‘CREATING A RECORD THAT OUTLASTS THE CLASS’
For many Best & Brightest, the MBA involved service and support to several constituencies. At U.C. Irvine’s Merage School, Craig Norris’s team channeled Abbott Elementary to develop a humor-driven, four-part ad campaign. Here, a seasoned employee walked a novice peer through a credit union’s products to ‘demystify’ finance to the school employee segment. In contrast, Columbia Business School students took part in the ReEntry Acceleration Program (REAP), where they broke down business fundamentals into “practical and actionable” nuggets for inmates.
“Watching the students ask sharp clarifying questions, engage with genuine curiosity, and wrestle with concepts until they land has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my time at Columbia,” says Theo Davidson, an Accenture consultant.
The Best & Brightest also looked out for their classmates. Gerald Glover devised a lending library at Wharton so students could easily access the optional readings that professors were recommending during class. Mathangi Srinivasan dived into her network, organizing networking events for Rady classmates with companies like Eli Lilly, Thermo Fisher, and Illumina. At Rutgers Business School, Arnab Roy Choudhury has become the class archivist by developing a video testimonial series.
“These are not produced testimonials. They are windows into lives genuinely shaped by a program that took a chance on all of us,” explains Choudhury, a communications advisor outside Rutgers. “When this series goes live on YouTube, it will reach prospective students deciding whether to take the EMBA leap. It will reach future cohorts who will carry the same tensions we did, family commitments pulling one way, work demands pulling another, and the stubborn decision to keep going anyway. And it will reach the families trying to understand why their person gave up weekends, sleep, and comfort to be here.”
FanNa Fan, UCLA (Anderson), Copyright Don Liebig/ASUCLA
THE PERILS OF TRAVEL
Indeed, there were late nights and early mornings, as the Best & Brightest pinballed from one deadline or crisis to the next. Based in Shanghai, FanNa Fan estimates that she flew over 400,000 kilometers – roughly 10 trips around the globe – commuting to UCLA’s Anderson school over 22 months. Compare that to Olesya Afanasyeva, a Yale School of Management graduate whose 13-hour trip (each way) from Calgary was equally daunting. Sometimes, the travel was outright confusing, says Sharan Chawla, an independent consultant and University of Chicago Booth School grad.
“I’d wake up in a hotel room and genuinely have to think – where am I today?”
Diego Salama headed up partnerships and communication at the United Nations University while earning his MBA at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Beyond the unexpected travel costs, he cites another obstacle that students must overcome.
“The absences from work accumulate, too. After a while, you are not just managing your own schedule, but managing the perception that you are still present, still reliable, still on top of things.”
Hannah Roosevelt, University of Washington (Foster)
‘ELASTIGIRL’ HOLDS IT TOGETHER
The world didn’t make it easy on them. As a student at the University of Maryland’s Smith School, Jaclyn Field Mathai endured multiple reorgs and layoffs…not to mention a surgery. Think that’s rough? Mat Moakes watched the CEO and two C-suite executives leave his company…on the same day. On top of that, his new boss assigned him a new 600-member team! How did he make it through, with classes and projects at the London Business School further weighing him down? Simple: Moakes learned to truly manage this time – and quit striving for perfection.
“I got through it by being ruthless about what I owned versus what I delegated, protecting the non-negotiables with my family as best I could, and treating the EMBA as recovery rather than extra work. The intellectual space was the thing that kept the other two domains standing up.”
Hannah Roosevelt pictured herself as Elastigirl, the mom from The Incredibles movies: “stretched thin, trying to hold all the pieces together.” While earning her MBA at the University of Washington’s Foster School, she had to contend with caring for a mother after surgery, with a husband whose job required intensive travel. On top of that, Roosevelt adopted a puppy – a Great Dane, no less.
What kept her going?
Roosevelt knew that she wasn’t alone – and her classmates were there to support her.
“Other teammates were navigating the deaths of parents and complicated medical situations for themselves and loved ones. What I was reminded of in those months was not from a textbook, and not immediately replaceable by AI. It was what a team actually does when things get hard and how we hold each other up.”
A CASE STUDY IN PERSEVERENCE
Jay Moon, Southern Methodist University (Cox)
After two years, says Rony Takchi, it is stunning just how much life changes. “I started the program with a two-month-old at home, and by the end of the program, I had started a new career, bought a new house, and welcomed our second kid,” says the graduate of Washington University’s Olin School. “I was constantly tired, but I felt deeply fulfilled and grateful that I got to do all of it.”
Jay Moon is especially grateful for the MBA opportunity – and a second chance. Three days into orientation at the SMU Cox EMBA, Moon dropped out of the program. A native of South Korea, Moon worried that her command of English would prevent her from keeping pace with the other executives. The night before her first course, she reconsidered and reapplied. Two years later, Moon made Beta Gamma Sigma for academic excellence.
Rather than being ultra-competitive, Moon says her classmates turned out to be ultra-supportive.
“My classmates knew I was struggling with the language. Instead of making me feel like I did not belong, they made me feel safe. Before presentations, they would tell me, “Just go out there and mess it up. That is the fastest way to learn. And if you do, we have got you.” They meant it every time.”
Moon’s family backed her up too. Her husband added more household responsibilities on weekends. And her daughter helped her with pronunciations when she practiced her presentations. “The night before one of my bigger presentations, I was running through my script at the kitchen table for the fourth time. My daughter looked up and said, “Mom, you have got this. Just say it like you mean it.” I held on to that for the rest of the program.”
IN A ROOM WITH LEADERS WHO MATTER
Saulo Santana, IESE Business School
What brought the Class of 2026 back to business school in the first place? Saulo Santana believes the process started when he recognized that his experience was sometimes hindering his judgment.
“At a certain level, you rely on pattern recognition. It makes you fast, but it can also make you predictable,” he continues. “The MBA exposed me to perspectives that did not fit those patterns. The same problem, approached from different industries and contexts, led to completely different conclusions. The shift for me was to slow down, question more, and resist the instinct to jump to conclusions. That has changed how I approach decisions and how I listen.”
And the reasons behind joining an Executive MBA program, in particular, vary. Several Best & Brightest EMBAs cited the value of sitting next to established business leaders who could elevate their thinking each time they met. In some cases, like USC Marshall’s Tyler Tetreault, they were deliberately seeking less flexibility than an online or part-time setup.
“I wanted to be in a room with people who had already accomplished something in their careers,” Tetreault explains. “The EMBA format attracts a different caliber of classmate — professionals at a higher level who bring real experience to every discussion and push your thinking in ways that a part-time or online cohort typically cannot. I also wanted the continuity of moving through the program with the same group of people. Building meaningful relationships requires repeated exposure over time, and that is much harder to achieve when your classmates rotate or you’re learning behind a screen.”
TAKE LESSONS FROM CLASSROOM TO BOARDROOM…FAST!
The same goes for the quality of classroom guests, says Columbia Business School’s Theo Davidson. “In Sandra Matz’s negotiation course, we had a guest who had interrogated Saddam Hussein as an FBI agent. Hearing him walk through those experiences and share his philosophy on negotiation: what leverage looks like and how trust gets built under the most extreme conditions imaginable, was unlike anything I had encountered in any professional setting. There were audible gasps in the room. I will not pretend I was not responsible for most of them. That kind of moment does not happen in an asynchronous format.”
Best of all, adds IMD Business School’s Adriana Kiedzierska-Mencfeld, the executive format delivers an immediate return on investment.
“What drew me most was the philosophy: theory grounded in practice,” writes Kiedzierska-Mencfeld, the CEO of a biologics firm. “Every assignment was an opportunity to bring a real challenge from my company into the classroom and take a sharper answer back. That continuous loop of learning and application is what made the difference. Not one big project at the end, but genuine growth built week-by-week, module-by-module.”
THE SECRET TO SUCCESS: MAKE A COMMITMENT AND SHOW UP
Mike Valdes, Cornell University (Johnson)
Mike Valdes started business school as a senior managing director at an institutional private equity fund manager. In between, he dabbled in entrepreneurship, where he learned to think like an “owner” and execute like a “builder.” While his long-term goal is to take on the role of a strategic CFO, the MBA experience has taught him that who he is will ultimately make a bigger difference than any accolades.
“I want my career to reflect more than advancement in title,” explains Valdes, a graduate of Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School. “I want to be remembered for how I lead, the teams I help build, and the impact I create. Building something meaningful, developing high-performing teams, and creating long-term value are what matters most to me. Ultimately, success for me will be defined by the quality of what I help build, the people I help along the way, and the impact it leaves behind.”
When it comes to deciding whether to pursue an executive MBA, Wharton’s Katelyn Garcia has three words for the fence-sitters: Go for it!
“Opportunity awaits, but you will never know what is on the other side of the door if you don’t open it. The time is now. Be smart about your commitments, but if you are considering applying, you have already shown the desire to improve yourself. There will never be a “perfect” time to pursue an MBA as an executive. Trust that, with dedication and the willingness to ask for help, you will succeed.”
For those EMBAs with another year left, Rice University’s Kathleen Perley offers her own bit of advice: Give yourself some grace.
“I strived to be a good wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and occasionally the person who remembered to order school snacks before 10 p.m. I did not do all of it gracefully: I missed things, I was late to events, I answered investor emails from parking lots and finished assignments after bedtime. But I kept showing up.”
Next Page: 71 profiles of this year’s Best & Brightest Executive MBA grads.
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