Daniel Sewell

The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business

“Husband, dog dad, golfer, drummer, and soon-to-be JP Morgan investment banker.”

Hometown: Dallas, Texas

Fun fact about yourself: A fun fact about me is that in high school and college, I played professionally as a drummer to make money and performed at more than 50 venues across the United States.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Texas A&M University, BBA in Finance

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Directly out of undergrad, I joined Sewell Automotive Companies as a Sales Associate at Cadillac of Dallas. After several years there, I moved to Sewell’s Audi McKinney location, where I continued to build my sales, client relationship, and business development experience.

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? I interned at Rothschild & Co. as a Summer Associate in Global Advisory, focused on M&A and Strategic Advisory, in New York City. It was a defining summer for me professionally. I came to business school intending to make a major career pivot from car sales to investment banking, and Rothschild gave me the opportunity to do exactly that. From early on, I was entrusted with meaningful responsibilities on live transactions, and that experience accelerated my growth as an aspiring investment banker in a way I will always be grateful for.

Where will you be working after graduation? After graduation, I will be joining J.P. Morgan as a full-time Investment Banking Associate in its M&A Product Group in New York.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: Co-President of Wall Street for McCombs, HMTF Private Equity Center Scholarship recipient, and Teaching Assistant for Valuation under Xavier Sztejnberg

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? My proudest extracurricular achievement during business school has been serving as Co-President of Wall Street for McCombs. I came to McCombs with the goal of making a major career pivot into financial services, and Wall Street for McCombs played a meaningful role in helping me do that. Once I secured my post-internship return offer and ultimately my full-time offer, I wanted to give back to the program that had helped shape my own path. In my second year, I helped lead a practical preparation curriculum for the Class of 2027 focused on what candidates actually need to succeed: how to build relationships with bankers and ask for referrals during the coffee chat stage; how to present themselves well; how to shape a story that makes investment banking feel like the logical next step; and how to develop the technical skills to back that story up. I also worked with students both inside and outside the program who were pursuing investment banking. That experience has been the most rewarding part of business school for me because it allowed me to turn my own transition into something useful for others coming behind me.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? The professional achievement I am most proud of is earning a full-time offer to join J.P. Morgan’s M&A Product Group after business school. Before I arrived at McCombs, that was the dream outcome I had in mind. I was drawn to the firm’s leadership, culture, and standard of excellence, so while I was grateful for the opportunity to intern at Rothschild, I had largely made peace with the idea that my original goal might no longer be within reach. Given how difficult late-stage recruiting can be, I did not think there was a realistic path to ending up exactly where I had hoped to be. Receiving the J.P. Morgan offer therefore became a defining moment in my professional career: it was the clearest validation that the risks I took to pivot into finance were worth it, and a full-circle moment that fulfilled the goal that first brought me to business school.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose McCombs because it offered the combination of rigor, access, and culture I wanted in a business school. I was looking for a program with a strong investment banking pipeline, a highly effective preparation infrastructure, and a close-knit community where talented, ambitious people pushed each other to perform at a high level. McCombs stood out immediately. Wall Street for McCombs gave me confidence that the school had a serious track record of developing candidates for banking, while the school’s collaborative and relationship-driven culture felt like the right fit for how I like to operate. Just as important, I wanted an MBA experience that would make me more than just technically prepared for my next role. Through classes and experiences in leadership, management, operations, and marketing, McCombs helped me become a more complete business thinker. For me, it was the right choice because it combined a clear path to my immediate goals with the broader development needed for long-term success.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? My favorite MBA professor was Xavier Sztejnberg. “Professor X,” as we call him, brought tremendous credibility from his success in industry. However, what stood out to me even more was how fully invested he was in the success of his students. He did not just teach finance—he built the Wall Street for McCombs ecosystem into what it is today. When he arrived at UT in 2016, the program was sending only a handful of students to New York for investment banking each year. This year, Wall Street for McCombs students across the undergraduate and graduate programs will earn approximately 120 investment banking internships. That kind of transformation does not happen by accident. Professor X is direct with feedback, intentional with his time, and deeply committed to helping students reach their potential. Through my experience as Co-President of Wall Street for McCombs and as his TA, I had the chance to see that up close, and I benefited enormously from his mentorship, counsel, and example.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? My favorite MBA course was Sales Management and Strategy with Professor Doug Chung. Given my background in sales, I expected the course to reinforce ideas I had already seen in practice, but I was surprised by how much it deepened and sharpened my thinking. The course has a reputation for being highly sought after, and it quickly became clear why. Professor Chung is exceptional at leading case-based discussions: he pushes students to take clear positions, defend their thinking, and wrestle with the real tradeoffs behind sales force design and execution. What I found especially valuable was the course’s emphasis on compensation structure—how to design incentive systems that actually drive the right behavior, and how those systems need to differ across business models and strategic contexts. It was a class that felt both intellectually rigorous and immediately practical, and I know the lessons will stay with me throughout my career.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? If I could do one thing differently during business school, I would have spent more time deepening relationships with my classmates outside of the most immediate demands of recruiting and academics. I was very intentional about how I allocated my time during the MBA, and much of that focus was driven by my commitment to making a meaningful career transition for my family’s long-term future. I do not regret that choice, but in looking back, I have an even greater appreciation for how exceptional this community is and how valuable those relationships will be over the course of our careers. If I had one thing to do differently, it would be finding a better way to preserve more time for those connections while still pursuing the professional goals that mattered so much to me.

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 in business school was Mobileye. I enjoyed the case because it went beyond technology and forced us to think about strategy, conviction, and commercialization at the same time. What stayed with me most was Mobileye’s willingness to take a differentiated view of the future and stay disciplined around it. While others were chasing more complex or more attention-grabbing approaches, Mobileye focused on building a scalable, lower-cost solution that could actually be adopted by the market. The biggest lesson I took from the case was that great strategy is not about having the boldest vision in the room; it is about pairing conviction with a practical path to execution. Mobileye reminded me that the strongest businesses often win not by pursuing the most exciting idea, but by understanding what customers will adopt, what the market will reward, and how to build a durable advantage around that insight.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? What I loved most about Austin was its energy. I am a huge stand-up comedy fan, and getting to live in a city that has become one of the fastest-growing comedy scenes in the country was especially fun. There is a real sense of momentum in Austin right now, and being able to experience that firsthand made the city feel exciting, creative, and constantly evolving.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? One way McCombs has integrated AI into the MBA experience is by asking students not just to use it, but to think critically about how they use it. In several classes, professors have encouraged us to complete an assignment on our own first, then revisit it with AI: comparing the strengths, weaknesses, and tradeoffs of the AI-assisted version—including the prompts used to generate the output. I appreciated that approach because it treated AI as something to be tested and understood, not blindly accepted.

The biggest insight I gained is that AI does not replace the need to master the underlying material. It can absolutely accelerate the production of work, but it is not a substitute for judgment, original thought, or true understanding. In my experience, the better your grasp of the fundamentals, the more valuable AI becomes—because you can pressure-test its output, refine it intelligently, and know when it is missing the mark. Without that foundation, people risk becoming overly dependent on something they are not equipped to evaluate. To me, that is the real lesson: AI is at its best when it amplifies human capability, not when it replaces the thinking process altogether.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? If I had to choose one classmate I most admire, it would be Matthew Sims. Matt served in the U.S. Army before business school and will return after graduation, which says a great deal about his sense of duty and character. But what has always stood out to me most is the kind of man he is day-to-day. He started business school as a father of three, welcomed twins during the program, and still managed to show up every day with kindness, steadiness, and genuine care for other people. Even with everything on his plate, he was always intentional. There were many times when I was busy and moving quickly from one thing to the next, and Matt would proactively stop to ask how I was doing with a smile on his face. That meant a lot coming from someone carrying as much responsibility as he was. He is intelligent, driven, grounded in his faith, and deeply devoted to his wife and children. In a place full of impressive people, Matt stood out to me because of his character, and that is why I admire him so much.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? The top two items on my professional bucket list are to play a meaningful role in a landmark transaction that changes a company’s direction and to become genuinely expert in how AI is reshaping business strategy and value creation.

I want to build a career around pivotal moments—major acquisitions, sales, recapitalizations, and other high-stakes decisions where clear judgment and strong execution can materially influence an outcome. At the same time, I want to be close to the businesses and leaders figuring out how AI will change competitive advantage, operating models, and long-term enterprise value. Fifteen years from now, success for me would mean having both the judgment to contribute in a company’s most important moments and the perspective to help businesses adapt to a fundamental shift in how value is created.

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

“Daniel Sewell embodies the spirit of someone willing to bet on himself and then work relentlessly to make that bet pay off. After building a successful career in automotive sales, Daniel came to McCombs determined to make a bold pivot into investment banking. Through discipline, humility, and unwavering commitment to improvement, he transformed that ambition into reality, earning a Summer Associate role at Rothschild & Co. in New York and a full-time Investment Banking Associate position in the M&A Product Group at J.P. Morgan.

Daniel’s journey is impressive not only because of the pivot itself, but because of how intentionally he brought others along the way. As Co-President of Wall Street for McCombs, he helped lead one of the program’s most important career pipelines, building a practical preparation curriculum for students navigating the rigorous banking recruiting process. From advising classmates on networking strategy to coaching them through technical interview demands, Daniel turned his experience into a roadmap for others. His commitment to mentorship extended into the classroom, where he served as a Teaching Assistant for the core Valuation course, helping students master essential analytical skills.

Professor Xavier Sztejnberg captures Daniel’s impact: “Danny Sewell is an exceptional student and leader. Incredibly strong academically but, most important, a true student leader and community builder. As co-chair of the Wall Street for McCombs program, he has shown tremendous ability to mentor, coach and lead groups of highly talented students to land internships in investment banking.”

Professor Sztejnberg notes that Daniel is one of the strongest students he has taught in the past decade, highlighting both his intellectual rigor and leadership within the McCombs finance community.

What distinguishes Daniel most is the way he shows up for others, especially helping the class behind him with an earlier and compressed banking recruiting cycle. As FTMBA Career Coach Matt Todd observes, “Daniel is the type of leader who steps up when it matters most. While most of the campus was at the Red River Rivalry football game, Daniel was in the classroom, selflessly running technical drills for students who weren’t even in his official peer group. His work ethic and willingness to put the success of the 1st-year class above his own experience were instrumental to our recruiting success this year.”

The demanding recruiting process for Wall Street careers requires long nights, high pressure, and intense preparation, yet Daniel consistently fostered a culture of collaboration and shared success, ensuring his classmates had the support they needed to succeed.

Daniel Sewell represents the very best of the Texas McCombs MBA experience: ambitious, resilient, and deeply committed to lifting others along the way. His willingness to take a career risk, build new skills, and invest his time in helping others succeed embodies the leadership and collaborative spirit that define the Poets & Quants Best & Brightest MBAs.”

Tina Mabley
Senior Assistant Dean, Full-Time MBA
The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business, Hildebrand MBA

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