The MBA Job Market
Maria |
August 29, 2024

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts discuss a GMAC report indicating a sharp decline in U.S. employer interest in hiring international MBA graduates in 2024, with projections dropping from 40% to 16%. The hosts speculate that election uncertainties and the potential return of restrictive policies under Trump might be influencing these figures. Despite this, they note positive hiring trends in Western Europe and parts of Asia, suggesting resilience in global MBA employment markets. 

The conversation emphasizes the value of an MBA in providing versatile skills and a strong network, preparing graduates for a variety of future challenges and reinforcing the degree’s long-term benefits amidst economic fluctuations.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.370] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich-Vila. Maria, as you all know, is the founder of Application Lab, and Caroline is the former Managing Director of Admissions at INSEAD and the co-founder of Fortuna Admissions. There’s some news out from GMAC, that’s a Graduate Management Admission Council, that isn’t necessarily great news. Essentially, it’s a survey of employers in the US, and it shows that employers expect to hire dramatically fewer international B-School grads. The actual numbers are shocking, frankly. According to the latest survey by GMAC, just 16%, one-six % of US employers had definite plans to hire internationally in 2024, compared to 40% that hired candidates in 2023. Now, there could be a bunch of reasons for this. One is just the fact that we’re in a presidential election year in the US, and there’s a certain amount of uncertainty that comes with that. One of the candidates in this presidential election is someone who had previously been President and discouraged a lot of international hires and cracked down on a lot of non-US people who even came to study in the US.

[00:01:43.620] – John

I remember that when Trump was President, in fact, schools were telling me that their international students didn’t even want to go on global immersions for fear that they would have difficulty coming back into the US and completing their MBA programs. So I I wonder if some of this survey result is a reflection of the uncertainty in the marketplace over whether Trump could get reelected in the US, and there would be a clamp down on essentially immigrant hires. Caroline, what do you think?

[00:02:19.240] – Caroline

Yes, I agree. And it’s a precipitous drop, right? So 40 % to 16 % is really very dramatic. So that does suggest that it’s something quite specific that’s happening right now rather than just a shift in a longer term trend. So I agree. I think there’s concern about the election. We saw it last time when we had the Trump presidency that there was a negative impact on business schools, and for example, that there was a drop in international applications to US business schools. And so I think that recruiters are concerned about what is going to happen. And so of considering that they’ll be holding fire on international recruitment. Of course, the picture might have changed a little bit since the survey was done, because I think a few months ago, there was an assumption that Trump was on a role and looks all set to win the election, and that’s obviously changed in the last few weeks. And so it’s still up for grabs. It’s still going to be an extremely close election, but it looks like Trump is in a less well-positioned than he was was a few weeks back and perhaps when this survey was done.

[00:03:33.110] – Caroline

So how things pan out may be actually quite different from what this survey suggests. So I would urge some caution on over interpreting these results, and international students shouldn’t be too concerned about dramatic change right yet for the time being, because we really don’t know how things are going to pan out, and it looks like there’s a decent chance that the Democrats might win, and therefore, the climate would not be so negative for international students and international MBA students seeking employment in the US.

[00:04:11.870] – John

Yeah, that’s definitely true. I think that’s a really good point, Caroline, because no doubt this survey was out in the field when everyone assumed there’d be a Biden versus Trump contest, and Biden was flailing and declining in the polls, and Trump was resurgent. And there’s been a complete reversal of that after Biden decided not to, in fact, take his party’s nomination in the US. It’s a pretty decent survey. It includes responses from 931 company recruiters, 931 company recruiters from 38 different countries. It’s global as well because only 51% of the companies are from the global Fortune 500, and they are from 38 different countries overall. One of the positive spots about this survey is Western Europe. International grads hiring is up in Western Europe, and that’s a good sign for sure. Maria, what do you make of that?

[00:05:25.800] – Maria

Yeah, I think that as other parts of the world, as their perhaps some of their industries start changing. The industries are changing in every country. Perhaps some of these Western Europe and also I think the Asian countries also had a pretty marked increase. Maybe as they try to incorporate more diverse perspectives into their workforces. Who knows, maybe there could also be a demographic influence in certain parts of Asia where perhaps the domestic population might be decreasing, and so they may be more open to bringing in talent from other countries to help them bridge these gaps. As their economies and as their businesses are changing and as perhaps their natural born demographics are decreasing. I think that there may be a more openness to bringing in international talent, which I think is great news for people who do want to have that international flexibility in their careers.

[00:06:24.560] – John

Yeah, true. The other thing is, well, even today, I had a call from the Economist. The Economist, and the journalist was exploring whether it’s the perennial story as the MBA is fading because the questions were largely about employment of MBAs. We know that in the last recruiting season, not the one that has not yet been reported on. Most schools reported that fewer percentages of their graduates had jobs three months after graduation. It wasn’t a dramatic decline, but it was a decline nonetheless. This survey actually shows that most employers plan to at least maintain their hiring efforts despite whatever concerns they may have over a potential recession, politics, or inflation. It found that more than a quarter of employers are expected to increase their hiring of business graduates with particular demand for the MBA and industry-experienced candidates. The survey found that some 79% of companies overall hired as many or more MBAs as expected in 2023 and planned to hire at least that many in 2024. Overall, the market still remains strong, and we do know that up and down the US economy, despite lesser hiring by consulting firms and tech firms who both tended to overhire for a little while, there are labor shortages all over the in the US.

[00:08:01.760] – John

One of the interesting things throughout the survey is that the strongest demand were for those with management data analytics and business analytics degrees. Nearly a third of employers planned to expand their hiring of data and business analytics talent in 2024. When you look at the employment reports for specialized degrees in business analytics, you find 100% employment within three years of graduation and 95 plus % at graduation. Those grads are very much in demand. What’s your sense of the overall market and what you’ve heard? I mean, the economist is looking at this from the perspective that jobs are drying up for MBAs. I don’t think that’s true. Caroline, what do you think?

[00:08:53.800] – Caroline

I agree. I mean, this data does suggest that there will be fairly stable recruitment, I think, next year. The largest chunk of the employers were saying that they were planning to maintain their recruitment, right? And then a similar size group said that their employment might contract, and their similar number said that their employment projections were going to increase. Those The two extremes seem to balance each other out. To me, it looks like recruitment will be fairly stable next year. I don’t think that there is a contraction. I’m very encouraged to see outside of US, at least, the increase in demand for international candidates, because, of course, that’s good news for schools like INSEAD and London Business School, because that’s exactly the type of profile that they are feeding into the market. Those schools are all about international mobility and providing a platform for students to go and work in markets outside of their home country. And so the fact that employers are signaling that they intend to expand that type of recruitment in Europe, in Asia, that’s really positive. It may be that there has been a bit of a… I think during the pandemic, there was less international mobility.

[00:10:11.700] – Caroline

And so it may be that they’re playing catch up a bit now after a few years of not having hired as many candidates for that international experience. I think that globally, the outlook is pretty positive, but perhaps more of a stable picture in the US.

[00:10:28.780] – John

The other thing is, I think candidates should not allow the natural ups and downs of economic cycles and uncertainty in the economy to affect their decision on whether or not to pursue an MBA. I mean, the truth is you enter an MBA program or you start considering one, it’s anywhere from an 18-month to 24-month journey before you start it. Then if you’re in a one-year program, you have another year to go before you graduate into a marketplace. If you’re in a two-year program, you obviously have two years. So you’re almost looking at a four-year cycle for a two-year program. There’s no way to time that to have the best possible economy that you graduate into. Maria, I’m sure you would just say, Hey, this is interesting. But the truth is, if you want to take advantage of an MBA experience and you want to solidify your career and learn things and meet people that are going to help you throughout your life, it doesn’t matter whether your economy is going up and down because that’s what the economy does, right?

[00:11:34.570] – Maria

Yeah, I think, as we’ve said many times here, your career is a marathon, not a sprint. These fluctuations up and down, I mean, there are people who graduated in 2008 during that financial crisis or after the tech boom and bust cycle in the early 2000s when that initial internet fervor and bubble popped. I mean, these ups and downs have been part of the world we live in, and I suspect they will just… The frequency and amplitude might start increasing as there’s more and more uncertainty thrown into the world with each year, it seems. I think the idea is like, look, we don’t know where the economy is going to be when you graduate in two or three years, depending on if you’re applying now and you’re enrolling in a year and then so on and so forth. I would not try to time. When people We’ll talk about buying stocks, for example. The pundits often say, Don’t try to time the market, just get into the market. I think the same thing probably applies here, where it’s just go for it. Even if that first job out of business school might not be the job you were hoping for or exactly what you were looking for, you’ve still got another 20 or 30 years of your career in which things do tend to even out and come to a certain equilibrium, even if at first you start off a bit behind from where you wanted to be.

[00:13:04.560] – Maria

It’s the same argument for when we talk about how much it costs to get the degree and then how much loans you have to take if you don’t get a scholarship It’s the same idea here. If you’re doing this, it’s because you understand the value that this degree and this experience gives you over the long term. I would think about that and not freak out.

[00:13:28.560] – John

The other oddity, of is that when the economy declines and there is a recession or simply it’s slowed down, we know what happens to application volume. People apply to business school because application volume is countercyclical to the economy. When things go down, applications go up. The reason is simple. People find that opportunities in front of them in terms of promotions and additional raises tend to get diminished in a downturn. So they They get a little frustrated and they start thinking about longer term possibilities for themselves and go to graduate school. Same is true if the economy is down and you actually get laid off. It may be an opportune time for you to say, Okay, you know what? This is a really good time for me to go and get an advanced degree in business to give me a little insurance in the future and to maybe make a transition into some other new field. Then when that happens, of course, there’s greater competition at the best schools to get a seating the classroom. You just can’t time this, ideally, to take advantage of when there are fewer applicants and there’s less competition to get into a school and timing it so that the economy is on all full cylinders and you have multiple job offers at very generous salary offers.

[00:15:00.140] – John

It’s just not impossible to time. I also think, and it is what I always say, and I’m sure the two of you would agree, the world has not become simpler. Things are not easier. They’re more competitive than ever. The need for advanced education and business and management and skills that new jobs require is at all time record levels. I mean, there’s nothing that’s gotten easier in business and in competition that would suggest that you don’t need an advanced degree in business or management. With big trends coming like AI and the impact that’s going to have on whether or not, essentially, computer algorithms will do the jobs of white-collar workers, the more insurance you have, the more skill you have, the more network you are, the better off you’re going to be. I would think that, Caroline, you would agree with that, Yes, absolutely.

[00:16:01.890] – Caroline

An MBA prepares you for so many different possible roles, right? That’s one of the wonderful things about going to business school is that it gives you an incredible foundation to tackle pretty much any challenge in business. And so it gives people the ability to reinvent themselves, not just right after graduating, but five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line. And in an uncertain world, where who knows what the jobs will be in five years or 10 years and how the economy will be looking, it’s an incredible asset to have that education that gives you the skills, that you have the ability and also the confidence to tackle something completely new and a great network of people who are ready to support you. Every career has ups and downs, right? So at some point for any MBA graduate, as we’ve discussed in the past, things might not go as planned as expected. Having an incredible network to support you as well is in many ways a great safety in the net to have for your career.

[00:17:11.040] – John

Yeah, exactly. And even though last year, and I’m talking about 2023, not this year as graduates, which is probably roughly the same. The trend was that smaller percentages of MBAs had job offers three months after graduation. So For example, you look at Kellogg, back in 2022, 99% of the class had job offers after three months. Last year, it was 24.5. Across the board, you’re seeing that thing. At Yale, it was 96.1% had job offers three months after graduation in 2022. Then last year, it was down to 91.5. These are still all impressive numbers. And I think also what they reflect is something that people don’t tend to talk about, but it’s true that I think this new generation is less likely, not in its entirety, but a higher percentage of MBA graduates today are less interested in the mainstream MBA jobs at a McKinsey Bain, BCG, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Procter and Gamble, Pepsi, than they were earlier. More of them are looking for opportunities in early-stage companies, in startups, and even in non-business fields like health care, which increasingly require business skills, the government, or even the nonprofit sector, because the MBA has become more of an all-purpose degree.

[00:19:02.370] – John

Those jobs, including the most lucrative MBA jobs in venture capital, private equity, hedge funds that pay the most money, are not jobs where employers hire MBAs by the bucket loads. Those are one-z, two-z searches or independent searches for MBAs that take a little bit longer time. I think you’re also seeing some noise in these employment stats that are slightly declining at schools. It’s a function of different career choices being made by a new generation of people. Maria, you buy that?

[00:19:46.240] – Maria

Absolutely. I think that the current batch of MBA students, this generation, a couple of things. I think they’re looking more for work-life balance. It’s not necessarily perhaps about maximizing your salary at all costs to perhaps your health or stress levels, et cetera. I also think that this generation has grown up in a fundamentally more volatile time. If they’re roughly, say, 27, 28, 29 years old right now, they Their childhood involved some of these big swings and shocks to the global economy that we’ve seen. Perhaps they’re more comfortable with that volatility extending into their career plans. By that, I mean, some of these employers that you mentioned before, like the Proctors and Gambles, et cetera, those jobs would offer not guaranteed employment for life, of course, but certainly as close to something like that as you could get. The trade-off would be that you would not have this exponential growth. That was the trade-off you made. I think that this is what we’re seeing, maybe perhaps an attitudinal shift in the generation that is graduating now, just given the circumstances under which they grew up and how exciting some of these rapidly growing technologies can be.

[00:21:04.910] – Maria

I don’t blame them for wanting to perhaps get in on the ground floor of that, an opportunity like that, even if it means perhaps a nontraditional job search or having to hold out to find that employer fit, et cetera.

[00:21:17.360] – John

You’re right about this whole issue of a work-life balance. I’m always from a generation where I didn’t even think about work-life balance because I thought, I’m coming out of school, I want to I want to work my butt off. I want to learn as much as I can. It’s not going to be hard for me because I’m loving it. This is my passion. I want to work with people who are super competitive and smart because you play with the smartest most competitive people, and it makes you better. But younger people today, maybe also having seen how the great recession impacted their parents, and in many cases, seeing what little loyalty any company has had to their employees through this period and beyond. I mean, this is a trend that’s really happened in the ’80s when there were massive layoffs of people who had long been loyal to their companies. We’re talking about white-collar workers may have fed this sense that, Okay, look, I saw how hard my parents work. I saw what happened to them in the Great Recession. That’s not going to be me. I’m not going to be a slave to a company and work those 70, 80-hour weeks that are worked at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.

[00:22:37.570] – John

I want a work-life balance right out of school. Now, how realistic that is, I don’t even want to talk about how realistic that is in today’s world, where the demands on people are so high and we’re all leashed to equipment that allows us not to separate from our job, or the truth of the matter is that work Work-Life balance is something you achieve over a lifetime. There are times when you’re going to be completely focused on being a new parent, on being a great spouse or a great son or a daughter. Then there are other times when you’re going to be almost completely devoted to your work because it’s an important project, there’s a deadline, and a lot of people are depending on it. I remember when I was at a fast company, we did the cover Balances Bunk because basically, you can’t achieve work-life balance in any given period in your life because the demands on you from any place in your life, personal or professional, change dramatically from time to time. But over your lifetime, over your career, you seek that. But today’s generation seems to want to out the gate, and there’s no question about that.

[00:23:47.450] – John

There’s also, while I was looking at some data recently on some of the contradictions with what Gen Z folks want, they want tremendous freedom in their job, and yet they want to be told what to Now, I’ll figure that one out. Well, Caroline, you have a bunch of young ones who will soon be entering the workforce before you know it. I mean, I know they’re going to college soon and all that thing, but they probably have very different attitudes than even the students graduating right now.

[00:24:23.710] – Caroline

Yeah. No, I definitely see some of those trends in my own children. So let’s see how it all pans out. Let’s see if they can get the work-life balance and do incredibly well in their careers.

[00:24:36.940] – John

And more appropriately, you probably have seen these trends in the applicants that you helped get into school.

[00:24:42.560] – Caroline

Yes, that’s true. But I think that the subset of young professionals that apply to business school and those who are applying to the very top business schools are those who are very driven, who are often quite competitive, and they have to be to get where they are, because if they’re applying to Harvard Business School or London Business School, et cetera, then it’s a self-selecting group. And so to be ambitious enough to pursue that path, then they have typically done very well in their careers. And so I don’t see many slouches amongst those applying to these top schools.

[00:25:21.230] – John

Which circles back to our question about employment. It’s why I think so many companies still want to hire MBA grads from great schools because they know it’s a subset of the employment market. It’s people who are smart, who are ambitious, who are competitive, and who are going to deliver the goods because they want to achieve. I’m sure you saw this in spades over at Harvard with your classmates, Maria. Back then, and if you were to walk into a classroom today, probably the same thing.

[00:25:57.760] – Maria

Absolutely. These are people who are driven to change the world. I do also see, though, some people who are coming from those very high competitive pressure cooker environments who are going to business school precisely to leave that or to at least, maybe not right away, but to at least forge a path for themselves where perhaps they don’t have to make as many of those trade offs. I mean, obviously, there are different strokes for different folks. But I do think that anecdotally, I’ve definitely heard that there’s a lot less interest in, say, investment banking, which used to be one of the top jobs you could get. A big reason why I think the investment banking, the shine, it’s less lustrous and shiny than it used to be, is in part because you hear these horror stories about the working hours and the toll that it takes. Of course, you can’t make a blanket statement, but I think when we talk about why are some of perhaps these graduates, when they are not employed at graduation, and if they are… Some of them are not employed by choice. They want to be employed, they just aren’t. But I do think that some of them are perhaps holding out for that perfect offer.

[00:27:04.380] – Maria

If we’re talking about that, I think in some cases, that’s what it might be. People are issuing the traditional on-campus recruitment in search of some an alternative path?

[00:27:16.660] – John

Yeah, I remember a few years ago, we did a story based on a survey of over 1,500 current and recently graduated MBAs. We asked them about their jobs. MBAs who worked at Goldman Sachs averaged 86 hours a week of work. Now, think about the 86 hours at Goldman Sachs. Mckinsey, 72 hours. Strategy Anne, another consultant for 63 hours, BCG, 63 hours a week. Bain, 58 hours a week. Amazon, 54 hours a week. The 40-hour work week, forget about it if you’re an MBA, unless you work for City Corp. City Group, broadly, the MBAs who work there were averaging 40 hours a week of work. I think that’s an aberration or a statistical quirk. But clearly, MBAs from the top schools are still choosing some of these jobs, even if a fewer percentage of them are than in the past, and the demands are great. But so is the demand for these graduates just because they’re hardworking, they’re ambitious, they’re smart, they’re well-trained, they’re network, and you hire them and they can immediately contribute. You don’t have to wait six months to a year or more before you’re getting a return on your money if you’re an employer, and people know that.

[00:28:52.030] – John

There you have it. Don’t let this latest GMAC report discourage you if you’re an international applicant or a domestic one for that matter. There are cycles, they go up and down, and we do think that the uncertainty of the election is a big factor in the results of this survey. MBA is still a great investment, still a great way to advance your career, still a great way to gift yourself with a generous investment in who you are and who you want to be. Hey, thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
The MBA Job Market
Maria |
August 29, 2024

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. We have a really cool story to relate to you today. Me and my co host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards, are going to talk about the most disruptive MBA startups of the year. Every year, Poets& Quants invites the top schools all over the world.

To submit nominations for ventures with what we call the greatest potential for lasting beyond business school. So what we want to do is acknowledge MBAs who have launched really cool companies that are paving the way for the future. And this year, we have 41 student startups that we have honored in what is the sixth annual list of the most disruptive MBA startups.

And they come from all over. We got nominations from Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT, INSEAD, London Business School and others. And, uh, I think what the basic list shows is that entrepreneurship is alive and well in business schools are a lot of great ideas. A lot of them are powered by AI. No surprise there.

They involve every imaginable industry. There’s a good number of these in the business of health as well as in beverages, consumer products and things like that. And I wonder, Caroline, if you have a favorite among this group, and I bet you it’s going to be an INSEAD startup.

[00:01:30] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I have a few favorites, and definitely INSEAD is on my list, although I’m going to start with a London Business School one.

Um, and there were a few international ones that I thought were really interesting. I like the story from kiro, which is a fintech startup, coming out of London Business School, founded by LBS student Alicia Chowdhury. she secured 200, 000 in funding, and it’s the first AI powered financial coach, which is designed to help,

Gen Zed, as I would say, or Gen Z, as you would say. and young adults, get personalized financial guidance. So that’s something that jumped out to me, given that I now have a young adult among my children and trying to teach her financial literacy is somewhat challenging, so I can definitely see the need for that. And she tells a really interesting story about how financial literacy was something that she had struggled with and realized that there was a gap in the market, right? There’s a lot of great financial information out there, but it’s not necessarily tailored and communicated well to young people. And she ended up working in finance before business school.

she doesn’t have a tech background, but she did. Teach herself the fundamentals of AI and machine learning, and she assembled a technical team to work with her. And I thought it was really interesting as well, how she leveraged the LBS resources. And I think a lot of the stories that you have in this article really tell a great deal about the power of business school experience in helping people launch a company. And of course, there’s often a lot of criticism about the value of going to business school. And if you want to be an entrepreneur, there’s no point going to business school. And I think that this article really debunks that. so for example, this is how she benefited from LBS.

She was a finalist in the LBS Launchpad. She completed the LBS Entrepreneurship Summer School. She joined the LBS Incubator. She led the LBS Entrepreneurship Club. And then, of course, she benefited greatly from a lot of the courses that she took at LBS. I got a lot of great advice from LBS faculty, as well as the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital.

I think a wonderful story about how a student had a vision of something that she wanted to do and saw a gap in the market and really went after it, leveraging that wonderful ecosystem that you get at business school and she’s got a VC group backing her. So that’s one of her investors and Aviva Group is a huge financial company.

I think it sounds very promising. So congratulations to Alicia.

[00:04:11] John Byrne: Yeah, you’re right. One of the things that comes through here is the support that students get from the schools. And their classmates and their professors, it’s a real terrific thing.

As you said before, a lot of people say, hey, if you want to start a company, instead of paying a school tuition, just use that as your seed capital and you’re going to be better off, but the truth is that a business school you’re surrounded by really smart colleagues and people who’ve been through this before and mentorship from professors and seed money from the many venture challenges that occur at different schools can make a very big difference and shift the odds in your favor of success. Maria, do you have a favorite?

[00:04:53] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, my favorite.

startup was Cell Mind, which is out of the Johns Hopkins business school. This one really hit home for me personally. What they are trying to do is they are trying to maximize access to a type of cancer therapy called “Car T”. And I have indirectly lived this. We have a good friend from business school who has been battling cancer for several years, and last year there was a complete rollercoaster around  this car T therapy. And I apologize to any doctors if I’m butchering this. But basically, my understanding is that if it works for you, it essentially can cure your cancer or cause it to go into remission. But, if for whatever reason, if your body is too weak at the time that you receive it, it can actually kill you. Unfortunately, it can cause something called a cytokine storm, I think.

And so, the decision of whether to go or no go is obviously one that is very fraught with a lot of, emotion and risk. And so, we actually had a friend who last year was approved for CAR T. But then in the weeks right before they were going to give it to her, they then disapproved her because she had gotten weaker … it was this whole roller coaster.

And so any sort of startup that is doing something to figure out, which patients actually are likely to do well with this therapy? Can we expand our doctors being perhaps understandably a little too cautious because they’re concerned about the negative side effects, perhaps being worse than the.than the cancer itself.

Anything that can help expand access to this is why they were number one in my book. And as you guys were just talking about. Because Johns Hopkins is one of the best, if not the best medical school in the world, this is a great example of a business school student or group of business school students leveraging the resources and the expertise at that overarching institution, trying to find ways to commercialize it, and just make the most of those resources.

I really loved that story.

[00:06:40] John Byrne: Yeah, and that’s what you increasingly find. it’s not a bunch of MBA students doing their thing. It’s reaching out and having these really entrepreneurial collisions with students from other departments, other schools where they have deep expertise in computer science or engineering or medicine or law or public policy or environmental sciences teaming up with MBAs to launch things. which really give them extra power.

One of my favorites comes out of, uh, Chicago Booth. And, it’s sort

a really interesting idea where, first off, it’s called Encore, and it’s a marketplace for high end collectibles. Now, you think, how could that really be a cool thing? What they’ve done is they’ve combined TikTok style videos. With the traditional eBay auction format, to create a really engaging experience for people who want to shop for these collectibles. But what’scool is the MBA who’s behind this. His name is Will Enema, at first thought he shouldn’t apply to Chicago Booth, new venture challenge, because he had already raised a pre seed round and thought that Encore might not be good for that traditional, giving money out kind of program. But, he entered it after he was urged to by a number of professors at Booth. The idea placed second in the competition. He won $350, 000 to help launch his company, but here’s the real kicker:

Within two weeks of that competition, a venture capitalist who participated in the judging agreed to lead their seed round. So it just shows you how, incredible things can happen, in the environment of a business school.

Now, Caroline, I’m sure you have others that you really thought were really cool. Name another one.

[00:08:29] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. So my second one is of course, an INSEAD startup and it’s called faceflow. ai. And I really liked this one because it’s an AI powered skincare platform. So again, relating it to my personal experience of having four daughters who are constantly clamoring for the. latest ridiculous beauty product that they’ve seen on Instagram.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

What it does is it actually gives you scientifically based product recommendations, right? So they have for the two founders, Daniel Patel and Simon Zhang, Patel had previously founded a marketplace for international skincare brands. So he knew the skin, the beauty industry, skincare products.

And then his partner, Simon, is an experienced AI engineer, and so they’ve combined their expertise to bring AI to skincare recommendations. And it’s underway. I checked out their website. I have signed up already. The product is not yet available, but I’m looking forward to when it comes through.

And they won the INSEAD French competition and, talk about how they’ve benefited from the very entrepreneurial environment at INSEAD,

I really enjoyed reading about their experience and I’m excited to learn more about their products.

[00:09:49] John Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. And now

Maria, I know there are 2 Harvard startups on the list from your alma mater. did you pick 1 of them as your 2nd choice?

[00:10:00] Maria Wich-Vila: It was not necessarily my 2nd choice, but there was 1 called Vulcan Investments. This is a little bit out of my, Wheelhouse. So I think we all tend to gravitate towards something we know or something we have experience with, but it’s trying to figure out how to solve the rare earth magnet problem. Right now. A lot of these rare earth materials that are powering modern technologies are coming from China, which poses several challenges, especially should relations with that country not go well in the future. So this is trying to solve for that issue. I think that was a really interesting one.

But actually, my second choice was one that again, I have indirect personal experience with, albeit in a different way. It was called Yogger. What they’re trying to do is, I believe it’s taking your phone to watch you as you perform exercise then give you feedback on, your gait, your form, et cetera.

And this was really interesting to me, not so much because of exercise, although I wish it were (ha ha) (though: side note, my dad was a track and cross country coach for decades and I totally forgot about that in the moment, but I should have mentioned that!!! D’oh!!!), but who knows, maybe this will motivate me to jog more (har har har).

In the interview with the entrepreneur. he talked about how you can do things like a gait analysis right now, in other words, tracking how your legs move when you are running or jogging, and then providing an analysis, but these sorts of things are very difficult to get to. It’s expensive. You need to be set up with, they put a whole bunch of sensors on all of your joints. and I have a friend who has a child with cerebral palsy and they’ve had to do these, go to actually Hopkins (this is not a Hopkins based startup, it’s from Tuck, Dartmouth Tuck), but they’ve (my friends, I mean) had to go to Hopkins and actually have these, it’s a day long thing to set up your child with the different sensors. And so the thought of using something as simple as an iPhone app, perhaps, machine learning, et cetera. all that good stuff to analyze your gait and make this accessible. It’s not only I think useful for casual exercise enthusiasts, but I think it could also have ramifications and uses even in other areas. For example, kids with special needs. So I was really excited about this one.

John Byrne:

MIT Sloan has three startups on our list this year.

That’s more than any other school. And one of the really cool ones is called Vertical Horizons. This is an incredibly ambitious startup. It’s all about commercializing high density, high efficiency power supplies for AI computing. Essentially, it’s a semiconductor company. and you might not think that an MBA would be involved in actually creating a semiconductor company.

But it’s founded by Cynthia Allen, an MBA in the class of 2024 at Sloan and one of her professors. So it’s a good example of where university develop some sort of new technology or new insights. And then needs to commercialize it. And in this case, you have an MBA coming along, who has a great interest in this, and is helping to commercialize it. The actual idea of it has 4 million in research grant funding to develop the technology. So there’s a good amount of money behind this very ambitious idea.

I think, stepping away from the individual startups, what I think this says about, the ability of people who want to go to business school and use that experience as an incubator to launch a startup, it’s alive and well, it’s a great way to launch a company because it does take a lot of risk off the table and these startups, these 41 startups that these different business schools really give you a great insight into what different people are doing.

Caroline, I’m sure, and Maria as well, you probably meet a number of people in your practices, that want to use an MBA to do a startup. Do you think they’re ready to take full advantage of these experiences?

Caroline Diarte Edwards:

Yeah, I certainly hear from a lot of candidates who are hoping to launch a venture. Some of them want to do it as soon as they graduate and for some of them it’s more of a longer term ambition because of course financing can be a challenge.

Especially if you’ve invested a lot in taking on a lot of debt with your MBA and a lot of the themes that I hear, candidates are interested in come through in your article as well. So it’s noticeable that there are quite a few startups in your list that address, healthcare issues as Maria highlighted, also education, environmental challenges. And I think those are three areas that I hear a lot about from candidates in terms of where they would really like to have an impact.

And I think, something else that is noticeable is that a lot of them are really trying to have a positive impact on the world as well. They’re really trying to address,  fundamental societal challenges, many of them, which I think is wonderful from health care, mental health issues, pollution. et cetera. There’s a lot of really interesting, and important issues that are being addressed by some of these startups. and, I think it’s wonderful that we have this young generation, going through business school who are ready tackle these challenges that that they have inherited from our generation.

John Byrne:

Yeah. And these ideas are going way beyond, some of the earlier ideas of five, 10 years ago, hookup apps and match.com, uh, wannabes and things like that. some of these ideas are remarkably sophisticated and elegant as well.

Maria, last words.

Maria Wich-Vila:

I think that this article not only is very optimistic in terms of these amazing ideas that are out there, but I also like that it shows that there are so many different paths to entrepreneurship through the MBA that first of all, number one, the NBA is valuable for entrepreneurship, which, as you noted a second ago, is often a stereotype that that exists that, oh, I don’t need this. but also there are so many different MBA programs out there. Look at the range of schools that are creating these amazing startups. Look at the fact, one of the, Stanford ones, the student was not an MBA student. They were an MSx student.

Sometimes I’ll meet people who are a little bit on the older side who are applying and they’re like, I have to do the two year program and I’m like, no, you can… you just need to get your foot in the door and even if it’s that MSxs program, it’s one year versus two years. For example, you can, you just need to get to a university that’s going to teach you the things you need and give you the resources and then you can take it from there.

So I, the other thing I really appreciate about this article is showing the breadth of programs and the breadth of students and the breadth of backgrounds of these students who are creating incredible new companies.

[00:16:37] John Byrne: Yeah, check it out. It’s called most disruptive MBA startups of 2025, and it’s on the Poets& Quants website.

If you are interested in doing a startup, I think you’ll learn a lot about how business school can help you make it a reality. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual, our weekly podcast.

Maria

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