MBAs To Watch: The Stories Of 100 Extraordinary MBA Graduates

There’s no such thing as a “Typical MBA.” That’s the first thing you learn at orientation. Forget those B-school bromidés about babied blue bloods, money grubbing grifters, and dazed and distracted dilettantes. These days, your section mates are more apt to be social advocates, platoon commanders, artists, and global citizens. For them, an MBA is more than a degree. It is a chance to pursue passions, find purpose, and devise new life plans.

As first years stream to campus and applicants prep for round one deadlines, it helps to ask this question: Which classmates will become your future co-founders and confidantes in business school? Perhaps the best way to find answers is to look back at the dreams and achievements of the Class of 2017. Here, the atypical emerged as the typical.

HAAS GRAD OPENS UP OUTDOOR ADVENTURES TO THE DISABLED

For some, such as University of California-Berkeley’s Alvaro Silberstein, entrepreneurship is the means to make the joys we take for granted accessible to all. Confined to a wheel chair since he was 18, Silberstein co-founded Wheel the World, which organizes guided outdoor adventures for those with disabilities. Last year, he organized a 30-mile trek through Chile’s Patagonia, a region in the southern Andes Mountains known for its lush wildlife, striking mountains, and glaciers. The first person in a wheel chair to complete the trek, Silberstein did more than just prove the viability of his business idea. He set a tone and served as an example. “With the trek,” he tells Poets&Quants, “I aimed to increase awareness of people with disabilities by showing that we are active and live life to the fullest.”

Silberstein wasn’t the only member of the 2017 MBA class to make a statement. At Wharton, Charity Wollensack was disturbed by a rash of police-related shootings in 2016. To raise consciousness, the McKinsey hire organized a school-wide “black out,” where students donned black clothing to show their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. She did not expect, however, that her cause would be taken up at many MBA programs, including Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, and Dartmouth. “Seeing thousands of MBA students not only wear black, but also voluntarily engage in the difficult conversations that followed, made me exceptionally proud to be a part of this community,” she says.

Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find a “typical” MBA among this year’s “MBAs To Watch” — an eclectic and ambitious bunch who come from seemingly every background imaginable. These top students range from M&A lawyers and government officials to pizza bloggers and movie makers. They’re certainly not who you might expect. Babson College’s Courtney Wilson served as a U.S. Army officer…after studying creative writing at Wellesley. Erica Smith racked up accolades at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business after being a DJ for events held by such clients as Victoria’s Secret. And Brad deBorde enjoyed precious little time during his first year in the MBA program at the University of Florida: He was busy training for the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team trials.

UNCONVENTIONAL MBAs INCLUDE REFORMED POLITICOS, NAVY SEALS…AND DAREDEVILS

This year’s “MBAs To Watch” don’t fit neatly with the conventional narrative. Instead of checking all the right boxes, they often took the roads less traveled. Despite their differences, they shared several striking similarities. These students were often the most sought-after coaches and mentors in their classes. They were the ones who raised their hands, always ready to say “yes” to organizing and leading. Risk takers all, they defied expectations, with a curious and optimistic spirit that steeled their peers’ confidence and opened them up to new possibilities.

WOMEN AGAIN COMPRISE THE MAJORITY OF SELECTIONS

The 2017 “MBAs To Watch” originated from nominations submitted by over 60 MBA programs for P&Q’s earlier “Best & Brightest” MBAs. By the numbers, this ‘Watch’ list features 52 women, nearly identical to the 53-to-47 female-to-male ratio in “Best & Brightest” — and a vast improvement over most business schools, where the percentage of women lags below 40%. The list also included 40 students who were born outside the United States, with another 14 bringing military experience to campus. Overall, the “MBAs To Watch” gravitated to a wide range of employers, though 11 students chose to continue working on their startups. That said, Amazon, The Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey each landed four members of the class, with Bank of America and Deloitte chalking up three hires each.

Most “MBAs To Watch” boasted impressive credentials long before they started their MBA journeys. Take USC’s Brandt Hill. Four years, ago, he joined his brother in launching the Electric Run, a series of 5K evening running events that eventually spread to 20 countries and drew up to 25,000 athletes. At the same time, Warwick Business School’s Ashima Goyal started a “Mighty Angels” program in India on behalf of Deloitte. Here, she produced a year-round program that was implemented by 150 trainers and completed by over 1,000 women that included everything from vocational training to self-defense. Other class members vaulted themselves into rarified air early in their careers. IE Business School’s Zayne Imam was just a 24 year-old McKinsey consultant when he was advising the President of a North African nation on agricultural policy. By the same token, BYU’s John Rhoden rose from being an unpaid volunteer gathering signatures to serving as the operations lead for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. “The subsequent 12 months were a whirlwind of once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” Rhoden adds, “including meeting my future wife!”

Other achievements were less splashy, though no less extraordinary. As a school teacher in Tennessee, Launa Wood of the University of Texas' McCombs School of Business drove her students to a 100% pass rate on the state exam, despite a majority of the students reading below their grade level competency level at the start of the year. Similarly, during a tour of Afghanistan, the University of Washington’s Aaron Tyler developed study groups, replete with textbooks, for the team he was leading as a U.S. Marine. “Something was missing from their experience,” Tyler explains. “I noticed that many of them were struggling with some fundamental academic concepts. All but one confided in me that they believed college was out of reach for them…. We started reviewing math, English, history and science. It was a tough first few meetings, but weeks later they became believers in the power of education to advance their lives and the lives of those around them.”

How big of a believer did he make each of them? “I am most proud that upon returning stateside, five of my 12 young Marines went on to pursue degrees in higher education,” he adds.

BRINGING CHILDREN’S TOYS TO CLASS? IT HAPPENS MORE THAN YOU THINK

Equally impressive was the class of 2017's achievements once they started business school. Some students launched businesses that gained momentum as their studies progressed. That was the case for the University of Minnesota’s Jamie Glover, who co-founded ASIYA, which markets “culturally appropriate” athletic wear such as hijabs to Muslim females. In 2016, it won the Minnesota Cup Startup Competition as the best social venture. Since then, it has received media coverage in outlets ranging from The New York Times to People. During the same time, the University of Maryland’s Mohamed Boraie built his side wedding photography business, where his weekend sacrifices enabled him to retire his MBA debt before graduation. Boraie’s classmates weren’t the only ones to notice his hustle. “Capital One featured my company in a regional campaign highlighting small businesses that adopt banking products to best serve customers,” he adds. “I couldn’t help but feel a great sense of accomplishment when I first saw the corresponding billboard on the streets of Arlington, Virginia, with my company logo next to the Capital One logo.”

“YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE TRAVELED THROUGH HALF THE GLOBE”

The learning has just begun for the “MBAs To Watch,” as they head off to leave their mark in consulting, banking, entrepreneurship, and operations. Looking back, what will they miss most? Babson’s Wilson, for one, enjoyed having her “mind blown pretty much every day” in business school. Others like Columbia Business School’s MacKenzie Green, whose highlight was meeting with CNN’s Jeff Zucker after the election, will look back fondly at their ability to hobnob with leading business minds during speaking engagements and trips. Celebrity leaders aside, ESADE’s Sara López Castro will miss what she calls “exposure,” the ability for students to immerse themselves in different industries, job functions, and organizations.

As the class of 2017 applies their MBA lessons to their missions, perhaps what they will miss most are those electrifying epiphanies that reshaped how they view their world…and themselves. “I think that many may view business school as an opportunity to just educate themselves more about the topics you need to be successful in business,” adds IE’s Imam. “I found the real growth came in providing me with the environment to take risks and experiment academically, entrepreneurially, and even socially, and thus open myself up to parts I never even knew existed!”

To view the full list of MBAs To Watch and read their individual narratives, check out PoetsandQuants.com:

MBAs To Watch: The Stories Of 100 Extraordinary Graduates