The 100 Best & Brightest MBAs: Class Of 2026

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS AT EVERY LEVEL

The Best & Brightest carried this can-do spirit to business school. Ask their classmates: You’ll find them everywhere. They are the ones organizing orientations, conferences, and treks. They are the tutors, teaching assistants, and mentors – when they are busy competing on case-winning teams or shuttling potential students around campus. In many cases, they hold court as the glue that keeps the class together.

At SDA Bocconi, Nicholas Dellai is called the “CEO of Events” because of the dinners and gatherings he organizes across all the business programs. That will include a May sailing excursion for students and alumni – whose €250,000 price tag will be underwritten by sponsors! HEC Paris’s Luis Dominguez Guillot has earned the “vibe-checker” moniker for handling everything from campus tours to prospective student webinars and one-on-ones. And then there’s Waras Singh from the Indian School Business. He racked up the school’s major awards – Chairperson’s Award for Best All-Rounder and ISB Exemplary Leader Award – while running its flagship leadership conference (during its silver jubilee, no less). His classmates even elected Singh as the president of the Graduate Student Body – where he promptly became known as the “War Time President”.

“My very first day in office began with campus blackouts triggered by a geopolitical conflict. The name stuck in quiet recognition of how we navigated that crisis.”

Alas, Marcus Glass didn’t need a nickname to reflect his influence at Texas A&M’s Mays School. A year removed from being an undergraduate, Glass was elected president of the Graduate and Professional Student Government – a body covering 17,500 students across nearly 300 academic programs!

In some cases, class members were considered such strong leaders that they were treated as equals by professors. Punit Thakkar and Alyssa Marie Uy were both tapped by faculty members to co-author cases. Kasey McCravey started a three-credit Business of Sports Fellows program so classmates could receive industry experience and mentorship. When Richard Locke was named dean at MIT’s Sloan School, Aditi Ramakrishnan was selected to advise him. And she wasn’t the only Sloanie to shoulder major responsibilities at the school.

“I’m most proud of building MIT OpenCourseWare’s first offline learning platform, which unlocked access to education for millions of learners globally,” writes Hardi Vajir. “The platform was specifically designed for learners in low-resourced regions with intermittent connectivity, so they can access course materials on mobile devices even without wifi. It’s one of the most impactful products I’ve built so far, and it’s only deepened my drive to build products that unlock access for billions of users.”

GOING TOE-TO-TOE WITH THE BEST MINDS IN HEALTHCARE

Some Best & Brightest MBAs relished once-in-a-lifetime experiences in business school. While a student at IESE Business School, Federico E. Alatorre appeared on national television to pitch his venture on Shark Tank Mexico. At the Saïd Business School, Daina Mandewo engaged in the most Oxford thing ever: she debated two experts on public health policy at the historic Oxford Union…and won!

“I debated against Dr Robert Califf, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Dr Freda Lewis-Hall, former Chief Medical Officer of Pfizer. Although winning was the headline, what stayed with me was the opportunity to examine in the world’s most historic debate chamber, the question that led me to Business School in the first place: what is the role of commercial logic in a system that deals with human survival? Healthcare and business are often spoken about as if they are in perpetual conflict. Listening to my opponents made me think deeply about how business can be done for good within the healthcare system.”

The impact of the MBA Class of 2026 can already be felt beyond campus walls too. That is certainly true at Amazon, which realized more value than expected when they brought Chad Shimozaki in for a summer internship.

“I was given the challenge of improving the accuracy of tax product classification across a catalog of 62 billion products on Amazon.com,” writes Shimozaki, a second-year at the University of Chicago’s Booth School. “Starting with the customer, I interviewed 30+ internal operations users, mapped their pain points, designed a new system architecture, and delivered a working prototype in 12 weeks. I presented a 6-page PR-FAQ to senior leadership, influencing the go/no-go decision, a three-year product roadmap, and operations resourcing for phased adoption. The team chose to implement my recommendation, improving classification accuracy to 99.9% and reducing manual workflow time by over 90% for 90+ users.”

Not surprisingly, Shimozaki is joining Amazon as a senior product manager after graduation.

MINDFUL MONDAYS AND THE ONE FUQUA CHALLENGE

The Best & Brightest’s impact was equally profound on campus. At BYU’s Marriott School, Lorenzo Montanari created recruiting playbooks covering 16 countries and over 3,000 alumni contacts. At CEIBS, Jingxuan Liu produced a global exchange playbook to help students better compare schools. Steven Pillon organized the first co-founder matching event at the Cambridge Judge Business School using a speed dating model. To support student health at Georgetown University’s McDonough School, Lara Kornblut leveraged her experience as a certified yoga and meditation teacher to start Mindful Mondays.

“Each week, I led students through a 25-minute session of breathwork, meditation, and reflection. What began as a small experiment gradually became part of the rhythm of the program. Classmates began recommending the sessions to one another and stopping by between commitments simply to reset…Initiatives like Mindful Mondays helped reinforce a core Georgetown value: cura personalis, or care for the whole person. To me, that philosophy captures the kind of leadership I aspire to practice: one where our best professional work stems from supporting the well-being of the people doing it.”

Gabrielle Sims adopted a similar mindset at Duke University’s Fuqua School. Noticing a “connection gap” after orientation between first- and second year students, she decided to build in structure to bring the communities together throughout the year. The result was the One Fuqua Challenge, 60 events and competitions held year-round to feed into the orientation spirit.

“To celebrate and honor the winning section, we created championship banners to be displayed proudly on campus, along with a dedicated happy hour celebration in the Champions Club as a heartfelt way of saying thank you for showing up and competing with everything you had,” Sims explains. “But perhaps the most meaningful and unexpected outcome of the One Fuqua Challenge was its impact on second-year engagement. Historically, it had been difficult to consistently draw second-year students back into the rhythm of Fuqua programming, given the demands of recruiting, internships, and the natural winding down of the MBA journey. Yet with the One Fuqua Challenge, second-year students led the charge. They showed up with energy, pride, and a fierce competitive spirit that set the tone for the entire community.”

EXISTENTIAL MUSINGS…IN SUBZERO ANTARCTICA

That tone was further set by some of the ‘fun’ activities organized by the Best & Brightest MBAs. When J.B. Horsley wasn’t organizing board game nights at the Yale School of Management, he served as a director, writer, and lead actor in Business & Society the Musical – the students’ annual spoof of business school life. Among his satires was turning Wicked’s “Defining Gravity” number into “Attaining Salary.” Timothy Hoffman – as co-president of the Performing Arts Club at IESE Business School – started a school rock band called MECE (Musically Exclusive, Collectively Exhausted). At the University of Rochester’s Simon School, Karla Camarillo Huitron built Simon Uncorked, a wine and social club…with a twist. To broaden the club’s appeal, Huitron partnered with other clubs to hold paired trivia nights and panels to make Simon Uncorked – in her words – “not just a club, but a community.”

“That vision came to life through initiatives like our event UnCorking Impact, a cross-club collaboration with the Latin American Students of Simon, Simon Black Student Alliance, and Simon Life Sciences. Together, we hosted a panel featuring Latino and Black alumni in healthcare, pairing meaningful career conversations with signature cocktails that celebrated each organization.”

Many times, the Best & Brightest oversaw some of their class’s most unforgettable events. Max Taylor was responsible for running the London Business School’s largest student-run conference, EUROUT, a three-day event that brought together 550 members of the LGBTQ+ community. As the student government’s head of faith development at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, Dody Eid focused on the pillars of prayer, community, and intellectual growth for his classmates.

“I started a weekly rosary in the business school chapel and organized class service trips to Our Lady of the Road, a local homeless outreach organization. I also brought classmates and family members of all faith backgrounds together by starting a tradition of serving homemade Swedish crêpes and waffles every Sunday following Mass. On the intellectual front, I started a “Faith & Reason” speaker series that recently featured a fireside chat titled “Does God Exist?” with Professor John C. Cavadini, a world-renowned theologian.”

At the same time, the Class of 2026 engaged in overseas treks, the most popular of MBA traditions that took students from Botswana to Bali…and everywhere in-between. For Harshwardhan Singh, that globe-trotting included Antarctica as part of Wharton’s Leadership Venture. Here, he spent New Year’s watching penguins against a sun that “never quite set.”

“For a week, our team navigated brutal cold, unpredictable conditions, and the kind of physical and mental fatigue that strips away pretense,” Singh continues. “What made it transformative wasn’t the adventure itself – it was discovering how I lead when comfort is gone. You learn things about yourself at the edge of the world that no classroom can teach.”

THE CLASS BUCKET LIST

As graduation nears, the Best & Brightest are preparing to take these lessons into the world’s top companies and most promising ventures. Beyond making an impact that first job, the class aspires to fulfill bigger missions. While many hope to land a c-suite role or start a company, Scout O’Beirne points out that it is the company culture – and how it lives up to its principles and serves the greater good – that really matters in the larger scheme.

“[I want to] work at or help build a steward-owned company — one structured so that purpose is permanently embedded in its governance and not dependent on the goodwill of any single owner or shareholder,” O’Beirne tells P&Q. “My time studying alternative ownership models, including the Perpetual Purpose Trust, has convinced me that the ownership structure of a company shapes everything about how it operates. I want to be part of proving that businesses can thrive while being accountable to their mission, their workers, and their communities, not just their investors.”

Others are looking to join a board or start a non-profit. In the case of IESE Business School’s Federico E. Alatorre – an ecommerce entrepreneur – he hopes to someday experience an IPO.

“The full process: due diligence, book building, roadshow and the opening bell. I think it’s one of those experiences that fundamentally changes how you understand markets, capital and what it actually means to build something from zero.”

More than anything, Best & Brightest members like Doğukan Günaydın are looking to somehow give back. “I want to be the kind of leader who actively invests in the people around them. That said, I am especially passionate about creating pathways for immigrants who leave their lives behind to pursue opportunity and excellence. Having walked that path myself, I understand the unique challenges that come with building a career in a new country, and I want to help others navigate that journey with more support than I had.”

ADVICE TO FUTURE BEST & BRIGHTEST

When it comes to advice to future MBA students, the Class of 2026 is almost unanimous: Be open to everything and don’t sell yourself short when you start.

“Initially, I shied away from new experiences simply because I had no idea what to expect,” admits A’Lexus A. Murphy. “What I came to realize towards the end of my fall quarter is that the unknown…is the beauty of an MBA. Those quant-heavy classes that seemed completely out of my wheelhouse? Turns out, I could take them – and not only succeed, but have fun with them! The networking events with alumni that I worried I would have nothing to contribute to? I could go, meet incredible people, and find common ground with just about anyone I crossed paths with.”

More than anything, they urge MBAs follow their own paths and not measure themselves against everyone else.

“Business school can be an intense environment, especially during recruiting, where it sometimes feels like everyone around you is moving forward with confidence,” remembers Rebekah Koster. “Over time, I realized that the most meaningful progress came when I focused less on external expectations and more on being authentic to who I am, including my strengths, my interests, and the way I like to approach challenges. Once I focused on that, everything started to come together more naturally.”

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

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