Angela Fusaro
Emory, University Goizueta Business School
“Sicilian doctor and entrepreneur trapped in the body of a football player. Activist, always a catalyst for change.”
Age: 27
Hometown: Danbury, CT
Family Members: Jeff Eliason (husband), Klebs (cat), Pancake (dog), Thor (dog)
Fun fact about yourself: I once played “Duck, Duck, Goose” in Indonesia to help orphan children experience a moment of happiness after the tsunami in 2004.
Undergraduate School and Degree:
Emory University, BS in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology
New York Medical College, Doctorate of Medicine
Where are you currently working?
Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine Emory University
Co-Founder, Physician 360
Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles:
Community Work:
Board member, Girls on the Run (2017)
Co-Founder, Insight to Innovation (2015-2017)
Volunteer, Lifeline Animal Shelter (2016-2017)
Extracurricular Activities:
Distance running: Rock and Roll Marathon (2001), Honolulu Marathon (2002), New York Marathon (2004), Philadelphia Marathon (2012)
Football Player: Women’s Tackle League, Wide Receiver (2016-2017)
Founder, Boss Ladies Podcast (2017)
Recent Awards:
People’s Choice Award, Start-Up Weekend (2015)
Mentor of the Year, Department of Emergency Medicine, Emory University (2016)
Dean’s List, Goizueta Business School (2016)
Accountability Award, Goizueta Business School (2016)
Leadership:
President of Student Senate, New York Medical College (2008-2009)
Board member, Emergency Medicine Residents Association (2009-2011)
Chief Resident, Carolinas Medical Center (2012)
Co-Director, 24-7-365: The Evolution of Emergency Medicine (2013)
Class Representative, Goizueta Business School (2015-2017)
Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? Being elected the 2017 graduation speaker by my peers. To me, that honor demonstrates the integrity of my character.
What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? There are times in my career where I have actually saved someone’s life. And there are times when I have been the only person present when someone dies. I am proud that I could thrive in the rigorous medical education process which afforded me the opportunity to experience the best and worst moments of humanity.
Who was your favorite MBA professor? Rob Kazanjian and Charlie Goetz are tied.
Rob is like a father figure to our class. He has incredibly lofty expectations, and so obtaining his approval is so fulfilling. He is tough on the outside, but just a teddy bear on the inside. During hard times, Rob demonstrated invaluable empathy for our cohort.
Charlie is a sales wizard; his persuasive nature is simply magical. For all he has accomplished, Charlie is also amazingly humble and down-to-earth; he makes me believe that I can achieve anything.
What was your favorite MBA Course and what was the biggest insight you gained about business from it? Strategy, Economics, Decision Analysis. To me, those courses are the cornerstones of business acumen. They changed the way I interact with the world. It’s like being taught a secret language; as I walk through my everyday life now, I am privy to the undercurrent of business principles that are taking place and driving all transactions. That makes me feel like an insider.
Why did you choose this executive MBA program? I was at a crossroads in my career, and wanted a program that would create limitless opportunities, ideally without leaving Atlanta. I was already an Emory faculty member, and alum, so completing the trifecta by adding ‘active student’ again just felt right.
What did you enjoy most about business school in general? It’s a tie.
- The people. It’s always the people. Each of them with different subject-matter expertise; I learned so much from my classmates!
- I have been in school most of my life, between undergrad, medical school, residency, etc. This was the first time I chose to learn. It was completely elective; it was not a necessary or forced step in my career. So, I enjoyed that this experience was completely on my terms. It was the first time I experienced learning for the sake of learning.
What is your best piece of advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s executive MBA program? Do you NEED the MBA? Perhaps not. There is more than one way to get to where you want to go, but I think this is the best way. The steep learning curve is more fun if you do it with others.
What is the biggest myth about going back to school? Biggest myth: All you do in business school is ‘network.’ I think some do not realize there is a real social science to master in business.
What was your biggest regret in business school? I wish I had done it sooner. I believe in the journey, so I know each previous step in my career was important and necessary, but business school has brought me closer to my true self. I guess it would have been nice to arrive here a decade earlier.
Which MBA classmate do you most admire? Karin Lopez, queen of the Amazon, as she calls herself. I admire that she lives her life unabashed about who she is. She is intelligent, brave, creative, eloquent, all while raising four children, and wearing adorable shoes.”
“I knew I wanted to go to business school when…I decided I wanted to run a healthcare incubator and I realized that there are three areas of expertise necessary to do that well: clinical proficiency, engineering and business acumen. I was already a clinical expert, and had the right engineering collaborators, so I applied to business school to be a true triple-threat.”
“If I hadn’t gone to business school, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to leave my current job and start my company. I would be frustrated that I could see unmet needs in the healthcare system, but did not have the tools to translate my clinical insight into marketable products.”
What is your favorite company and what are they doing that makes them so special? I don’t have a ‘favorite company’ per se, but I love companies that empower people to use their current assets to build a better life for themselves. So, as cliché as it sounds, I love the disruptive nature of Uber, Airbnb and Etsy.
Totally unrelated, Lulu Lemon sponsored my football team and gave us free clothes, which made me feel like a real professional athlete. And their pants are so soft, it’s like wearing love.
If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the executive MBA experience? I would add more trips and intermediate ‘capstone’ projects.
What is your ultimate long-term professional goal? To be ruler of the free world. Seriously, to run an incubator that helps ‘everyday people’ solve the everyday problems they know best.
Who would you most want to thank for your success? My parents: simply for doing the best they could. I was the first woman in my family to go to university; first person to go to graduate school. I truly believe I can do anything I set my mind too, and that mentality came from them.
My husband for supporting me unconditionally. There are times I think he believes in me more than I believe in myself. I thank him for not resenting the time I am away from home or focused on personal endeavors and for always doing the dishes and the laundry. Really, for never acting like a sitcom husband.
In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? Perfect balance of fiercely ambitious and high emotional intelligence.
Favorite book: The Kite Runner
Favorite movie or television show: Fixer Upper
Favorite musical performer: TLC
Favorite vacation spot: Italy
Hobbies? Rescuing animals of all shapes and sizes, football, home improvement projects, inventing devices to solve life’s small and large problems
What made Angela such an invaluable addition to the class of 2017?
“Physician; Entrepreneur; Consultant; Leader. In all my years of teaching, Angela stands out for how she has so successfully leveraged her MBA studies during her short time in the program. Once every five or six years, a student comes along whose passion for a purpose, and an innate ability to get things done, is such that you know that their trajectory is without limits. Angela is such a person.
Angela is an emergency medicine physician who brought to her MBA studies a passion for innovation in the field of healthcare, driven by her observations as an emergency room physician. Through her clinical work, she saw problems and opportunities, but wasn’t really sure how to go about trying to address them. She brought passion, energy, and resolve. And, her MBA studies instilled in her a confidence that she could get things done, and provided the tools, frameworks, processes, and structure.
Today, she is laser-focused on translating clinical insight in the healthcare industry into marketable products that can save, and improve the quality of, patients’ lives. Some of the insights are her own, others are through her aggressively seeking out other physicians for collaboration. Through her entrepreneurship and related coursework and her involvement with Atlanta Tech Village, Angela is pursuing ideas related to the design and commercialize tools for remote diagnostics, so that high quality urgent and emergent care can be conveniently practiced in living rooms.
Angela has built a software platform to estimate patient risk for opioid abuse and overdose. She is co-founder of Insight to Innovation (i2i), a national workshop that helps other physicians translate clinical insight into marketable products. And, during her MBA studies, she started Physician 360, which provides patients with the first in-home rapid strep test.
Angela is a natural leader who is very giving of her time. She is class co-president. During medical school, she served as class president. During her medical residency, she served on the boards of directors for her professional association. She has written legislation addressing violence in the emergency room.
Angela is Class Orator, the highest recognition voted upon at graduation by her classmates. She is the outstanding executive MBA student, the highest recognition voted upon by faculty and staff. Angela Fusaro is very deserving of this recognition. I hope you will give her your strongest consideration.”
Douglas Bowman
Senior Associate Dean for Working Professionals Programs
Professor of Marketing; McGreevy Term Chair
Co-Director, Emory Marketing Analytics Center
Emory University’s Goizueta Business School
