Best & Brightest MBAs<\/a> and August\u2019s MBAs To Watch. This year\u2019s batch hails from 76 graduate business programs, including the University of Chicago\u2019s Booth School, IIM Ahmedabad, INSEAD, MIT\u2019s Sloan School, and the Wharton School. On this list, women outnumber men by a 62-to-60 margin. Non-American students also outpaced their American counterparts by a 64-to-58 difference. Employment-wise, Bain & Company hired the largest number of MBAs to Watch, with 6 graduates, followed by Deloitte (5), Boston Consulting Group (4), and Amazon (3).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\")
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Matthew Genovese, University of Texas (McCombs)<\/p>\n
What makes an MBA To Watch? In many cases, their classmates and faculty describe them as being the pillars of their classes, the role models who act as coaches and champions. Quick with a smile and a kind word, no gesture is too small and no problem too big for the MBAs to Watch. They are the go-getters who persistently pursue growth \u2013 and have fun along the way. And they are the constants their classmates can count on to deliver. Some may not have it figured it out at graduation, but when they do \u2013 watch out!<\/p>\n
At UC-San Diego\u2019s Rady School, Mark Hammond, a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilot, is described as the \u201cepitome of quiet power\u201d by one professor \u2013 someone who \u201clistens and thinks before he speaks\u201d and \u201cknows how to build a consensus across varying viewpoints.\u201d In contrast, USC Marshall\u2019s Adetokunbo Kosile-Palmer acted as a tireless force of nature \u2013 someone who took action and produced results rather than waiting for the right moment. For Jade DeKinder, a professor at the University of Texas\u2019 McCombs School, Matthew Genovese \u2013 another U.S. Marine \u2013 embodied true leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best leaders don\u2019t just excel\u2014they elevate. Matt doesn\u2019t just lead; he inspires others to think bigger, act bolder, and do better. He brings courage and honesty when it\u2019s needed and humility and humor when it matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many ways, the MBA to Watch spirit is summed up by Patricia Harrison, who heads up admissions at Dartmouth College\u2019s Tuck School. Here, she paid the ultimate compliment to Zoe Kaslow\u2019s commitment (and organizational skills).<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you need to get something done\u2026give it to Zoe!\u201d<\/p>\n
LEAVING A PASSION BEHIND\u2026AND RISING EVEN HIGHER<\/p>\n
It is a spirit that the MBA Class of 2025 brought to campus with them. Take Tom Ford, who earned his MBA at the Cambridge Judge Business School. A rower who competed in two Olympics, he represents the \u2018never quit\u2019 mentality that enables students to persevere through the steep learning curves and unrelenting demands of business school\u2026often by leaning into each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning the Paris 2024 Olympics [was my biggest achievement], Ford tells P&Q. \u201cThis was the culmination of a lifetime\u2019s work and was done so by implementing lessons I had learned from not quite achieving this at the Tokyo Olympics (I won a bronze medal in the Eight boat in 2021). I am proud of the way that the GB rowing team learned and developed and became stronger than the sum of our parts.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Helen Fox, Vanderbilt University (Owen)<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s MBAs to Watch also excelled in the arts. After studying voice performance in the United States, EDHEC Business School\u2019s Duncan Holzhall managed contracts and logistics for an arts management firm, even publishing a book on the future of the opera industry. In Taiwan, Wei-Chi Su \u2013 the class president for the University of Maryland\u2019s Smith Business School \u2013 worked as a professional dancer and commercial actor. Before joining Vanderbilt University\u2019s Owen School, Helen Fox performed as an actress before opening a Pilates studio. Her career-defining moment, she says, was leaving behind an art form she loved and an industry she loathed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an actor, I operated in a consistently dysfunctional and abusive industry. What does changing a decades-old, noxious culture look like? I knew as a performer that I didn\u2019t have the power to enact change, and having recently-graduated undergrad, I knew I also didn\u2019t have the skills. Quitting acting was my way of recognizing my worth and my abilities to transform without having to compromise on my wants, needs, or values. Through this experience, I gathered innumerable skills and opened myself up to opportunities I\u2019d never even thought were possible, like being named an Ingram Scholar at Vanderbilt or getting a job at Deloitte.\u201d<\/p>\n
STRONG MILITARY PRESENCE IN MBAs TO WATCH<\/p>\n
Fox wasn\u2019t alone in pivoting to an entirely different career path in business school. Two years ago, Brianna Roque performed clinical research in breast oncology. After finishing her MBA at Boston College\u2019s Carroll School, she joined Sanofi in business development. Duke Fuqua\u2019s Colette Spriggs upgraded from managing phone and payment systems at the Georgia Aquarium to tackling \u2018big hairy audacious\u2019 client goals at the Boston Consulting Group. After working as an assistant principal at an elementary school, Anthony Hill Jr. transformed into a JPMorgan Chase banker after two years in TCU\u2019s Neeley School. For Matthew Johnson, NYU\u2019s Stern School\u2019s marketing programming fueled a homecoming. A Hershey native and biomedical engineer by training, Johnson started as a brand manager at the Hershey Company this summer.<\/p>\n
Military veterans, in particular, thrived in MBA programs. Boston native David Brown piloted an AH-64D Apache Helicopter before returning home to join MIT Sloan\u2019s MBA Class of 2025. Unfazed by risk \u2013 he has completed 400 skydives after all including 150 in a wingsuit \u2013 Brown co-founded a venture in Sloan\u2019s delta v accelerator that converts industrial carbon waste into chemical feedstocks. Oh, and he became a first-time father as an MBA student too. Jim Maley, a U.S. Navy officer and Raytheon hire, found an alternative way to serve during his time at Arizona State\u2019s W. P. Carey School.<\/p>\n
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Gianluca Perino, IMD Business School<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m most proud of my work in the Televerde program, where I had the opportunity to help female inmates prepare for their professional lives upon release. It was meaningful to see how a bit of guidance and mentorship could provide a lasting impact on someone\u2019s future, helping them build new skills and confidence. This experience deeply resonated with my values of empowerment and leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
At IMD Business School, Gianluca Perino was elected class representative. Here, he was known for bringing classmates together with sailing excursions and tiramis\u00f9. Before earning his MBA, Perino flexed his leadership muscles in the Italian Navy, where he made his name by overseeing the integration of his ship in a U.S. carrier strike group.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the outset, I was overwhelmed and doubted my ability to handle such a significant task,\u201d admits the Bain & Company hire. \u201cThere were no guidelines to follow, which only added to the pressure. However, as I was going through each challenge step-by-step over seven intense months, I started to see progress. The experience was transformative! It made me realize my entrepreneurial mindset and taught me the critical importance of effective stakeholder management and building strong relationships. By the end, I felt a deep sense of pride and accomplishment, knowing that perseverance and collaboration had led to a successful outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
PLOTTING OUT THE FUTURE OF COCA-COLA<\/p>\n
The MBAs to Watch brought a long line of successes to campuses too. In China, Vanderbilt Owen\u2019s Anna Batty launched cross-cultural educational training program, while Yale SOM\u2019s Rui Li turned Faction into one of the nation\u2019s top ski brands. It only took Hong Kong University\u2019s Anu Hodge six months to turn a slumping Nestl\u00e9 product into a category leader. By the same token, Risa Ichwandiani oversaw the rollout of Pandago\u2019s On-Demand and Last Mile services. In the process, the Asia School of Business grad solidified the Pandago\u2019s position as the Asia-Pacific\u2019s premier food delivery service. While one of Brooke Sharee Luster\u2019s \u201cbig ideas\u201d didn\u2019t pan out, the Georgia Tech MBA can take comfort in being ahead of her time.<\/p>\n
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Tyki Wada, Emory University (Goizueta)<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to anticipate the future of retail and fashion by doing extensive customer discovery while navigating the startup space in 2018. Through this experience, I built an MVP for the HGHLT version one, a video shopping platform which allowed video viewers to shop directly from the videos they were watching. Our biggest obstacle in 2018 was garnering enough industry support for a video shopping platform, years prior to the TikTok Shop and other social commerce platforms. I learned that \u201cno\u201d doesn\u2019t always mean that your idea is a bad one. Sometimes, you\u2019re too early!\u201d<\/p>\n
Alas, some MBAs to Watch were right on time. IESE Business School\u2019s Christa Zacharia worked as the lead structural engineer on a project with Kengo Kuma, the legendary architect behind Tokyo\u2019s National Stadium, the centerpiece of the 2021 Summer Olympics. SDA Bocconi\u2019s Elvio Rossini was the lead author for a scientific publication on Pharmaeconomics \u2013 \u201cdespite not being a PhD student.\u201d When Coca-Cola\u2019s chief sales officer asked the North American analytics group if they were \u201cpositioned to win in the next 10 years\u201d, Tyki Wada stepped up and supplied the answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played an important role in studying macroeconomic trends to uncover inherent risks totaling half a billion dollars and in building a data-driven segmentation framework that uncovered over $10B in future opportunities for our brand and revenue growth teams to act on,\u201d writes Wada, a graduate of Emory University\u2019s Goizueta School. \u201cThe icing on the cake was how our strategic recommendations didn\u2019t end as strategy. I also held a product ownership role that connected our uncovered opportunities to in-market execution activities by building out a store plan optimization product with developers and data scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pages 3-4: 122 profiles of the MBAs To Watch (Class of 2025)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From banker to brewer\u2026 Now, that\u2019s a catchy headline! And it sums up the journey of Helena Valentine.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,71490,158,71491],"class_list":{"0":"post-108695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-class-of-2025","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-mbas-to-watch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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