Meet The MBA Class Of 2027: Students Today, Leaders Tomorrow, Innovators Always

Picture yourself: a successful young professional. You’re comfortable and respected. And you have senior management’s ear too. Why would you return to business school? It’s an all-consuming grind – and you’re not getting paid, either. Plus, nothing deflates the ego faster than learning you may be the slowest and weakest depending on the situation.

At UC Berkeley’s Haas School, MBA students subscribe to a Defining Leadership Principle: Students Always. They humbly accept that they don’t know everything. And they embrace the discomfort that comes with being a learner, freeing them to question conventions and consider a range of solutions.

SAYING “YES” TO THE UNFAMILIAR

Melody Ward personifies the Students Always spirit as a first-year Haas MBA. Over four years at Google, she climbed the ranks to become a senior communications analyst. That journey started during her first rotation. Expecting to focus on writing, she was placed on Google’s Measurement & Insights team instead. Her response: she assumed a student’s curiosity and immersed herself in SQL fundamentals. Ward completed Coursera classes and volunteered to “debug” her colleagues’ work. In the process, she developed a passion for data. For that, she was selected to be the youngest member of CEO Sundar Pichai’s communications team. Here, she conducted social media analysis that resulted in one of Pichai’s most popular X posts.

Ward is one member of the incoming MBA Class of 2027, a difference-making class of true originals. They come to business school after studying everything from Chemical Engineering to Asian Studies to Art History as undergrads. Working for companies as different as McKinsey, DC Comics, and the White House, they gained experience in algorithm development, entrepreneurship, and beer brewing – with a few lawyers, physicians, and aspiring lawmakers mixed in.

Ward arrived at Berkeley after accomplishing quite a personal feat as well. “Last year, I completed Iceland’s 35-mile Laugavegur Trail, a multiday hike, despite never having camped, hating the cold, and disliking carrying heavy loads. I prepared for months but learned the most from fellow hikers I met along the way. Through that experience, I uncovered yet another passion.”

Long-term, Ward hopes to make an impact in the educational technology or consulting space, with the goal of devising strategies that accelerate the greater good. “Students Always fuels my long-term vision: to earn my MBA not only to deepen my own knowledge but to one day build a community program that provides under-resourced students exceptional opportunities to learn and grow as individuals.”

STANDING OUT IN A MALE-DOMINATED INDUSTRY

Baishali Debadarshini, who is earning her MBA at IIM Bangalore, describes herself as someone with “an engineer’s mind, a storyteller’s heart, [and] an MBA’s vision.” Growing up, her relatives framed her future in terms of being a wife and mother. However, Debadarshini saw education – and the financial independence it provides – as her ticket to living her best life. Earning a Mechanical Engineering degree, Debadarshini became the only woman from her school to land a job at Maruti Suzuki. Once the door was opened, she capitalized to the fullest.

“I embraced it, earning three promotions in six years and culminating in my role as manager,” Debadarshini tells Poets&Quants. “In that time, I filed two patents in vehicle safety and contributed to the design and development of some of the brand’s most successful models, including the Grand Vitara and Celerio. This journey wasn’t just about professional success; it was about proving to myself and others that passion and determination can dismantle any barrier.”

ART MEETS ANALYTICS

Many first-year MBAs have made equally profound pivots. Before enrolling in Duke University’s Fuqua School, Patrick Kelly moved from Green Berets commander to venture capitalist. Adam Saxe holds a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and has traveled to every American state (and 30 countries) as a musician. In fact, he served as the musical director for the Simon & Garfunkel Story national tour and lead entertainer at Wynn Las Vegas before joining the Indiana University’s Kelley School. Then again, Varun Sheel brands himself this way: “Neuroscientist turned indie pop artist!” Long before earning a master’s in Molecular and Cellular Biology and working as a scientist, Sheel had been singing and playing guitar for over two decades. After being laid off, some “soul searching” led him to finish and market his songs – with some help from lessons he gained in the laboratory.

“The wonderful part of all this isn’t the hundreds of thousands of streams. It isn’t the magazine features or fans messaging me about how much they love the track,” admits the Guiezeta Business School first-year. “The best part, truly, is that I wouldn’t have reached this place without my scientific background and my knowledge of data-driven decision-making. My ability to understand my metrics, run marketing campaigns, and make decisions off of the conclusions from tests or experiments I run with my tracks is a way of thinking that I had ingrained in me throughout my scientific training. As a result, I’m actually excited for both sides of each release: The creation and the analytical optimization.”

Artists are heavily represented among the Class of 2027. Sheel’s classmate, Brian Waldrep, performed the title role in Onegin across two continents as a ballet dancer. Before joining the Darden School, Steven Lopez Morse reached four continents and danced for 15 years, with his pre-MBA career peaking as a soloist for the San Francisco Ballet. As the principal ballerina and program manager for the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Cecilia Dolan applied three decades of training to workshops across Nigeria, Ghana, and Honduras. It was an effort that she considers the highlight of her career.

“For 16 years as a professional dancer and 30 in the ballet world, I worked relentlessly to reach the top of my field. That journey taught me discipline, resilience, and excellence—but it was largely solitary,” writes Dolan, who joined Duke University’s Fuqua School this summer. “I designed and conducted these programs independently, working closely with local teachers to understand their unique challenges and cultural contexts. It was incredibly fulfilling to exchange knowledge, help them grow as educators, and, in turn, expand my own worldview.”

MAGNETO…MEET MAGIK

Dance wasn’t the only area where the incoming class excelled. The London Business School’s Denira Coleman transitioned from being an opera singer to running a marketing agency supporting artists. Seen any recent episodes of FOX’s King of the Hill? Chances are, Emory University’s Yolanda Mariah Morgan storyboarded some of the scenes. If you’re a fan of Marvel Comics, you may want to check out Ashley Allen’s work: MAGIK, which follows a mystic mutant from the X-Men universe. The series was so popular, Allen says, that it was picked up for a second year.

“It’s the character’s first ongoing series so we weren’t sure how it would initially be received – especially since she hasn’t had an official Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-in. However, to our surprise, we launched as the fifth best-selling comic in January and have been in the top 10 best-selling comics weekly…Being on the list with books written by some of my favorite authors I grew up reading has been surreal and I don’t think I will ever get used to it.”

In some cases, first-years played prominent roles behind the scenes in the arts. Case in point: Marianna Shakhnazaryan, a first year at the University of Chicago’s Booth School. Before starting her MBA, she devoted five years at DC’s National Gallery of Art, which culminated with being a senior advisor to the deputy national director. For Shakhnazaryan, her biggest role was continuing to make the gallery “relevant” to the changing perspectives of audiences and artists alike.

“Our work over the last five years has resulted in record visitation (the most visited art museum in the U.S. and fifth in the world), a rebranding that modernized the 80-year-old gallery, and initiatives like National Gallery Nights which engage a younger generation of visitors through immersive experiences after-hours.”

WINNING EMMYS AND ENHANCING THE NBA

The Class of 2027 also distinguished themselves in athletics. IMD’s Oliver Zeidler, for one, holds a gold medal in rowing from the 2024 Olympics. By the same token, Todd Harrity, an HEC Paris first-year, competed on the USA National Squash Team, which collected two golds at the Pan American Games. Still, several class members made their mark on the management end of sports. The University of North Carolina’s Ramya Meenakshisundaram may have played golf on the ANNIKA All Women’s Pro Tour, but she stood out as a brand consultant with the Creative Artists Agency serving golf clients. Before sitting in classes at the Fuqua School, Jonathan Sochaczevski was helping hundreds of student-athletes land Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals. Eventually, Sochaczevski experienced a Jerry Maguire epiphany and overhauled his business to focus on family-focused consulting serving college and NBA teams.

“In one month, my business exceeded three years of prior revenue, and I was able to make bigger and more lasting changes for the athletes I work with,” he tells P&Q. “This wasn’t just a business decision, it was a bet on empathy, scale, and sustainability. I realized that the people who were the most impacted by my work weren’t the colleges but the families who got to see their children accomplish their dreams and pursue a college degree. If I changed my focus to those families, I could serve more families more meaningfully, and have even better results.”

Tristen Newman actually headed up global event strategy for the NBA before enrolling at London Business School earlier this year. An engineer-turned-consultant, Newman points to the Emirates NBA Cup, an in-season tournament for NBA teams, as his biggest achievement.

“I led the execution of the neutral-site Semifinals and Championship in Las Vegas, bringing to life a brand-new tentpole property for one of the world’s most prominent sports leagues,” Newman explains. “It was one of the most challenging endeavors of my career, but also the most rewarding. By the end of the inaugural tournament, I had negotiated contracts with marquee brands, led a cross-functional team of over 50 staff, and developed a ticketing strategy that generated millions in revenue.”

Looking for something rare in the Class of 2027? Working as a director and producer for ESPN Originals, Gavin Cote became a two-time Emmy Award winner. Cote views the award as a collaborative effort, requiring intensive “teamwork, communication, and creativity.” Despite this, he considers his biggest achievement to be his feature on Shaquem Griffin, who beat the odds and became an NFL special teams demon despite playing with an amputated hand. It was a production that earned Cote another Emmy nomination.

“While we didn’t win…telling the life story of someone as inspiring, humble, and charismatic as Shaquem was an honor I’ll always be grateful for,” adds Cote, a first year at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

MAKING AN IMPACT…FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

True to form, the class also includes several political players. Cy Brink, a USC Marshall School student, worked in the White House’s Office of Speechwriting, where he jokes that he had “a desk in the West Wing for 926 days…somehow.” After earning his undergraduate degree, the University of Michigan’s Kyla Sherap spent six months supporting the Tibetan Government in Exile. Emma Hutchinson, a London Business School MBA, also started her Biden White House career in speechwriting before becoming the deputy director for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation. In the process, she served under both U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Chief of Staff John Podesta. The highlight, Hutchinson says, was developing content and strategy around the announcement of the 2024 National Climate Assessment.

“[It] collated the latest research about how climate change is affecting every region of the U.S,” Hutchinson writes. “It was very important for President Biden to use that moment to show his personal passion for the issue and emphasize urgency for climate action, and I was very proud to be a part of the preparations.”

Abhas Katra Singh served as a chief of staff to a union minister in the Government of India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT. Here, the IIM Ahmedabad student co-drafted the Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023, which uprooted “a 138-year-old colonial era framework.” Before joining the Wharton School, Amos Jackson received a daily crash course in leadership as a special assistant to former American president Barack Obama.

“It was a privilege not only to serve a leader who has shaped history, but also to be exposed to a wide array of business enterprises and nonprofit work in the process. That experience gave me a front-row seat to leadership at the highest level while teaching me how to balance service, responsibility, and impact. That experience was another degree in Life.”

MILITARY, MCKINSEY, MIT: IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER

The Class of 2027’s passion for public service extended to the military. Grace McPartlin, a West Point grad and MBA at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, served in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command as a logistics officer. Chloe Brown returns to MIT for her MBA after being part of two of the world’s most prestigious leadership accelerators – at the same time!  When Brown wasn’t an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, she worked as a senior business analyst for McKinsey & Company. Erin Barrett has taken an unconventional path in her career. The Haas School first-year switched from corporate attorney to a U.S. Navy Judge Advocate. And then there’s Jacob Yallowitz, who’ll be returning to the U.S. Coast Guard after earning his MBA at the Wharton School. His claim to fame?

“Completing a successful tour in the White House Situation Room as an Intelligence Watch Officer during globally transformative events.”

The MBA military ranks also include Julianne Nordhagen, who made F/A-18 fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy before joining Columbia Business School. While some may dismiss aviators as lone wolves, Nordhagen admits, she believes her Wings of Gold – and the “hard work, discipline, and resilience needed to earn it – make her an immeasurable asset in an MBA classroom.

“The Navy’s ‘collaborate to graduate’ mantra shaped me into someone who thrives in high-pressure, team-driven environments,” she tells P&Q.

Next Page: Personal Achievements and Life Wisdom

Page 3: Profiles of 30 MBA candidates from the Class of 2027, including Harvard Business School, Wharton School, INSEAD, Northwestern Kellogg, IIM Ahmedabad, and more.