Zach Harris

Arizona State University, W. P. Carey School of Business

“Authentic, empowering, community-minded, positive, creative, innovative, emotionally intelligent, endearing.”

Hometown: Cary, North Carolina

Fun fact about yourself: In 2021, I was cast as American Soldier #2 in a Chinese blockbuster movie about the Korean War.

Undergraduate School and Degree: University of North Carolina at Asheville, Music Technology

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? L3monade, CEO and Head of Operations

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Bayer, New Jersey

Where will you be working after graduation? Bayer, LDP

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

School Work: 2025 Net Investor, Entrepreneurship Club President, Net Impact Club President.

Community Work: Sound garden volunteer; sewing clothes and blankets for a local animal shelter; consulting work to save national forest land; food bank volunteering with Feed My Starving Children.

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I’m most proud of the 100 hours I’ve accrued volunteering at the sound garden in Mesa, Arizona. We grow food to support the unhoused community in the area and teach others how to be more sustainable. We are receiving a Congressional Award in early April 2026 for all our hard work.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? I started a digital immersion company in Japan that utilizes open world video games to teach students English and Mandarin. We saw immediate success and helped the majority of our clients either earn promotions or get accepted into their dream universities.

Why did you choose this business school? The Full-Time MBA program at ASU has been ranked #1 in innovation for 11 straight years now. When I was envisioning what my career would look like in the future, the most resonant feeling was that in order to be successful, you must be entrepreneurial and innovative. ASU consistently pushes the boundaries on innovation and burgeons new horizons. I could think of no better place than Arizona State.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? While there are so many fantastic teachers to mention here, my favorite MBA professor has been Dr. Amy Hillman for her unparalleled approach to strategy, her amazing work in our Executive Connections mentor program, and for her incredible style and poise. She pushed me to truly understand the underlying value in a business or situation and challenged my thinking with every interaction. She’s an absolute gem!

What was your favorite course as an MBA? My favorite course as an MBA has to be the Negotiations and Influence class in the Entrepreneurship concentration. This course not only provided us with the insight into our own personal negotiation style, but gave us ample practice through a litany of challenging scenarios to practice our styles while duking it out with others.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? My favorite MBA tradition at ASU was our bi-annual trip to the rodeo. Far out in the distant desert, with little cell phone service, we truly bonded with our classmates and became lifelong friends. There was no room to stress over projects, exams, or assignments, and the friendships that blossomed while watching bull riding or cutting a rug on the honkytonk dance floor will last a lifetime. These trips to the rodeo echoed our school’s mantra, that business is personal, and to be a great leader means you have to also be a great friend at times too.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Coming from a non-traditional pathway, the one thing I’d do differently is go back in time and shut off the imposter syndrome that was telling me I didn’t belong there. Being around so many smart and talented people initially left me feeling out of place. But after the whole MBA experience, I can comfortably say that everyone in the program is there for a reason and we all have our own niche that should be celebrated.

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 revolved around Kate Spade, the fashion designer, and how she went from designing in her dorm room to a successful business without VC funding. It truly impressed me to see how someone could trust their vision and ambition to the extent of building up a massively successful company without needing excessive outside funding. Her entrepreneurial mindset shows us that with an MVP, we can truly create long-lasting value.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? I absolutely love the southwest culture and being able to drive out to Tonto National Forest to stand in the Salt River and fly fish with the wild horses. Additionally, Tempe is a goldmine for thrift stores and antique shops that make a great escape from the heat.

What business leader do you admire most? I greatly admire Bill Anderson, the CEO of Bayer, for his authenticity, openness, and drive to create a better world. He is someone who truly cares about health for all, hunger for none, and he has the infectious ability to inspire everyone around him.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? ASU has a partnership with OpenAI and we are very proud of all the ways in which we use AI. In my Supply Chain and Sustainability course, I built several A.I. assistants that helped identify serious threats to local biodiversity in laundry detergent products. I learned that A.I. is an incredible tool that can help speed up analysis and help us to build and create value across all industries.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I truly admire my classmate Robert Milligan for his tenacity, discipline, and his effortless ability to bring people together. He is an amazing leader with exceptional skills, and I genuinely look forward to what he accomplishes throughout his career.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? To better the lives of as many people as possible, and to eventually soft retire back into teaching.

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

“Zach Harris has had a transformative impact on the Full-time MBA program at W. P. Carey because he lives our core belief that business is personal and exemplifies the Carey Code of “doing good while doing well.” He understands that professional excellence and community impact are inseparable. Selected as a 2025 Net Investor – a peer-nominated honor recognizing the positive impact students make on the program – Zach is widely regarded as someone who consistently gives more than he takes.

Through more than 100 hours of volunteer service at the Mesa sound garden, Zach strengthened the program’s engagement with the local community and mobilized classmates through the Net Impact Club to support the unhoused community. While the garden’s forthcoming Congressional Award reflects the scale of this effort, his lasting contribution is the example he set – that meaningful leadership requires humility, action, and pride in representing the program well.

As president of the Entrepreneurship Club, Zach built employer partnerships and engagement pathways for future cohorts. He also helped launch a cross-club consulting initiative focused on environmental preservation and ecotourism development near Tonto National Forest – creating a real-world platform that integrates entrepreneurship, sustainability, and consulting. In the classroom, he built AI assistants and encouraged classmates to leverage emerging technologies to create value. In addition to being recognized as a Net Investor, he is currently a finalist for the W. P. Carey Outstanding Graduate Student Award – an honor awarded to one graduate student across all programs – underscoring the breadth of his impact and the lasting strength of his contributions.

Beyond his many accomplishments, Zach brings a smile and a kind personality to everything he does. He is consistently respectful, warm, and genuinely happy to help others. He makes it a point to stop whenever he sees someone in the corridor or around the school, engage in conversation, and check in with classmates, faculty, and staff alike. His positive presence strengthens the program’s fabric in ways that go beyond titles and initiatives, reinforcing a culture of care, approachability, and authentic connection. As we say at W. P. Carey, “business is personal” – Zach embodies it fully. His character, leadership, and lasting impact.”

Erica Day
Associate Director, Program Operations, Full-time MBA
Nitin Walia, Clinical Professor, Department of Information Systems and Faculty Director, Full-time MBA

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