The 100 Best & Brightest MBAs: Class Of 2026

If universities are society’s equalizers, then business schools are its accelerators.

Just ask Michael Autery, a second-year MBA student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Here, Autery found the resources to test his idea and a community to build his venture. In his Entrepreneurship 101 course, he tapped into his background as an ocean engineer and U.S. Navy veteran when he was asked to identify a major issue. In man-overboard emergencies on Naval vessels, he noted there is a 72% fatality rate. And the number climbs to 83% aboard cruise ships. To reduce those odds, Autery came up with the idea of an Autonomous Rescue Swimmer (ARS).

A MISSION TO SAVE LIVES

Autery describes the ARS as an “unmanned submersible that uses sonar and AI-enabled object detection to find people in the water and keep them alive until help arrives.” The idea had so much promise that Autery entered it into the legendary MIT $100K Pitch Competition. Not only did the ARS win 1st prize, but it also claimed the Audience Choice Award – the first time that has happened in the competition.

“I conceived of the business idea just three months earlier,” Autery admits. “Winning proved to me that entrepreneurship can be humanitarian. I don’t have to be a business monster and chase the easy money. I can make the world a better place AND make a decent living doing it.”

You won’t find Autery taking his talents at McKinsey or Microsoft after graduating in May, however. Just a month after winning the $100K Pitch Competition, his venture, Gander Robotics, attracted $1.1-million-dollars in investment. Now, Autery is working with his co-founder to bring the ARS to life – a pathway and pace that may have seemed unimaginable a year ago.

“[Michael] used his MBA experience to build the skills, team and network needed so that he could bet on himself to create a great job for himself and dozens of others that will literally save lives in a vibrant entrepreneurial environment,” says Bill Aulet, the Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. “Michael represents the best of MIT and MIT Sloan School of Management.”

100 BEST & BRIGHTEST MBAS: BY THE NUMBERS

The same could be said for the other 99 students honored in Poets&Quants’ Best & Brightest MBAs from the Class of 2026. Now in its 12th year, the Best & Brightest honors the top full-time MBA graduates at top business school graduates worldwide. Call them the most consequential and essential members of their classes. They are the tireless forces of nature who don’t wait for opportunities. Instead, they are the ones who boldly start initiatives and carry them though. The Best & Brightest didn’t enroll in business school for just the credential and job at the end. Rather, they were committed to personal growth – and maximized the experience for themselves and their classmates. In the end, the Best & Brightest were more than a part of their classes. They were the spirit of it…and made everyone better as a result.

To compile the Best & Brightest MBAs list, P&Q reached out to 89 elite graduate business schools Overall, P&Q received 216 nominations from 83 programs, evaluating submissions based on extracurricular leadership, personal excellence, insightful responses, and faculty recommendations. As a whole, 75 business schools are represented among this year’s 100 Best & Brightest MBAs (whose in-depth student profiles are found on pages 3-4 of this story). Like previous years, due to the top-to-bottom quality of the nominations, P&Q will run a separate MBAs To Watch story over the summer to honor the remaining 116 nominees.

In this year’s list, the ratio of men-to-women stood at a 50-to-50 split, down from the 60 women who dotted the 2025 Best & Brightest. While 69 members of the list attended American business schools, the majority (55) were actually born outside the United States. In addition, 23 members hold graduate degrees beyond an MBA, with another 4 members boasting military service. In terms of employers, 5 Best & Brightest students will be joining McKinsey & Company after graduation, edging out Amazon and the Boston Consulting Group, which both hired 4 members. Bain & Company, Eli Lilly, JPMorgan Chase, and the UnitedHealth Group recruited 3 members each. Another 30 students hadn’t chosen an employer at submission deadline (March 16th).

BRINGING BANKING TO THE MASSES

The Best & Brightest MBAs can afford to be choosy. Look no further than their high-level experience and all-around talent. Take ESMT Berlin’s Punit Thakkar, who has been busy building products in construction and investor relations during business school. Before starting his MBA, Thakker spearheaded strategy at Godrej Properties, India’s largest real estate developer, before serving as business head at Nobroker.com, India’s only Proptech unicorn. Similarly, Wharton’s Alyssa Marie Uy managed strategy and planning for GCash. In the Philippines GCash is known as a “fintech super app” – with 80-million customers and a valuation of roughly $5-billion-dollars. For her, the work has been particularly fulfilling, as it opened up access to finance across her country.

“In 2019, about 70% of Filipinos were unbanked, often because opening a bank account required money upfront, maintaining balances, and extensive documentation,” Uy tells P&Q. “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…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.”

Calder LaBriola spent nearly 18 months at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, where he worked under five U.S. ambassadors and a retired three-star general. Those daily lessons in leadership and diplomacy came in handy three years later, when the U.S. Army tasked him with building a 5,000-member NATO battlegroup in Slovakia “from the ground up.”

“[It] was rapidly created after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” writes LaBriola, who’ll be earning his MBA from the University of Georgia’s Terry College. “With no permanent U.S. Army force in Slovakia, I was tasked with founding new supply chains, constructing life support, developing training areas, repurposing vehicle motor pools, fielding new equipment from the Pentagon, and establishing ammunition storage for NATO and its allies. This work was extremely rewarding through its direct support of NATO and its mission to Ukraine. And with no playbook, I had to be creative and work with partner forces from Slovakia, Czechia, Germany, Slovenia, and the Netherlands. It was a powerful experience.”

FROM ICE DETENTION TO BCG OFFER

Speaking of political considerations, the University of Washington’s Foster School features two Best & Brightest students with deep connections to power brokers. A’Lexus A. Murphy headed up news and media strategy for the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum, which brought hundreds of global leaders to Chicago to bridge differences through dialogue. At the same time, Benjamin Vester served as a legislative aide to former U.S. Senator Joe Manchin. It was an experience, he says, that gave him an inside look at servant leadership and selfless teamwork 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…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.”

Doğukan Günaydın actually made headlines after getting caught up in political crosswinds. A student at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School, he spent two months in ICE detention before winning his freedom through Federal court. In the end, the adversity only made Günaydın stronger, as he returned from his summer internship with an offer from the Boston Consulting Group.

“Faculty, classmates, and administrators showed up in ways I will never forget, reinforcing that resilience is not something you build alone,” he tells P&Q. “That experience sharpened something I carry with me every day: a refusal to take opportunities for granted, the conviction to stand tall in the face of adversity, and a deeper sense of purpose in everything I pursue.”

IIM AHMEDABAD’S ANSWER TO JAMES BOND

Some Best & Brightest MBAs also came from unexpected industries this year. Exhibit A: Emily Storrs. Before enrolling in the University of Florida’s Warrington College, she served as a veterinary technician at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where she was involved in rehabilitating dolphins and sea turtles. Fast forward two years and she’ll be joining JPMorgan Chase. The same goes for Caroline Metts, a registered nurse who sometimes picked up weekend hospital shifts while earning her MBA at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Post-graduation, she starts at McKinsey & Company – a job she prepared for by designing a special care neonatal unit.

“I helped develop the policies and operational procedures that supported this model of care. I coordinated across departments, worked closely with nurse managers and physicians, and helped establish workflows that balanced clinical quality with operational efficiency. Being part of building this unit gave me my first exposure to the operational side of healthcare. It showed me how thoughtful systems design, teamwork, and leadership can meaningfully improve both patient outcomes and the experience of care. That experience ultimately inspired my decision to pursue an MBA.”

In some cases, the Class of 2026 seemingly stepped off a movie set. Before being ESCP Business School’s MBA Consulting Club treasurer, Hala EL SOLH partnered with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French National Higher Police Academy to take down traffickers of cultural goods. And IIM Ahmedabad’s Abhishek Batra is a modern-day Pathaan. A former intelligence office in India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, here is how he describes a day-in-the-life:

“In 24 hours, I’ve cloned five phones to secure evidence, interrogated a CXO, completed medical checks, produced him in court and had him lodged in Tihar Jail, one of the world’s largest prison complexes.”

That’s not to say Batra doesn’t have a soft spot, says Viswanath Pingali, one of his professors at IIM Ahmedabad. “Beyond enforcement, he co-founded Khwaahish, an NGO that evolved into a recognised, self-sustaining social enterprise impacting 500 children and 3,000 animals—proving that compassion works best when supported with sound business discipline.”

FROM OLYMPICS COMPETITOR TO ‘OLYMPICS’ PLANNER

Nike is the perfect destination for Kasey McCravey after she completes her MBA at the University of Texas’s McCombs School. After all, her softball heroics nearly earned her an ESPY a decade ago. However, her true talent could be found in rugby. Despite never playing the sport, she was invited to try out for the USA Women’s Sevens Rugby team. Three years later, she was chosen to serve as an alternate on the 2021 USA Olympic Rugby team. Speaking of rugby, Lina Guérin competed in two Olympics as a member of the French National Rugy Sevens team. Here, she earned a silver medal in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, along with two more silvers in Rugby World Cups held in 2018 and 2024. At HEC Paris, however, Guérin tackled an off-field challenge as president of the MBAT – popularly known as the “MBA Olympics.” Managing a team of 30 students and 100 volunteers, she put together an event for 1,500 MBA students from over 15 business schools worldwide.

“MBAT was especially meaningful to me because it connected my background as a professional athlete with my transition into business,” she explains. “More than a competition, I wanted the event to create a strong sense of community where students from different countries and backgrounds could meet and collaborate…Leading MBAT felt like running a small company: managing a budget, deadlines, and logistics, but also navigating different personalities, resolving conflicts, and keeping a diverse team motivated over time.”

The Best & Brightest also distinguished themselves most in high-profile, high-impact roles at the world’s blue-chip firms. At Dropbox, Columbia Business School’s Jacqueline Deprey’s team created an internal search solution that saved employees over a million hours. Before joining Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School, Laura Rodriguez served as the first social media marketing director for the GRAMMYs. By the same token, Amber Lo launched Sotheby’s first eCommerce platform during the COVID pandemic.

“While much of the art market slowed, our small team operated like a startup within a legacy institution, building the infrastructure for digital sales across multiple product categories,” writes the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School grad. “My role quickly became a jack-of-all-trades…The experience showed me how much creativity and problem-solving it takes to modernize an established industry.”

A LEAP INTO ENTREPRENEURSHIP

You’ll find many stories like these among the Best & Brightest. Vicente Aguirre Pischedda, a second-year at Fordham University’s Gabelli School, was part of the Microsoft team that developed the firm’s AI-powered customer feedback agent. At Adobe, UC Davis’ Shubhi Gupta led development on a patented feature that is currently used by 200-million users. That said, Scout O’Beirne believes her biggest achievement came when she designed a learning program on the history of race and racism for recruiters and hiring managers at Google.

“I worked with over 100 individuals in my department, including a team of senior leaders,” writes O’Beirne, a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Haas School. “My goal was to equip learners with a deeper understanding of the history of race in the United States and giving context to the realities of racial inequality today. Creating a space for meaningful dialogue and education within a major corporation reinforced my belief in the power of informed, systemic approaches to equity.”

In many ways, that instinct to create and scale defines the Best & Brightest. Indu Khemchandani launched Uplatz, a technology learning platform, before entering Alliance Manchester Business School. It has since grown to a 300-course venture that supports 1.5 million learners across 50 countries. As CEO of Zakon Publishing, Vladimir Bagaev, a graduate of the Rotterdam School of Management, masterminded Zakron.ru, one of the most popular networking and discussion platforms among Russian legal professionals. And a decade ago, Polina Sarafanova left the comforts of academia to head operations for a Hong Kong startup. Today, that firm is known as theDesk, one of the region’s largest coworking spaces.

“I took a leap of faith, relocating to a new country, entering a nascent industry, and stepping into the startup world with zero prior business experience,” Sarafanova recalls. “The difficulty level was high: a different culture, an untested market, and the steep learning curve of building a business. I often joke that I’m still not sure who was crazier, me or the founding team. But that leap changed everything.”

Warwick Business School’s Chaitanya Baboo pursued an equally crazy idea. In response to a teacher shortage in Jamaica – where high school students would go weeks or months without instruction in math and English – Baboo pulled together a team of instructional designers, engineers, and public sector officials to create a virtual classroom. Known as the National Virtual School, the digital program has fueled progress across 100 Jamaican high schools. From 2024-2025, for example, national exam passage rates improved by 9 points in English and 5 points for mathematics. In one high school, the English pass rate jumped by 62%, with another high school reporting a near 49% bump for mathematics. According to Baboo, parents were calling the virtual school a “breath of fresh air” as teachers capitalized on their reduced workloads. Baboo even jumped into the fray, teaching math and physics courses on the platform.

“The initiative is now part of Jamaica’s broader national digital education transformation strategy, targeting over 450,000 students, and has already expanded internationally, with governments such as The Bahamas adopting the model as a template for modernizing their own education systems,” Baboo adds. “I witnessed firsthand how access to structured teaching restored students’ confidence and academic momentum. It reinforced my belief that technology, when thoughtfully implemented, can directly change life trajectories.”

See pages 3-4 for 100 in-depth profiles of this year’s Best & Brightest MBAs. 

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