Justin Shalap

New York University, Stern School of Business

“Committed to leaving things better than I found them. Planning my next ski trip.”

Hometown: Winchester, Virginia

Fun fact about yourself: My birthday is the calendar emoji in the iPhone!

Undergraduate School and Degree: University of Virginia, Bachelor’s of Economics & Statistics with a minor in Spanish

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Appian Corporation, Senior Solutions Consultant

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Boston Consulting Group, Summer Consultant

Where will you be working after graduation? Boston Consulting Group, Consultant

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• Co-President, Management Consulting Association (MCA)
• Co-President, Block 6
• VP of Community, OutClass (Stern’s LGBTQ+ affinity club)
• Winner, Deloitte National Case Competition 2024
• Marty Sosnoff Scholar
• Dean’s List (Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025)

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I am most proud of serving as Co-president of the Management Consulting Association. It was the first time I led in an environment where the stakes were deeply personal. Students were navigating recruiting and I was constantly aware that this wasn’t just a club – it was people’s futures. My Co-president and I built structures to help them succeed and focused on making the process more human. We operationalized feedback loops, hosted candid fireside chats about the challenging realities of recruiting, tracked MBA1 confidence trends across casing to adjust our programming accordingly, and created a new program for students to pivot smoothly if they ultimately decided consulting wasn’t right for them. We built structures that listened first, adapted quickly, and placed the student experience at the center of every decision. I am most proud that in a process defined by pressure, we made people feel seen.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? The professional achievement I am most proud of was delivering a keynote speech to 1,000 colleagues at a former company’s annual sales kickoff. I had presented to intimidating audiences many times before. That was my job. This time, however, my nerves had little to do with the content. I remember walking onto that stage hyper-aware that I was representing people who rarely stood there. Earlier in my career, I’d become accustomed to lowering the pitch of my voice in certain rooms — quiet, calculated edits I hoped would make me fit in. Walking onto that stage, I felt a shift. I was not there to fit in; I was there to be heard.

When I joined the company, I could count the number of women in senior leadership on one hand. I could count the number of people of color in the room just as easily. And I had never seen an openly queer leader on that stage. I knew there were queer peers and junior colleagues watching from the audience that day, people navigating the same quiet calculations I once made about how much of themselves they felt safe to bring to work. Delivering this keynote, fully myself, was the first time I felt I was expanding what was possible for someone else. The pride I carry from that moment isn’t about performance; it’s about presence. It reinforced a commitment I now carry forward: leadership isn’t only about outcomes, it’s about who feels seen when you step into the room.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose Stern because I wanted to remain fully immersed in New York City and craft relationships in the same ecosystem where I planned to build my career. Stern sits near Washington Square Park, and that proximity to the city’s heart shaped my experience. My recruiting wasn’t limited to Zoom screens. It meant face-to-face coffee chats, firm events after class, and spontaneous celebrations. The day I received my BCG offer, consultants, project leaders, and partners across the city pulled together an impromptu happy hour in Chelsea to celebrate. That moment was business school in NYC, exactly as I had imagined it.

But New York shaped a lot more than my recruiting experience. Of course, I expected to meet 350 classmates from all over the world. What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly my world would expand through them. Friend groups overlapped, mutual connections were everywhere, and relationships extended far beyond the classroom because one introduction inevitably led to three more. Stern’s location meant my professional and personal lives unfolded together. My coffee chats turned into dinners, and classmates became my roommates in the East Village. Being at Stern anchored all facets of my life in New York.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? This is so hard! Stern truly has some of the best professors in the world, and Professor Jennifer Wynn, who teaches Difficult Conversations, is my standout. She is one of the most intelligent and impressive people I’ve ever met, and yet she teaches with absolutely no ego. She brings structure to something that could easily become messy, without ever flattening the nuance of human emotion. From the first class, she is deliberate about creating a space where honesty feels possible. Not performative vulnerability, just real reflection. Serving as her Teaching Fellow this spring has been one of the highlights of my MBA because I’ve seen how much care goes into cultivating that environment. Watching her teach is the clearest example I’ve seen of leadership rooted in service to others.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? My favorite MBA tradition is absolutely Stern Sips. Every Thursday after class, the full-time program pours out of our main building and gathers at one of our nearby spots in NoHo or Greenwich Village. What makes it meaningful isn’t the location, it’s the ritual. As soon as classes end, the lobby hums with the same refrain: “You going to Sips?” “Let’s walk over together.” Within minutes, groups form and head out. Some stay for hours, others stop by for 30 minutes between class and dinner plans. What matters is that people show up.

Stern Sips is proof that Sternies prioritize presence. MBA life is busy between recruiting, academics, clubs, and personal lives. Yet, week-after-week, people carve out time to be together. It’s where first- and second-year MBAs catch up, where new friendships form, and where I lost more games of pool to one of my closest friends than I can count. There’s no agenda, no programming, no pressure – just community built through consistency. Stern Sips has taught me that belonging isn’t built through grand gestures, but through repeated choice. Choosing to walk over. Choosing to stay. Choosing to show up.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Looking back, I wish I had taken one of Stern’s Doing Business In… courses abroad. I traveled a lot during business school and have incredible memories, but I didn’t fully take advantage of this one unique opportunity Stern offers. There’s something different about traveling with a large group of classmates, learning about international business during the day, and exploring a new city together at night. That kind of shared experience is hard to recreate later in life. When I saw friends on safari in Cape Town or wandering through Marrakech together, it wasn’t regret so much as a realization: this was a special window. Business school gives you the chance to experience the world alongside people who are all in the same season of life. If I could go back, I would make time to say yes to that, too.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school, and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? The most impactful case study I had at Stern was a comparison of Rosalind Fox and Steve Jobs in my Power and Professional Influence course. What struck me most was how differently they built and exercised power. Jobs relied heavily on positional authority and force of vision. Fox, by contrast, built influence through her reputation, consistency, and strategic navigation of organizational culture. The case forced us to dissect not just what power is, but how it is constructed through perception, performance, and repeated behavior over time.

The biggest lesson I took from it is that power is not something you are given; it is something others decide to grant you. Effective leadership isn’t just about competence — it’s where competence meets credibility. It reinforced that long-term impact requires discipline in how you show up: clarity in your values, consistency in your actions, and an awareness of how others experience your presence.

What business leader do you admire most? The business leader I admire most is Allyson Felix, the most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic history and a co-founder of Saysh. I first heard her speak at my former company’s off-site, and her story stayed with me. At the height of her athletic career, while pregnant, she was forced into a 70% pay cut by her brand sponsor, with no guarantees she wouldn’t be penalized if her performance dipped after childbirth. Instead of quietly accepting it, she walked away.

What impressed me most was what she did after walking away. She used her platform to advocate for maternity protections in professional sports and later co-founded Saysh, a footwear brand built around women’s bodies rather than adapting men’s designs. She turned a deeply personal moment into a catalyst for change. I admire her clarity of values; when she had the most to lose, she chose alignment with them over the path of least resistance. In doing so, she expanded the definition of fairness for women.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? One of the most thoughtful integrations of AI I experienced at Stern was in Private Equity Finance with Professor Gustavo Schwed. Over the semester, we built a leveraged buyout model in stages (which, as it turns out, is not as scary as it sounds!). Before each major deadline, Professor Schwed released “Virtual Schwed,” a custom GPT trained to respond the way he would: not with answers, but with sharper questions. It was intentionally Socratic. If you asked how to adjust a projection, it would push you to articulate the underlying assumption first. If you tried to debug a formula, it would ask what logic you believed you were applying.

I still built every line of our 1,184-line LBO model myself, but what surprised me was how quickly the tool exposed gaps in my reasoning. If I couldn’t clearly explain an assumption, the conversation stalled. I realized that AI is less a knowledge tool and more a mirror and question-amplifier. Virtual Schwed exposed how often I asked imprecise questions while expecting sophisticated answers. As a result, the biggest shift wasn’t in my modeling, but rather in how I framed problems. AI refined my judgment rather than replacing it.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? The classmate I most admire is Bella Roussanov, my Co-president of the Management Consulting Association and someone I now text more than some of my closest friends. Leading MCA with her has been one of the most formative parts of my MBA. Bella has this rare ability to absorb chaos without becoming chaotic. When something unexpected hits — a recruiting curveball, a last-minute event change, tough feedback from members — she doesn’t escalate. Instead, she pauses, structures the problem, and responds with clarity.

What I admire most is that her composure never comes at the expense of warmth. She holds high standards, but she does it without ego. I’ve watched her coach first-years through recruiting anxiety with the same focus she brings to decisions for MCA. And after long weeks, she’s still the one convincing me to come back to Stern Sips after dinner. Working alongside Bella has made me more measured and deliberate. I’m lucky I got to build something meaningful with her, and even luckier that I get to keep her in my life beyond Stern.

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

1. Serve on the board of a nonprofit supporting at-risk LGBTQ+ youth: Giving back to my community is very personal. I know what it feels like to navigate identity without visible role models, and I want to be a strategic part of building systems to make that journey safer and smoother for others.

2. Return to Stern one day as faculty: I’ve always loved learning, mentoring, and creating spaces where people grow. The idea that graduation marks my final chapter in an academic setting feels a bit premature. If I’m fortunate enough to build a meaningful career, I’d love to come back and invest that experience into the next generation of business leaders!

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

“Justin Shalap has been an invaluable and integral part of the NYU Stern MBA community, exemplifying the positive spirit, strong work ethic, and community-centered leadership that define Stern at its best. A Marty Sosnoff Scholar and consistent Dean’s List honoree, Justin pairs academic excellence with meaningful leadership impact. Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to work closely with him and have consistently been impressed by the care and intentionality he brings to everything he undertakes. He views leadership not as a title, but as a responsibility grounded in service to his peers and a genuine commitment to strengthening the community. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with Justin and to see the example he sets for those around him.

I have primarily gotten to know Justin through his co-presidency of the Management Consulting Association (MCA), one of the most visible student leadership roles within the MBA program. In this capacity, he ensured that student needs and concerns were clearly articulated and constructively addressed. He approached challenges with preparation and pragmatism, offering thoughtful, actionable solutions rather than simply identifying issues. His analytical rigor and collaborative instincts were further demonstrated as a member of a four-person Stern team that won the highly competitive Deloitte National MBA Case Competition, reflecting both his problem-solving ability and his effectiveness in high-stakes team environments. Beyond the MCA, he has contributed broadly across the Stern community, including serving as VP of Community for OutClass, where he consistently fostered inclusion and connection among students.

What distinguishes Justin most is his ability to pair initiative with emotional intelligence. He anticipates challenges, follows through with professionalism and integrity, and holds himself to high standards while remaining deeply supportive of those around him. As he prepares to join Boston Consulting Group as a consultant after graduation, I am confident he will bring the same rigor, empathy, and collaborative mindset to his clients and teams. Stern will be fortunate to count him among its alumni, and I have no doubt that he will continue to contribute meaningfully to our alumni community and the broader business world.”

Sahar Mirsepassi
Senior Associate Director, Relationship Management
Stern MBA Careers Team

 

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