Irune Andres

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

“Accelerator of progress with deep ownership of outcomes and integrity seeking to help others reach their full potential.”

Hometown: Neuchatel, Switzerland

Fun fact about yourself: I was born in Chicago, grew up in Switzerland, and my whole family is Spanish. As a result, I’m a lucky speaker of four languages – English, French, Spanish, and a bit of German.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Bachelor of Arts from Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences (Northwestern University) with Majors in Economics and Statistics; Kellogg Certificate Program for Undergraduates in Financial Economics

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Investment Banking Associate (Sell-Side M&A) at Stout in Chicago

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Since I’m part of the One-Year MBA Program, I did not have an internship. I started my program in June 2025 and will be graduating in June 2026.

Where will you be working after graduation? I will be returning to Stout.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• Co-Chair of Day At Kellogg (DAK) — Kellogg’s Admitted Student Weekend
• First-Year Director on the Professional Development team of the Women’s Business Association
• First-Year Director of the European Business Club
• First-Year Director on the Logistics Team of Ski & Snowboard Club

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I am most proud of my co-chair responsibilities for Kellogg’s admitted students’ weekend, also known as Day At Kellogg (DAK). When I participated in DAK in 2025, I immediately felt students’ and faculty’s energy and passion for helping others and making an impact on their communities and organizations. Sitting in the seats alongside hundreds of fellow admits, I thought about what an incredible honor it would be to welcome the future class of admits to Kellogg as a current student. Fast-forward a year, standing on stage in front of 350+ MBA admits who wanted to see and feel what Kellogg is all about was a full-circle moment. Helping bring the DAK weekend to life, showing admits the community of people-first leaders at Kellogg, and feeling the excitement and energy from the admit crowd was extremely rewarding.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? During my time at Stout, I had the opportunity to work closely with the leadership team of the Investment Banking group to continuously find ways to improve our internal processes to provide better service to our clients and develop playbooks to help junior bankers become more efficient in their job. I’m proud that my curiosity, willingness to learn, and existing relationships contributed to my ability to make a positive impact on the organization by finding ways to empower our team to deliver higher-quality work more efficiently.

Why did you choose this business school? I prioritized joining a community that puts just as much emphasis on academic and professional rigor as it does on helping students develop into informed, adaptable, and empathetic leaders. As an action-oriented professional with clear objectives, I sought a culture that would challenge my perspectives and refine my effectiveness in team-centric environments. Kellogg’s emphasis on intentional relationship-building and its student-led ethos made it the clear choice for my personal and professional growth.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Sergio Rebelo, the MUFG Bank Distinguished Professor of International Finance, has been my favorite professor during my time at Kellogg. Not only is he extremely accomplished in the field of finance with countless authored research papers on macroeconomic policy and international finance, but he also has a wealth of experience consulting for some of the largest companies and organizations in the world. He marries quantitative theories and topics with memorable, recounted experiences from his consulting experience to reinforce learning concepts.

His teaching style offers a blend of personal stories, hands-on interpretation of equations and theorems through virtual and in-person simulations with some of the most successful academics, executives, and leaders. He is realistic, engaging, charismatic, and has just the right amount of humor to make international finance a fascinating class.

It’s also a tradition for Kellogg professors to organize small group lunches to get to know students better during the quarter. I vividly recall looking around the room while Professor Rebelo was sharing more stories that had us all in awe, just hoping to absorb a fraction of the impact he has made on the people and organizations he has worked with.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? Alongside International Finance, Personal Leadership Insights with Ellen Taaffe has been a standout class. This course has pushed me to reflect on experiences that have shaped me into who I am today, deepen my understanding of how my strengths, values, and align needs in a way that support my leadership aspirations, and bring awareness to areas for self-improvement. I came to Kellogg to spend time on how I want to show up and be perceived in professional environments, what kind of leader I want to be, and how to most effectively contribute to my teams. This class has provided me with the structure to frame these otherwise abstract goals. The small, 16-person class cohort fosters trust and vulnerability, guided by professors with decades of executive coaching expertise.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? Small group dinners (also known as SGDs) are one of my favorite Kellogg traditions. These dinners happen throughout the academic year. They are most often organized in collaboration with clubs or around a specific theme, typically by two student co-hosts at their apartment or a local restaurant and capped at eight to ten people. Signup sheets are shared on Slack with students across all MBA programs. The goal is to deepen connections with people you might recognize but have not spoken to at length, while meeting new people to keep expanding your network. The strength of the Kellogg network is built on campus, and small group dinners play a big part in expanding its reach.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Looking back on my experience, I’m grateful that I came into business school with three clear objectives:

1) Expand my network of connections from different backgrounds.

2) Consider potential career paths that combine my strengths and intrinsic motivations to have an outsized impact in my next chapter.

3) Deliberately focus on areas for personal growth.

They served as my guiding star during the busiest and most intense stretches (12-hour days packed with classes, group meetings, professional or club-related leadership commitments, and social gatherings). Having this mindset allowed me to prioritize my time with events that aligned best with my priorities.

However, if I could do it all over again, I would transition from a static mindset to a dynamic one. I initially viewed my set of goals as a fixed checklist, and the reality is that the MBA experience is part of a journey of self-discovery and reflection. Occasionally, I prioritized sticking with my plan over leaning into unexpected pivots and new interests that naturally emerge in an MBA environment.

My advice to all incoming MBA students is to re-assess these focus areas at the start of every quarter to stress-test your goals against new experiences and ensure that your actions are aligned with you who are becoming, not just who you were when you started your MBA.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? I wouldn’t point to a single case study but rather a set of case studies presented in Leading at Scale: Power, Design, and Influence in Organizations, a management & organizations course taught by Letian (LT) Zhang. The class is run following the case method. In each class, students put themselves in the shoes of a different manager or organizational leader to assess and discuss the successes and shortfalls of their delegation and influence skills, and organizational design.

Every management context has its own set of unique considerations, and every leader has their own management style. However, the most successful leaders have common attributes: a high level of self-awareness coupled with open-mindedness, a team-first approach to execution and problem-solving, and a willingness to continuously improve and learn from their mistakes.

What business leader do you admire most? I recently learned that Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of PepsiCo, handwrote letters of gratitude to the parents of her direct reports annually to thank them for how they raised their children. In addition to the act of kindness, I admire Indra’s commitment to acknowledging employees’ impact on the organization, as well as recognizing people beyond their professional contributions. In an era often dominated by performance metrics, I look up to her ability to balance professional rigor with a commitment to leading with empathy and emotional intelligence. Her legacy proves that leading with empathy can deepen loyalty and strengthen the backbone of an organization.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? Kellogg recently introduced a series of five classes focused on AI and machine learning ,AI Foundations for Managers, each taught from the vantage point of a different department (e.g., Marketing, Finance, Operations, Strategy, and Management & Organizations). These classes provide hands-on experience using AI strategically to approach business challenges. Each of the five courses is structured around (a) understanding how AI works and why it matters, (b) exploring machine learning fundamentals, (c) leveraging generative AI in real-world contexts, and (d) assessing ethical and governance risks with the use of AI. More in-depth courses are also available for students who seek to expand their expertise in the field of AI.

In Jim Lecinski’s AI Foundations for Marketing Managers course, I have experienced first-hand how important human judgement remains in evaluating AI-generated outputs. The class is structured as a synthetic marketing internship for a leading consumer brand. Each week, the assignments are focused on leveraging an AI frontier model (ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude) to mirror a marketing process from performing deep research and customer segmentation, through new product development concept and testing, to generating ads and marketing communications. It’s been incredible to see how each of these historically highly manual processes, which could span months, have turned into projects that can now be completed in a matter of hours with AI. Through each part of the marketing process, I’ve been able to assess from my personal experience where AI thrives and areas where it still isn’t meeting human expectations. This is important knowledge that I can take into my role following my time at Kellogg. I’ve also observed that while frontier AI models increasingly produce content that rivals or exceeds human-level quality, human oversight remains essential in keeping models’ inherent overconfidence in check.

Large Language Models still hallucinate, generate completely fabricated information, or just lack context and common sense. As users of AI, it’s our job to verify their outputs to identify when they lack the necessary information or conviction, yet we also have to be equipped with the knowledge to ask AI models the right questions and leverage their strengths to drive smarter ways of doing business. This course has been instrumental in helping refine my prompting and understanding of how much frontier AI models can accomplish.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? Claire Baudek, a fellow 1Y, is hands-down one of the most positive, energetic, and motivating people I have met at Kellogg. Claire has a gift of instilling trust in people by leading with empathy and building friendships in what seems like minutes.

Regardless of her workload and other commitments, Claire always finds ways to show her appreciation for the people in her life with unexpected gifts, whether it be a thoughtful text message, holiday card, or unexpected birthday call. She exemplifies Kellogg perfectly: intellectually sharp and curious, deeply collaborative and supportive, and always assuming positive intent.

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

• Lead an organization through transformational change
• Incorporate my passion for food and cooking into a venture

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

“I’m delighted to recommend Irune Andres for this honor. Irune stands out to me because she leads with her values, intelligence, and self-motivation both in and out of the classroom.

I was fortunate to have her in my Personal Leadership Insights course (PLI) and got to see how she engages with the course content and her classmates. She listens intently, courageously shares her insights, and asks powerful questions that spark meaningful discussions and engage others to share their perspectives. In leading by example, she raises the bar and builds connection. I was also thrilled to see her take the initiative beyond the classroom as she planned an out-of-class gathering for her PLI cohort.

Irune builds community as a leader in a variety of ways. As co-chair of Day at Kellogg, she was integral in designing the program, leading a team to deliver an exceptional event that showcased Kellogg to accepted students and welcomed them into our community. Her servant leadership was also evidenced by her director roles in the Women’s Business Association and Ski & Snowboard Club. She’s done all this while excelling in the one-year accelerated program.

Irune exemplifies how student leaders can develop and thrive at Kellogg and have a real, far-reaching impact on the community and their own careers.”

Ellen Taaffe
Clinical Associate Professor of Management & Organizations

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