MBA Insider

This episode’s guest is Brooke Elliott, the Executive Associate Dean of at the University of Illinois Gies College of Business. Brooke has been involved in the Gies College of Business for over 18+ years, and has seen first-hand the rise of online business education globally, as well as at the Gies College of Business, which offers a number of masters business degrees, including it’s iMBA program....

David Siegel is the CEO of Meetup, the Author of Decide and Conquer , and well as a Wharton MBA Graduate. After a number of executive roles at companies including 1-800 Flowers, Investopedia and Seeking Alpha, David got his first CEO job as the CEO of Meetup in November of 2019.  During our conversation David spoke about his career journey, leadership lessons and some of the more memorable moments...

This episode features guest Host and Friend of the MBA Insider Podcast , Jodi Innerfield. In this episode, Jodi spoke to her fellow Michigan Ross MBA Alumni classmate Ryan Bouchard. Prior to attending Ross, Ryan spent almost five years in the United States Army before getting an MBA from the University of Michigan. During the conversation, Jodi spoke to Ryan about his experience in the U.S. Army a...

Experiential learning opportunities facilitate hands-on skills application and growth for MBA students, while setting them up for new career opportunities. To talk about how experiential learning facilitates development and growth, we spoke with two UNC Kenan-Flagler MBA students, Jeryon Davis and Olivia Koziol, as well as Karin Cochran, Executive Director of the STAR Program at UNC Kenan-Flagler....

Right now, many MBA students are in the thick of internship interview season, navigating preparing for interviews, finding opportunities and building relationships with hiring managers and recruiters all while managing all the other academic components of business school is no easy task! In this episode, Al Dea, walks through some common challenges that MBA students face during internship recruiti...

Paul Millerd is an MIT Sloan MBA Graduate, and the Author of the Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Life and Work . Like many hard-working and driven college graduates, Paul entered the corporate world after college ready to work hard, achieve success and climb the corporate ladder. But through a series of events before and after business school, Paul ended up taking an alternative path, and...

Christine Tao is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sounding Board, a leadership coaching platform focused on providing leadership and executive coaching to companies in a scalable way. After graduating with an MBA from Wharton in Marketing and Operations, Christine began her own journey in the startup and media world, with stints at growth-stage companies. Through these experiences, Christine learned abou...

Breanna Atkinson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kokada, whose mission is to create good-tasting and healthy food with ingredients from around the world. After her undergraduate career, she spent some time in consulting. She was inspired to pursue her MBA early on, and applied to Wharton while launching her first company. Another large influence has been in her time as an athlete, playing as a studen...

Jake Singer is the Co-Founder of Swapstack, and an NYU Stern MBA Alum. Prior to Co-Founding Swapstack, Jake spent his post-MBA career at Amazon, and after a few years left to pursue new career opportunities. During his exploration, Jake started a number of side projects, including his newsletter (The Flywheel) while also participating in On Deck, a Learning Cohort and Online community that connect...

Alex Brandwein (UNC Kenan-Flagler, ‘20) is a UNC Kenan-Flagler Graduate and the Founder of Brandwein’s Bagels, a bagel shop located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After working in the Investment Banking industry to start his career, Alex came to business school with a desire to pivot into a new career.  Through reflection and exploration and the use of the many entrepreneurship resources at UNC K...

Yannell Selman is a UC Berkeley Haas MBA Graduate and the Founder of Cultiveit, an online wellness platform that human resources departments use to recommend “high-quality time-off” experiences to treat worker burnout. Selman built the company partially based on her own experiences with burnout in her career, and during her time in business school used many of the entrepreneurship programs and off...

One of the questions that is top of mind for any professional who is considering an MBA is around value - what is the ROI of an MBA degree, and is it worth it for me? In this solo episode, Al talks about how an MBA is one of many potential accelerants for career growth and learning, and why someone might value an MBA degree. He walks through key questions around figuring out if an MBA is worth it...

This week, we’re flipping the format on the MBA Insider Podcast, with the help of a former guest and friend Eryn Schultz, and putting Al Dea (MBA Insider Host) in the guest chair. In this episode, Eryn, a fellow entrepreneur, talks to Al about his own entrepreneurial journey with building MBASchooled. Al spoke about his motivation for creating MBASchooled, why he recently left his corporate career...

In this episode, we spoke to Tanvi Lal (UC Berkeley Haas, ‘22) and Faud Lagali (UCLA Anderson, ‘23) 2 Members of the Founding team of VC Unleashed, a global community of BIPOC and women MBA investors. VC Unleashed was Founded by Michelle Dhansinghani (CBS, ‘22) as a means to improve pathways to the Venture Capital Industry for BIPOC and women investors. During our conversation, Tanvi and Faud spok...

Alan Quigley and Chris Anen are Founding Members of the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, a Venture Capital Fund they helped create that is affiliated with Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. During our conversation, Allen and Chris spoke about the ideation process for coming up with the idea for the fund, the actual process of building and launching the fund, and why they are looking to i...

Felix Watson Junior is a UCLA Anderson Alumni, and the Founder of the PM Mastermind Group. After starting his career as an engineer, Felix pursued an MBA to pivot into a career in product management, and has done PM stints at Microsoft and Google. Now, Felix helps educate current and aspiring Product Managers through his PM Mastermind Group.  During our conversation, Felix spoke about his journey...

In this episode, we spoke to TJ Scott and Kelsie Carter, two MBA students in the Class of 2022 in UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Full-Time MBA program. TJ and Kelsie both come from different backgrounds and experiences, but are both advocates of allyship and honoring the intersectionality of whole human beings.  TJ and Kelsie spoke about their own unique journeys to UNC Kenan-Flagler, why they chose to get a...

Elizabeth Davis (Tuck, ‘20) is a Tuck MBA Alum and Investor at Anthemis. In her role at Anthemis, Elizabeth works closely with the Female Innovators Lab, a Venture Fund and Studio dedicated to helping female entrepreneurs start and scale businesses in the financial services ecosystem. During our conversation, we spoke about Elizabeth’s career journey to, some of the experiences behind how she foun...

Andrew Crisp is the Owner of Carrington Crisp, and works with top business schools around the world. He is also the Author of a recently whitepaper titled “The Future of Lifelong and Executive Education,” where he conducted research on prospective MBA students, employers and hiring managers to better understand how higher education needs to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of professionals....

Shyvee Shi is a Kellogg MBA Alum and Product Manager at LinkedIn. During our conversation, Shyvee spoke about her journey to Kellogg, and her post-MBA career, both as a management consultant and now product manager. She also gave a detailed look into the transitions that she’s made, first from consultant to product manager, and then making another internal transfer to another product management te...

Eryn Schultz is an HBS Alumna, and the Founder of Her Personal Finance , an online education platform focused on personal finance for women. Eryn started Her Personal Finance as a means to help other women learn the personal finance skills they needed to achieve their own goals, as well as from her own personal experiences with finance in her personal life and professional career.  During our conv...

Andy Storch is a USC Marshall MBA Alum, an author, podcast host, and keynote speaker. He is also the author of Own Your Career, Own Your Life, a book he wrote about how you can take ownership of your career to achieve your own personal goals. Throughout Andy’s life, he has taken control of his career by following his curiosity, staying open to learning, and by proactively setting and working towar...

Lisa Rios is the Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions at NYU Stern. This past month, NYU Stern’s Full-Time MBA program announced that they received an 8% increase in applications and welcomed 338 full-time MBA students into the class of 2023. During our conversation, Lisa spoke about some of the highlights from last year’s MBA application cycle at NYU Stern and some of her reflections and learnings on...

Kristina Hu is a MBA Student at Harvard Business School (2022) and the Co-Founder of the Equity Network, a social enterprise she is working on while a student at HBS. After doing stints in Investment Banking and Product Management, Kristina is building a social enterprise aimed at democratizing access to professional networks for underserved and underrepresented populations to help them achieve th...

Gorick Ng is a HBS Alum and the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Start Your Career Off Right,. The Unspoken Rules is now offered at multinationals, professional services firms, startups, and non-profits around the world for onboarding, training, and diversity and inclusion. In 2021, Harvard Business School offered The Unspoken Rules to every MBA student. Gor...