MBAs To Watch In The Class of 2016

Yanyu Zheng has a passion — soccer. At 13, she decided to pursue her dream. She would go to work for Futbol Club Barcelona, perhaps the most popular sports team in the world. It wasn’t going to be easy, of course. For one, Barcelona’s sparkling, breezy shores were a world away from those muggy summers along the banks of Fuzhou’s Min River. For another, FC Barcelona had never employed a Chinese staffer since its founding in 1899.

And, as Zheng readily admits, she had no sports talent, “(failing) lots of PE course evaluations.”

But what she lacked in speed and agility, she made up in pure moxie. After earning a degree in journalism from Beijing Sport University, Zheng took a leap of faith that most dreamers can only imagine: She flew over 6,200 miles to Barcelona to live. In the process, she learned Catalan and Spanish, developed expertise in event planning, and became China’s only sports correspondent in Barcelona. Barely a year after arriving in Spain, Zheng landed her dream job with FC Barcelona, where she opened up the Chinese marketplace through social media — with the club’s Chinese site eventually becoming its most popular.

In the end, Zheng didn’t settle for realizing her dream. After a two-year stint at FC Barcelona, she earned a full scholarship to Barcelona’s ESADE Business School, the alma mater of many of the soccer club’s past presidents. At ESADE, Zheng headed up the program’s Sports Business Club and in the process became a key member of a team that won the 2015 Franz Competition, earning them an audience with the International Olympic Committee. Given Zheng’s pioneering spirit, she was quickly snapped up as one of the first employees of AliSports — an offshoot of Jack Ma’s $500 billion Alibaba empire and a firm positioned to emerge as China’s answer to ESPN.

While Zheng is unlikely to be elected to replace FC Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu any time soon, it isn’t hard to picture her someday being a worthy successor to the Dick Ebersols and Steve Bornsteins of the past. She is, without a doubt, a 2016 MBA graduate who is poised to make an impact over the coming years.

Yanyu Zheng is among over 90 graduating MBAs that Poets&Quants is honoring as MBAs To Watch. Earlier this year, P&Q selected 100 MBAs to be its Best & Brightest MBAs from the Class of 2016. These MBAs were drawn from nominations submitted by over 60 leading MBA programs, with candidates evaluated on the caliber of their extracurricular leadership, professional achievements, and personal insightfulness. Not surprisingly, the students nominated, as a whole, were exceptional. And the differences between students who made the Best & Brightest and those who didn’t were sometimes minute — with several candidates inspiring passionate debate. As a result, P&Q is celebrating the remaining candidates with readers as well.

And what a class the MBAs to Watch represents! It features 57 men and 40 women (nearly the exact opposite of the 57-to-43 ratio of “Best & Brightest”). Seventy-eight grew up in the United States, with 19 others coming from lands as diverse as Pakistan, New Zealand, Guinea, and South Africa. You’ll find the MBAs To Watch at renowned business programs like MIT, Northwestern, INSEAD, and Columbia — along with up-and-comers like Rice, IE Business School, Wisconsin, and Emory. Among this group, McKinsey is the leading employer, hiring eight members of P&Q’s MBAs To Watch. They were followed by Amazon (6), Deloitte (5), Boston Consulting Group (4), Apple (3), and Ernst & Young (3). Three of these MBAs even found their way into government, taking their sharpened business skills into the U.S. Justice Department and the city of Rochester’s mayor’s office.

However, it is this class’ stories and achievements that truly make these students stand out. The MBAs To Watch stand out for several reasons. One is their commitment to serving others. The University of Toronto’s Anthony Harbour organized the first annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in Washington, D.C., an expansive program that included both workshops and entertainment, along with a venue where 50 attendees were able to get tested. ESADE’s Farah Haddad, who spent two years volunteering for Engineers Without Borders, spent a chunk of her time increasing access to safe water in Ghana by developing a prototype system that uses big data and wireless sensors to identify wells that are not completely operational. In Afghanistan, Matthew Astphan, a Marine Corps infantry officer who earned his MBA from Boston University, oversaw security for 15 villages — including the construction of a school, health clinic, and police station. And the University of Cambridge’s Fatoumata Diane’s webcasted tutoring sessions, earning her the nickname, “Fatim the Fabulous Finance Fairy.”

They were also a group that knew how to get results. In her first job at the Meltwater Group, the University of Cambridge’s Holly Engelbrecht rose from sales consultant to managing director in 15 months — and served as the model for hiring female graduates into the sales and management programs at her firm.  Before enrolling at Emory, Brian Berkowitz developed and launched the first onsite employer clinic for Kaiser Permanente. In Honduras, Ohio State’s Coralia Nunez grew Convergys’s call center operation from four to 400 employees in under a year. At the same time, the University of Michigan’s Oliver Truong managed to get several African heads of state to sign a letter of intent to reduce barriers to intra-African travel. And let’s not forget Penn State’s Jaspreet Singh, who convinced his employer, John Deere, to customize its product features to the Indian market, resulting in annual savings of $3.6 million.

Most of all, the 2016 class has heart. No one epitomizes that more than the University of Missouri’s Zach Heath. During business school, Heath was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. In response, he helped start a company, Hunter Biomedical Group, designed to change how cancer is treated and even diagnosed. Most notably, the firm has developed a diet that fights cancer. Humbled by how fragile life can be, Heath shares this advice to future MBA students: Leave your ego at the door.

“Nobody knows everything,” Heath cautions. “Chances are, you don’t really even know that much. And, the more you learn, you realize how much you don’t know. Open your mind to all of the possibilities.”

For the 2016 MBAs To Watch, business school was a time when many possibilities were realized. For Notre Dame’s Laura McWhirter, the last two years opened doors to opportunities that otherwise would not have been available. “I’ve had the opportunity to have lunch with a retired three-star general, visit start-up and global companies in Brazil, go horseback-riding through the Andes, hear the chief editor of the Wall Street Journal share some thoughts on politics, watch Notre Dame’s football team beat USC and much, much more,” she explains. She wasn’t alone. Dexter Yu Galan took advantage of Northwestern’s study-abroad program to visit 10 countries in Europe. Before landing at Ford Motor Company, Penn State’s Kaitlin Sheehan received a dream assignment from a professor impressed with her work: developing a sustainability report for NASCAR’s Pocono Raceway.

So what lessons did the MBAs To Watch take from their business school experience? For one, making decisions involves more than good intentions, gut instincts, and a strong will. “There are multiple ways to approach every problem that need to be solved, and that there is no right answer in an ambiguous world,” writes Arizona State’s Matthew Meads. “At the same time,” he adds, “you sure as hell better be able to back up your assumptions.”

For Boston University’s Nikasha Khetarpal, business school was a reminder of how much personal experience influences perceptions. “Five people can read the same sentence and interpret it five different ways, and their backgrounds play a large part in these interpretations,” she explains. As a result, the University of Rochester’s Gregory Sheldon counsels MBAs to focus on what really matters: building understanding and instilling commitment. “Having the right answer or a great idea is usually a lot easier and less useful than figuring out how to communicate and execute it,” he emphasizes.

Looking at the MBA experience itself, Vanderbilt’s Grometer reminds incoming students to remember the big picture. “If you spend time feeling anxious about your busy days and all the moving pieces, you’re ultimately missing out on opportunities to learn from an extra business reading, develop rapport with a fascinating faculty member, or building a relationship with a classmate you may not know so well.” And Texas’ Fernandez applies the lessons he absorbed from dining at “countless” all-you-can-eat buffets. “Your eyes are often bigger than your stomach,” he writes. “While it’s good to try new clubs and experiences, it’s important to focus on those that are most impactful.”

In the end, concludes the University of Oxford’s Hangwani Muambadzi, the MBA experience is a dress rehearsal for opening night, a place where missing your cues and flubbing your lines are a means to more deeply understand your part and master your craft.

“A friend of mine once articulated it really well for me. She mentioned that the MBA was essentially just a place where you are confronted with the most complex characters you’ll ever encounter all in one place, and your role is to survive, essentially, without burying anyone in the backyard (thank you, multiple group projects). She was on to something. Except, in this MBA arena, you are in fact pitted against every fear, insecurity, and flaw you have ever encountered within, personified through individuals and mirrored in the murkier experiences. The ultimate battle is against yourself. You’re the biggest winner. You’re also the biggest loser. If nothing else, I’ve learned to peel off each layer and self-validate at every level.”

Each MBA shares their experience and offers advice to would-be applicants at PoetsandQuants.com:

Profiles Of MBAs To Watch In The Class of 2016