Kathryn Kochevar

HEC Paris

“A wonderfully chaotic mother, wife, and friend pursuing a life full of adventure and love.”

Hometown: Sarasota, Florida, USA

Fun fact about yourself: This summer will be my 8th time moving in the last 5 years!

Undergraduate School and Degree: United States Military Academy at West Point, BS in Sociology with a minor in Portuguese

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Strategy for Fragile and Conflicted-Affected States at the International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Where will you be working after graduation? Consultant at Bain & Company

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: Director of Academic Partnerships and Resources for the Women in Leadership Club; Cohort Talent Representative; Consulting Club Advisor; MBAT Volunteer

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? For the duration of my business school program, my husband was deployed with the US Army. This meant that I was solo parenting a one-year-old while getting my MBA abroad, in a place where I didn’t speak the language or have any family. I’m so proud that I somehow managed to find the right balance between all of these demanding, competing entities. I was able to immerse myself and my daughter in French culture, secure an incredible internship, become a leader in my program, and make lifelong friends.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? The achievement I’m most proud of in my professional career came surprisingly, quite early. After fracturing my spine during my final year at West Point, I was no longer able to commission as an officer in the US Army as I had planned. I had never taken a business class and my summers were full of military training instead of internships, but suddenly, I needed to pivot. Within the span of a few months, I learned about consulting, case prepped like crazy, and received an offer to join Bain. In what was a very tumultuous time in my life, I’m incredibly proud that I was able to have grit, be resilient, and set a strong foundation for the rest of my new career.

Why did you choose this business school? I’ve been fortunate to build a wealth of business knowledge from my time at Bain, so something that was exceptionally important to me when looking at business schools was the leadership development opportunities they had to offer. The messaging and emphasis on leadership and personal development that I felt from HEC during the recruitment and application process stood out more than others. Their academics catalog boasted world-class professors and courses designed to really push yourself outside of your comfort zone; one of such being their ‘Outdoor Leadership Seminar.’ During this multi-day test of endurance, teamwork, and resilience, students are mentored by former military leaders and complete simulated missions – something that made me excited and reminiscent of my time at West Point.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? My favorite MBA professor was Roxana Barbulescu, from my Management and Organizations specialization backbone course. Roxana not only taught us what it meant to be an authentic leader, she modeled it every day. As a new mother myself, I really admired the way she balanced motherhood and her family life with her pursuit of a meaningful and fulfilling career. Her unique ability to bring case studies to life, along with her own shared experiences, led our class to always have many deep, rich discussions. I feel like I had the most personal growth in Roxana’s class, and my entire MBA experience would not have been the same without her mentorship.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? My favorite course during the MBA was a Search Funds intensive course taught by Jan Simon as a guest professor. His breadth of experience in this space was deeply enriching, and I went from having relatively little knowledge on the topic, to wanting to one day pursue my own search fund. The more I learned about search funds, the more passionate I became – to me, it feels like an opportunity for the perfect blend of small team leadership, business consulting, and teamwork – all things I’ve extensively experienced with my background from West Point and Bain.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? My MBA experience was genuinely wonderful – I felt that despite being a solo parent to a toddler in a foreign country, we made the most of our time being abroad and traveled to more than ten countries. We also deeply immersed ourselves in the local culture, as my daughter attended a local daycare where we lived in Versailles, and weekends were spent wandering the Palace of Versailles Gardens, eating copious amounts of chocolate croissants. However, if I had to do anything differently, it would be to take the time to go into Paris more often and experience the different arrondissements and spend more time at the many museums. Versailles certainly felt like home by the time we left – it is even the place my daughter has lived the longest – but Paris still feels like somewhere to explore more next time.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it? In one of my management courses, we did a case study on Johnsonville Sausage in the 1980s as they documented leadership transitions among a period of high growth. In a Q&A with the CEO at the time, he emphasized two ideas that have stuck with me since hearing them: you can’t be great unless you have great people, and you get what you expect.

The former statement resonates with me because the times when I had my biggest successes and achievements were the times when I was surrounded and supported by even more amazing teammates. It’s important to remember that people are at the heart of what we do in this world, and greatness comes from supporting and believing in one another. The latter statement has helped me reframe the way I think about my leadership style, from those I will supervise at work, all the way to my toddler. In the past, I’ve struggled with letting go of control and delegating, and it’s because I was always afraid of the worst outcome. I think reframing my mindset around expecting the best-case scenario will help me to empower and support those around me.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? Jouy-en-Josas is a small, rural, farm town, and while there’s not much nightlife, it is right next door to Paris. Surprisingly, it is not its’ proximity to Paris that makes Jouy-en-Josas such a special place, rather its’ uncanny ability to take a group of strangers and make them lifelong friends. So many students live on campus because of the rigorous academic schedule the first few semesters, so everyone is almost secluded in this little, beautiful farm town together. During our lunch breaks, my friends and I would go for long walks or runs, discussing freely what was on our mind as we breathed in the fresh air. It became a place we associated with friends and good times, a place to unwind and take a break, a place that quickly felt like home away from home.

What business leader do you admire most? I most admire Melinda French Gates because of her lifelong dedication to empower and support other women. She has spent her career trying to redistribute opportunity through her work regarding expanding access to contraception, maternal health care, and women’s economic empowerment. Her philanthropic institutions attract world-class talent because they believe in her mission, and what she stands for, and I would love to one day be a part of it.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? During our Business Statistics course, we had to complete a course-end project that used a statistical analysis to develop a recommendation for a client. Part of the project involved sourcing data for over 100 types of tires, including a variety of variables. The data set needed was not readily available, so each group had to find a creative way to piece together something they could use. Our instructor encouraged us to use AI to help automate the process, and I ended up spending a few long nights using AI to help me write a script to scrape the tire data I needed from different relevant websites and compile it into one useable data sheet. I had used AI to help me create study guides for exams, as well as reading outlines, but I have never used it to code before. The project and use of AI helped me to learn some basic code, and I was even able to troubleshoot it by myself towards the end, when I needed to make minor adjustments. Encouraging students to use AI in creative and productive ways is critical as we continue to explore the age of AI.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? The MBA classmate I most admire is Eduardo Loret de Mola for his dedication to the well-being of our cohort. During his MBA experience, and like so many of us, he felt himself navigating a demanding set of priorities, all seemingly as important as the next. Understanding this was a shared experience by so many, he drafted a formal proposal and submitted it to the Student Life teams, prompting a workshop that explored stress, burnout, and practical tools to stay grounded during the MBA. The initial workshop was a huge success and will hopefully become an integral resource at the disposal of the next cohorts of HEC and beyond.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? Three years ago, I donated my kidney to a stranger, and the experience made us become very close friends. We founded the Candie and Kat Kidney Foundation with the aim of providing mentorship to both kidney donors and recipients, but I would love to take it to the next level. I have dreams of hosting an annual fundraiser gala and seeing just how far our help can reach. In addition, I would love to one day be a teacher. I feel like I have had a lot of sometimes random and chaotic, but wonderful life experiences, and I want to be able to share them with the next generation and inspire them to live a life of purpose. I want to share what it was like to travel to Antarctica by myself, to trek up to Mount Kilimanjaro, to really just make more people come alive and pursue the extraordinary experiences this world has to offer!

What made Kathryn such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2026? Kathryn was my student in the Management and Organizations specialization backbone course. Among many talented classmates, she stood out with a unique combination of sharp analytical thinking and an incredibly affirming presence. She is soft-spoken, yet she gets heard. During our Strategic Alliances exercise, she helped her team recover from drift by reframing objectives and reconnecting members to shared goals —never by dominating the conversation, but by directing the right questions to the right people, at the right time.

Equally striking are her resilience and generosity of spirit. Kathryn relocated internationally for her MBA with her one-year-old daughter, navigating that transition with grace while remaining fully committed to her cohort’s learning and well-being. She is congenial, trustworthy, and disarmingly funny (the class were relieved to learn that she had not pursued her childhood dream of becoming a spy!). She added not just to the intellectual rigor of the classroom but importantly, to its emotional center. In every sense, she embodied the best and the brightest in our classroom!”

Roxana Barbulescu
Associate Professor of Management and Human Resources

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