Background
Born in the former Soviet Union and raised in South Carolina, I earned my B.A. in Economics with concentrations in Financial Economics and Business Policy at Emory University. At Emory, I served as a research assistant with finance faculty at Goizueta Business School and immersed myself in the broader Atlanta community through the MEOR program. Upon graduation, I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where I worked in real estate financial advisory before transferring to Bank of America to get a broader perspective on the markets. At Bank of America, I worked in various roles involving the hedging of interest rate and FX risk, initially serving the bank’s global client base and later analyzing the risk on the bank’s long-term debt and foreign capital.
Career Path
In my early years at Bank of America, I built a reputation for enabling process improvement so as to provide clients with timely and custom solutions for their risk management needs. I was fortunate to collaborate with coworkers who shared a team-player mindset and a desire to drive strategic change in the bank’s derivative trade processing, leading to being tapped to work on the project management team in my third year. In my last full-time role, within Bank of America’s CFO group, I built a foundation in corporate finance from the bank’s perspective. These roles helped me develop my passion for markets and influenced me to run an investment club in Charlotte supporting education in the subject. I chose to pursue an MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler to take a deep dive in leadership and to broaden my understanding of business within a community of dynamic students and distinguished faculty.
Interests and Hobbies
Over the course of my life, I have been exposed to many opportunities due to the hard work and generosity of others, and I am passionate about the importance of gratitude and giving back. In serving my community, I hold leadership roles inside and outside of UNC, such as the Adam Smith Society, Jewish Business Association, Dean’s Fellows program and the NC Triangle Chapter of Emory Alumni. As a Kenan Scholar, I am working with Dr. Greg Brown on a project to gain insights on the volatility strategies employed by hedge funds. In my free time, I enjoy road tripping, hiking, live music and mystery films. Last but not least, I am a big basketball fan – Go Heels!
Background
I grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and went to college in South Carolina at the University of South Carolina. While at South Carolina, I studied finance and real estate at the Darla Moore School of Business.
Career Path
Prior to joining the class of 2020 at Kenan-Flagler, I held various positions at BB&T. Most recently, I was an associate in the Syndicated Lending Division at BB&T Capital Markets. My group was responsible for underwriting, structuring and distributing the bank’s syndicated credit facilities. During this time, I was able to get exposure to various industries across the country. Prior to my role at BB&T Capital Markets, I completed BB&T’s Leadership Development Program after which I was a commercial banker. I chose to attend Kenan-Flagler because of the school’s vibrant community, distinguished professors and experiential learning opportunities, such as the Kenan Scholars program and the student managed investment funds. Long term, I hope to continue my career in finance and broaden my experience outside of traditional banking and capital markets roles.
Interest and Hobbies
As a Kenan Scholar, I am working with the Institute for Private Capital on research project focused on infrastructure funds. In addition to participating in the Kenan Scholars program, I am a member of the KFBS Private Equity Fund and involved in various career clubs. In my free time, I enjoy exercising, sports and spending time with family and friends, especially my wife, Claudia and dog, Rufio.
Background
I’m a double Tar Heel, earning my Bachelors of Arts degree in Public Policy at UNC Chapel Hill. My second major was in Political Science and minored in Social and Economic Justice.
Career Path
Prior to business school, I worked at Aetna, a national health insurer, for five years. Most recently, I was a Project/Product Manager focusing on products that were associated with strategic partnerships. I was responsible for managing overall partner relationships, leading projects, and maintaining a plan for driving membership growth through our partner distribution channels. I decided to pursue my MBA to make the transition from project execution or product implementation to leading end-to-end strategy.
I am concentrating in Consulting and I currently serve as the Consulting Club’s Diversity & Inclusion and Off-Campus Recruiting Liaison. Consulting blends my passion for working with people and helping them to achieve their goals with my ambition to develop strategic solutions to resolve complex problems.
Interests and Hobbies
I love almost anything fitness related. I am a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer and I enjoy competing in CrossFit competitions. Also, I am a proud and self-proclaimed professional Netflix binge-watcher.
Background
As a double Tarheel hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, I’m thrilled to be back on the Hill after seven years in non-profit administration. I studied international relations and Spanish during undergrad and was active in community service and social justice initiatives on campus.
Career Path
Immediately following graduation, I headed to Washington, D.C., where I pursued a position in Human Resources with a local public charter school network. There I helped establish systems and processes to integrate HR and Finance activities to maintain sustainable costs and while retaining and engaging employees. Fascinated by the role of data analytics in the organization’s operations, I pursued a role as an HR Information System Administrator with a non-profit healthcare provider in Western North Carolina. My role allowed me to help shape and implement data analytics strategy and processes to gain operational insight and optimize human capital utilization.
Interests and Hobbies
As a native of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, I take every opportunity to spend time outdoors, including participation in team sports (especially soccer). I believe in the importance and power of community and dedicate my volunteer time to causes that promote diversity and inclusion, especially of women, underrepresented minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community. When I’m not playing outside or championing diversity and inclusion, I can be found watching Netflix or listening to podcasts in the company of my two awesome cats.
Background
I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. My father is an Iranian immigrant and my mother is from the Deep South, so I was lucky to grow up with the benefit of multiple perspectives in my household. I stayed in Atlanta to study Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. While at Georgia Tech, I interned at a hospital and discovered a passion for healthcare, specifically healthcare system improvement.
Career Path
I spent two years working as an implementation consultant for a software company before pivoting back into healthcare, transitioning to work at DaVita, Inc. as an internal consultant on their operations improvement team. I also attended night school to attain my Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) license. These experiences led me to seek a dual-degree MBA/MSPH at UNC so that I could better understand our healthcare system while gaining the critical business skills I perceived as necessary to improve care delivery. I look forward to digging into the intersection of public health and business under my advisor, Dr. Brad Staats.
Interests and Hobbies
In addition to my Kenan Scholars research, I work as a research assistant at KFBS, and am involved in the MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (MIINT). I fill my spare time with running, hiking, yoga, cooking, writing blog posts, and walking my dog, Minnie.
Background
After growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, I spent my undergraduate years at Washington University in St. Louis. While there, I studied Chemistry and Economics with a minor in Music. Additionally, I ran a small photography business and rowed on the men’s crew team.
Career Path
Moving on from St. Louis, I went to Madison, Wisconsin, to work at Epic in healthcare software. While there, I started in the technical services division working with healthcare systems on improvements for nursing workflows. I later was given the opportunity to join and eventually lead our financial risk escalation team. As part of that team, I reviewed software issues that could impact client financials and determined the appropriate follow-up action. On the other side of the company, I also spent time designing our curriculum for usability testing and training for usability studies. I had trained 400 of my peers and Epic was running 5000 usability studies per year at the time of my departure. At business school, my goal is to find a client-focused role that allows me to build a long-term career with one firm and develop deep relationship with clients.
Interests & Hobbies
I spend my spare time learning piano, playing video games, and watching NFL football. Music has always been a big part of my life and my high school band has two (quite terrible) albums on the Google Music store. While at Epic, I captained a Dota 2 team in the After Hours Gaming League charity tournament. On the football front, you can find me cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs every fall and winter Sunday.
Background
I grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, and attended the University of Virginia as an undergraduate where I studied finance and marketing. I moved to Arlington, Virginia, after graduation where I lived for the last six years. While in Arlington, I attended Georgetown University on a part time basis and received my Masters of Science in Finance degree.
Career Path
After graduating from UVA, I worked at Accenture for three years in their finance department. I was responsible for managing the finances of a portfolio of projects and working with managing directors to help them understand what factors drove their projects financially and how they could better manage them. After graduating from Georgetown, I received a job offer from KPMG to work as a management consultant. For the past three years, I worked with the Department of Defense on an audit readiness engagement, helping our client work through their first public audit. The team I lead helped create various software programs to meet all of our client’s data needs, consisting of everything from ad hoc reporting to compiling their financial statements on a monthly basis. We processed hundreds of millions of accounting transactions covering trillions of dollars of financial activity every month. Additionally, during the three years I worked at KPMG, I also studied for and completed the CFA curriculum.
Interests and Hobbies
As a Kenan Scholar, I will be working on the Capital Provider Database and NC Private Capital Landscape project through which I will help build a database with information regarding statewide historical deal flow. This database will allow us to track investments in North Carolina-headquartered companies in high growth, high impact sectors. I am interested in the intersection of finance and technology and data and how we can leverage new data tools and methodologies to help companies make better financial decisions. In my free time I like to read, exercise, paint, and cook.
Background
During my years an undergraduate at Emory University, I became enamored with the brain and neural correlates of thought. I majored in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and completed a minor in Economics. I then attended medical school at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, during which time I developed a passion for neurosurgery.
Career Path
While I had an inclination that I’d be drawn to neurosurgery upon entering medical school, I explored all specialties searching for the one that would provide the challenging yet fulfilling career that I desired. One does not make the decision to enter neurosurgery lightly and multiple mentors advised me that if I thought I could be equally happy pursuing a different specialty, that I should do that. And while each clinical rotation presented its set of appealing attributes, I never found anything that intrigued me nearly as much as neurosurgery. I applied for residency at hospitals along the east coast and ultimately was fortunate to match into UNC’s neurosurgery training program. Neurosurgery training is a seven-year process of which the first four are purely clinical. The program however also allows time during the fifth year for non-clinical training. Over the course of my training, I began to appreciate the need for strong physician leadership given the climate surrounding healthcare reform and the American healthcare system. I felt that obtaining an MBA during this year would provide significant career versatility, and equip me with the management and leadership skills necessary to make a difference in healthcare beyond just my clinical practice.
Interests and Hobbies
In terms of clinical interests, I have a strong interest in the neurosurgical subspecialties of functional neurosurgery and spinal surgery. I have career interests in exploring quality and value in healthcare as well as graduate medical education geared toward health policy, quality improvement, and physician leadership. I am a huge sports fan and root for the Jets, Mets, Knicks, and Devils. I’m an avid golfer and often use golf to de-stress. I enjoy travel and spending time with family and friends. I love animals and am actively trying to convince my girlfriend to let me adopt a dog.
Background
I was born and raised in Kannur, a picturesque seaside town in the southern Indian state of Kerala and earned my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from College of Engineering, Trivandrum. Upon graduation, I moved to Bengaluru, the IT capital of India, and joined Accenture as a software engineer, supporting production applications for an entertainment industry giant for three years. I then moved to Washington, D.C. and served as the supply chain operations engineer at a client site for four years before coming to business school.
Career Path
I joined my first project just as the client was undergoing a massive merger and had just moved to a new data processing system. It was an exhilarating learning experience, working in a fast-paced environment with no manual to guide us on any issues which cropped up. I was also fortunate to get the chance to work in a different country and collaborate with cross-functional as well as cross-cultural teams. These experiences were vital in my growth as an empathetic, resourceful and highly adaptable professional. While I enjoyed solving technical problems as an engineer, I decided to pursue an MBA in order to move to a role with greater impact, where I could make a real difference to the end users of technology. My goal is to become an industry leader who maximizes technology’s contribution to society by being mindful of the long-term impact of technical and business decisions.
Interests and Hobbies
The social impact of business, and technology in particular, is a topic close to my heart. As a Kenan scholar, I will be working with Dr. Olga Hawn to research how corporations manage sustainability challenges.
In my free time, I enjoy cooking for my friends and listening to politics, history and culture-related podcasts. As an unabashed nerd, I enjoy trivia, quizzing and trying to beat Jeopardy contestants by yelling at the TV. I love watching soccer and am a devoted fan of Liverpool FC.
Background
I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and attended school at the Georgia Institute of Technology. At Georgia Tech, I majored in industrial engineering and minored in economics and was involved with my fraternity and a local church. During school, I interned in business valuation at Willamette Management Associates and in investment management at Diversified Trust.
Career Path
After school, I worked for four years at Diversified Trust in Atlanta, Georgia, as an Investment Analyst and later as a Vice President. My role focused primarily on asset allocation strategy, manager selection, quantitative risk analysis, and performance reporting. I was selected to serve on company’s Information Technology and Client Reporting Committees. In my spare time, I learned to code in R and python. I am a CFA® charterholder and consecutively passed all three levels of the CFA Program.
I chose to attend Kenan-Flagler to develop the skills needed to go from just solving problems to taking a look at the big picture and forming the questions that need addressing. So far my time at UNC has helped me to view issues from multiple viewpoints and consider all stakeholders in the decision process. I am pursuing a concentration in Capital Markets and Investments and an enrichment concentration in Data, Digital Analysis, and Technology. Additionally, I am a Kenan Scholar working on hedge fund research.
After school, I want to combine both my strategic mindset with quantitative skills to solve problems in investment management. I have a particular interest in applying machine learning and macroeconomics, specifically monetary policy, and hope to apply them in my future roles.
Interests and Hobbies
In my free time, I enjoy reading, working out, and serving at my local church. I’m an avid NBA and college football fan and a lifelong supporter of UNC basketball!