtful analytical perspective, drawing on her scientific background, as well as her interests and experiences outside the classroom, to deepen conversations and challenge assumptions. Whether she is leading a student organization, collaborating on a phenomenal financial model, or preparing for her next case competition victory, she brings a combination of humility, curiosity, and energy that elevates every team she is a part.  

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? One item on my professional bucket list is to become a motivational speaker or workshop facilitator focused on storytelling and leadership development. Storytelling has always been one of the most powerful ways humans connect, share culture, and pass down wisdom. I would love to eventually create workshops that help emerging leaders develop confidence, share their experiences, and learn from one another.

The second item on my professional bucket list is to pursue an entrepreneurial venture, either by building a company of my own or through an Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) model. Through Olin’s Own, Operate, Invest (OOI) Fellowship, I have been able to explore the ETA pathway more deeply and learn from experienced operators and investors. I am currently working with my mentor, David Hadani, to think intentionally about the long-term path toward entrepreneurship and the experiences that will prepare me to eventually lead and grow a business.

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

“Jasdeep has been an invaluable addition to the Class of 2026 because of the thoughtful, grounded way she approaches both people and problems. In an environment that can feel intimidating, she has remained deeply authentic to herself, something that not only distinguishes her, but also creates space for others to show up the same way, leading to more meaningful and elevated conversations. I have had the privilege of watching her growth through her time in the Center for Experiential Learning, from serving as a strong and highly reliable second on a consulting team to stepping into the broader leadership and mentorship responsibilities of a CEL Scholar. Throughout that progression, she has consistently demonstrated a structured approach to problem solving, breaking down complex and ambiguous challenges into clear, actionable paths forward. Just as importantly, she takes ownership to ensure ideas move from concept to execution, helping teams translate strategy into meaningful outcomes.

What truly sets Jasdeep apart is her ability to pair analytical rigor with emotional intelligence and collaborative decision-making.  This is especially evident in how she contributes to the selection of future team leads and CEL Scholars. She approaches this work with both care and discipline, thoughtfully evaluating candidates from a holistic perspective while engaging with fellow Scholars to calibrate and make well-informed, collective decisions. She is attentive to both measurable criteria and the less tangible qualities that define effective leadership, and she works diligently to ensure the process is both thorough and timely. In doing so, she helps create a student experience that balances high standards with clarity and fairness.  More broadly, she is an active listener who creates space for others to contribute, fostering environments where individuals feel heard and empowered. Her commitment to developing others, combined with her multidisciplinary background, leads to more nuanced, well-rounded solutions that are a valuable asset in any business environment. Jasdeep’s presence has strengthened not only the quality of work within our programs, but also contributed to the culture of how that work gets done. We have been fortunate to have Jasdeep’s insights and authenticity in the CEL, and I have no doubt she will continue to have this kind of impact in all her future pursuits.”

Amy Soell
Associate Director
Experiential Programs at the CEL

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