Your Expert, Guide, Cheerleader, Friend

Aditi is a London Business School graduate with a background in equity investing and strategy consulting. She has studied and worked in India, the UK, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Jordan.

Prior to her MBA, Aditi worked with investment banks (JP Morgan, Ambit Capital), advising institutional investors on their equity investment strategies in emerging markets. She has also worked with the Quebec pension fund's (CDPQ) Growth Markets team in India, helping them screen and evaluate investment opportunities.

Aditi is a strong believer in the power of mentorship - particularly so for women. She volunteered as a mentor for a 12-year-old girl from a low-income community in Mumbai as part of India's first-ever mentoring organization - Mentor Me India. While at LBS, Aditi worked on mentoring an early career master's student. She also worked as a consulting peer leader at LBS, conducting 50+ mock cases and interviews for members of the LBS community.

Outside of work, Aditi likes to read about world history and economics, cooking (and eating) dishes from different cuisines, visiting museums, and organizing (and reorganizing) her spaces.

Alisia is a Manager on the Corporate Strategy team at Adobe's headquarters in San Francisco. She graduated from the Harvard Business School's class of 2020, and spent her HBS summer interning at a tech-focussed investment fund. Her prior work experience includes corporate development and growth at BRF in Sao Paulo, market expansion strategy with tech startups in Berlin, and management consulting at The Parthenon Group's emerging markets practice. She's worked with dozens of candidates on the HBS application process and loves helping with building a cohesive story. On the side, she's an uber passionate crypto investor and loves discovering new music from all around the world.

Allie is an MBA / MPA candidate at Wharton and Harvard Kennedy School. She has experience working in impact investing (Omidyar Network), endowment investing (Rockefeller University), and investment banking (Goldman Sachs). She is interested in pursuing a career across both the private and public sectors with a focus on economic inequality and affordable housing.

Allie grew up in Westchester County, NY and holds a BA from Penn in Political Science.  She enjoys practicing Ashtanga yoga, experimenting with cinnamon roll recipes, and hiking throughout New England.

Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team.

During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students.  She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions process, she administered interviews with hopeful students, she read and reviewed completed applicant files, and she also participated in admissions committee meetings. Amy also represented the school at recruiting and welcome events.

Prior to joining Wharton, Amy spent 5 years as a journalist, writing and editing for a number of mid-sized newspapers on both the East and West coasts. She earned her undergraduate degree in journalism from Penn State University and she also holds a Masters in Liberal Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Amy was born and raised in Philadelphia but now calls San Francisco home, where she lives with her husband and two young children. If you really want to get her talking, ask her about her passion for travel and her visits to more than 40 countries on six continents!

Arush studied at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and has been helping prospective MBA candidates get accepted at top business schools for over seven years.

For nearly 5 years, Arush worked on the Corporate Strategy & New Ventures group of EAB, an education research and consulting firm in Washington, DC that was acquired by Vista Equity Partners for ~$1.6B in 2017. At EAB, Arush worked on the enrollment services practice, which helps more than 250 schools set their enrollment and admissions criteria and strategies.

While at Dartmouth, Arush worked closely with Tuck's enrollment office, helping them redesign their admissions criteria in light of greater interest from candidates with a tech background. He has also been an alumni interviewer for Dartmouth.

Arush loves to cook, run, and play squash.

Botong is a graduate of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. His extensive background in finance, technology, and real estate, combined with his passion for mentoring and coaching students, has helped numerous candidates from around the world.

He founded his first startup focused on academic coaching while he was pursuing his undergraduate studies at Tsinghua University. Through this venture, Botong helped thousands of Chinese students improve their language skills and find their career paths. Botong was also involved with the career counselling office at Tsinghua.

Subsequently, Botong has worked in investment banking and venture capital. He currently lives in Beijing and loves traveling across the Pacific rim. On the weekends, Botong loves cycling and playing with this son.

Brenda is a sought after speaker, award-winning businesswoman and resume writer, and a trained life coach. She is also the author of How to Write a Killer LinkedIn profile, a book that held the #1 best-seller spot in Amazon's business writing skills list for over 2 years. She has been helping applicants craft effective written application documents for over 15 years.

Carlos Escutia is an NYU Stern alumnus. After graduation he worked in Investment Banking, Private Equity and Venture Capital prior to making a full jump on the entrepreneurial path. He is the cofounder and former Head of Business and Ops at CasaOne (Backed by Accel and other known VCs) and the founder and CEO at GoWrk Remote (Backed by Act One VC).

Elizabeth is a career coach who helps candidates identify and realize their true potential. She is a seasoned policy and advocacy leader with over 25 years of experience leading cross-functional teams. She currently heads Compass Point, which provides advisory services to individuals and organizations looking spearhead environmental initiatives and support the politicians who do so.

Elizabeth is the former president of EDF's lobbying arm, the Environmental Defense Action Fund. Previously, from 1999 to 2010, Ms. Thompson served as Legislative Director for EDF. In that position, Ms. Thompson supervised all EDF legislative and administrative work and was the lead strategist and negotiator for EDF in the US Climate Action Partnership. She also ran a multimillion-dollar legislative campaign on the issue of climate change, from 2007 to 2010.

Elizabeth has served also as Senior Mediator and Program Director at the Meridian Institute. She has policy and legislative background in climate change, energy, the Clean Air Act, transportation appropriations, and fisheries. Her legislative work has been characterized by an ability to find ways forward on difficult, contentious challenges. In the mid-1990s, she was able to forge legislative deals on transportation and air policy that became part of TEA-21; that success was followed by more in the clean air arena. At EDF, Elizabeth pioneered a collaborative approach to challenging policy programs in fisheries management, clean air, and climate.

Elizabeth is passionate about helping early-career women excel and is a certified life coach.

Ethi is pursuing his MBA at The Wharton School. Before starting business school, Ethi worked in commodities trading at Bunge. He grew up in Mauritius, an island off the coast of Madagascar, where he learned how to make the best fried calamari in town!

Ethi did his undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London before moving to the US to pursue his graduate studies in engineering. He has lived and worked in the USA, Switzerland, and Spain. Ethi speaks fluent English, French, and Creole.

Outside work and school, Ethi is an avid sailor and golfer. He is also passionate about development issues as they relate to the African continent. 

Gabriel is based in New York and is originally from Honduras. He works in business development and operations at NYU Langone Health, where he designs and implements initiatives to build better patient experiences and improving payment operations across the health system.

Previously, he has worked as a management consultant at Oliver Wyman, where he focused in retail and consumer-facing industries on topics ranging from finance and operations to brand strategy and customer experience innovation. Gabriel has also worked in business intelligence at Moët Hennessy USA, in finance and strategy at Donna Karan International, and as an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Gabriel got his MBA from Harvard Business School and BA in Economics and International Relations from Brown University. He loves to play volleyball and cook in his free time.

Gaurav is an MBA candidate at London Business School. Previously, he was a consultant at ZS Associates where he provided strategic advisory services to large healthcare companies across North America and Europe.

Gaurav works closely with the admissions office at LBS and has interviewed several prospective students. In addition to helping candidates realize their business school dreams, Gaurav is passionate about increasing access to healthcare, especially in developing countries.

Gaurav loves to travel and play soccer. He is a big Liverpool FC fan.

Grace Dhanraj is an MBA student at Harvard Business School. She graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Mathematics in Economics and a Citation in French Language. She was accepted into the 2+2 program for Harvard Business School. After graduation, she worked at JPMorgan Asset Management in New York as a Junior Portfolio Manager for the Multi-Asset Solutions Group. Now, Grace focuses on Venture Capital and Growth Equity investing.

While at JPMorgan, Grace was also an avid recruiter for top diversity talent from undergraduate universities, particularly focusing on increasing representation for women at the firm. At HBS, she is the Director of Education for the Women in Investing club, bringing graduate women together to learn key skills for any type of investment role. She hopes to continue this community of learning and mentorship, and encourage self-reflection and development throughout the entire application process.

Grace also loves to kickbox, bake, find new restaurants, and read. She loves to travel and learn about different cultures as much as possible.

Jack is a graduate of the Tuck School of Business and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. He currently works at Capital One in New York City.

Previously, he worked at AQN Strategies, a boutique strategy consulting firm based inWashington, DC. At AQN, Jack has helped some of the world’s largest private equity firms, banks, and fin-tech companies to think smarter about their lending decisions by leveraging data.

Jack grew up in China and Canada. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Toronto. He is a big Raptors fan and loves to ski.

Jeff graduated from The Wharton School in 2020. Previously he was a consultant at Parthenon-EY and product manager at Globality (enterprise software) and Care/of (consumer health). He is interested in all things tech, specifically in startups and all things blockchain/crypto.

Jeremy has professional experience across four continents. He has experience heading the Southeast Asian operations of upGrad, an education startup in Asia. He was previously a management consultant in India, Singapore, and China and did his MBA at HEC Paris.

Joanna lives in Washington D.C. where she works in Negotiations for Marriott International’s Distribution Strategy Team. She graduated with her MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in 2019. Prior to business school, Joanna traveled the world with Premier Rides, a global engineering company and supplier of magnetic launch roller coasters!

Joanna discovered her enthusiasm for coaching 10 years ago as a student mentor through Cornell University’s program at a local high school. Over the past decade, she accumulated a diverse clientele for application consulting and interview preparation, ranging from college applicants to MBA candidates to Miss America competitors.

Joanna is equipped with valuable insight into the MBA admissions process after two years of employment with the Duke’s MBA Admissions Committee. She interviewed hundreds of prospective students and worked directly with the Senior Director of Admissions at Duke.

When she’s not honing resumes with a fine-tooth comb, Joanna might be found mountain biking, jamming with fellow musicians, foraging for tasty mushrooms, or volunteering with the Maryland Humanities Council.

Kamir is a Saïd Business School graduate with extensive experience in management consulting and venture capital. After graduating from Saïd, he worked with The Parthenon Group in Singapore. During this time, he worked on M&A due diligence and growth strategy cases for firms in a variety of sectors. He also traveled to 49 countries during his time at Parthenon!

Kamir has also been a VC investor at Social Capital, product manager at LendingHome, and Director at Silicon Valley Bank's Early Stage Practice. All these diverse experiences help Kamir relate to candidates from myriad professional backgrounds. In the last eight years, he has helped dozens of candidates from around the world get accepted at top schools like HBS, GSB, Wharton, and Columbia, among others. Kamir loves to hike, run, and travel in his free time!

Kartik is a graduate of the Tuck School of Business and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. He currently works for an investment management firm in the Washington, DC area where he helps manage a portfolio of $2.4B of assets across endowments and foundations. Previously, he worked at a $14B investment management firm that managed university endowments.

Kartik is also passionate about the healthcare industry. Before transitioning to finance, Kartik did his undergraduate studies in biotechnology at Duke University and worked at a healthcare consulting firm in New York City.

Kartik grew up in NJ and spends his time outside of work perfecting his breakdancing skills. He has established, led, and trained several breakdance troupes over the years. Through these experiences, Kartik has become extremely passionate about mentoring youth and bringing out the best in them. He loves to connect with prospective MBA applicants and help them tell their story.

Kate is based in San Francisco and is currently a product manager at Airbnb (after a couple rotations in BD/partnerships and strategy & operations). She graduated from Stanford GSB in 2018.

Before business school, Kate was a consultant at the Parthenon Group, with an industry focus on private equity, consumer goods, and education. She graduated from Dartmouth in 2013 and majored in government.

Kate has 5+ years of experience helping undergrad + MBA applicants tell their story, craft resumes, write essays, prep for interviews, and ask for recommendations. When she is not working, you can find Kate doing freelance photography, studying for the Introductory Sommelier exam, or perfecting her cookie dough making game.

Manan is a Wharton MBA grad with a background in entrepreneurship, product management, and consulting. After graduating with a computer science major from IIT Delhi, he joined the Parthenon Group where he helped education and healthcare companies in 15+ countries improve their operations.

In 2014, Manan started a food-tech startup La Farine for improving access to quality raw materials for restaurants and consumers. At Wharton, he focused on entrepreneurship and leadership development. He graduated as a Palmer Scholar (top 10% of the class), served as President of Founders Club where he helped build a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem, and helped the batch of 2020 acclimatize to Wharton as a Leadership Fellow.

Manan now works as a product manager at a B2B IoT startup, Samsara and helps businesses improve the efficiency and safety of their operations through data driven insights.

Through her many professional roles, at both the undergraduate level and the graduate level, Mary has served for almost forty years as an important resource to students, faculty and corporate partners.

With her outgoing personality, Mary plays an integral role in the lives of almost everyone with whom she works, and she often builds relationships that last far longer than the typical advising experience. After teaching for more than 16 years as an educator, her graduate studies brought her to Columbia University where she began a career in student services that would include senior positions in admissions, financial aid, athletics, academic advising and career services, and corporate outreach.

Early in her career, Mary served at Columbia as the Associate Director of Athletics and then as the Director of Financial Aid. Her vast experience in both undergraduate and graduate school admissions includes positions as the Director of Admissions for the School of Education, Nursing and the Arts at New York University; the Director of Admissions, Columbia School of Nursing and the Associate Director of Admissions for MBA Programs at the Columbia School of Business.

Mary spent many years at the Columbia School of Business, where she also served as Assistant Dean of Student Affairs for MBA Academic Advising and as the Corporate Director for Executive Education Programs. In 2000, Mary moved back to one of her alma maters, the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she spent twelve years as Director of Career Services for both undergraduate and graduate students at the Leeds School of Business, and an additional six years as Manager for Corporate Outreach and Student Engagement for Burridge Center for Finance.

Finally, in 2014, while still working part-time at CU Boulder, Mary accepted a 3-year assignment as Director of Colorado Mountain College in Buena Vista, CO.

Phil graduated from Harvard Business School in 2019 and is currently Director of Corporate Development at Salesforce, driving and executing M&A and strategic investments for the company.

Prior to business school, Phil worked for Morgan Stanley in their M&A investment banking group, The Walt Disney Company in global business strategy for Parks & Resorts, and Grand Rounds (Series D startup) as their sole Finance Manager reporting to the CFO. Phil was originally pre-med as an undergrad at Princeton, where he graduated with a degree in economics in 2012.

Phil is currently based in San Francisco, but grew up in Los Angeles. He has held several leadership positions at nonprofits for tutoring and mentoring disadvantaged children over the years, and he enjoys discussing the stock market and his favorite stock picks.

Priscilla is an MBA/MPA candidate at MIT Sloan and Harvard Kennedy School. She has experience working in consulting (Parthenon-EY), venture philanthropy / impact investing (REDF), and investment banking (Evercore), and is passionate about furthering financial inclusion and workforce development among marginalized populations.

At Parthenon-EY, she completed over 26 strategic advisory and commercial due diligence projects across the education, technology, industrial, retail, and private equity practices. At REDF, she advised over 20 employment social enterprises that create training and employment pathways for individuals with high barriers to work. She also co-launched the firm’s impact lending practice.

Originally from California, Priscilla holds a BA in Economics and minor in Global Poverty & Practice from UC Berkeley. She enjoys bouldering, biking, and watching embarrassing reality TV shows.

Raquel is currently a Senior Product Manager at Amazon. Previously, she was a quantitative analyst at Voya Investment Management when she helped enhance and grow several domestic and international mutual funds. She has also consulted investment professionals within the Quantitative Analytics group at FactSet Research Systems. Raquel became a CFA charterholder in 2017.She has a BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the Wharton graduate school.

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Rehan is a graduate of Yale SOM and a strategy consultant currently working at Bain in their New York office. Before SOM, Rehan worked for over 5 years at LEK Consulting in Mumbai and Singapore in their emerging markets education practices. He has experience leading consulting projects for private equity and education clients in over 20 countries. Talk to him if you're looking to transition into consulting anywhere in the world! He also makes great pasta! Talk to him if you're interested in that too!

Roisin has a decade of experience in consulting, investing, and business development in the commercial education sector with a deep interest in social impact and emerging markets. A dual British-American citizen, Roisin was based in Mumbai, Singapore, and Accra before completing her MBA at INSEAD where she was the President of the Social Impact Club, School Lead at MIINT, a global impact investing competition, and a Women’s Scholarship Recipient.

Post-MBA, she was selected to participate in early stage tech accelerator, Antler, where she is working on several early stage start-up ideas in the EdTech space in London. Roisin received her BSFS from Georgetown where she sat on the undergraduate admissions committee for two years evaluating hundreds of candidates. She has advised on admissions strategy for friends and clients at top business schools including HBS, GSB, Booth, Wharton, and LBS and particularly loves helping clients identify their story and tell it in a meaningful way. Roisin also loves finding local vegetarian cuisine, planning road trips to vineyards, and spending time with her golden retrievers.

Russell spent 11 years working at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. As Associate Director of Admissions, he read literally thousands of MBA applications! With almost 20 years of experience in higher education, Russell has always had the reputation for being a very transparent admissions officer. He enjoys helping MBA applicants understand the application process and providing insight into what the conversations in admissions committee are really like.

How do I take the different application components and weave them together to tell my most compelling story? Should I choose recommenders with more impressive titles? What guidance should I provide my recommenders? Why does this school have these essay questions, what do they really want to know? Since leaving Fuqua, Russell has helped over one hundred young professionals with the answers to these questions and more, and ultimately achieve their MBA dreams, entering top business schools. When Russell was at Duke, the best part of his job was calling applicants to let them know they had been admitted. Now, the best part of his job is when his clients call him to share their good news, 'I'm in!"

Sam is Co-Founder and COO at The Arena, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the school-to-work pipeline. He was previously the Executive Director of Inspire, Inc., a national nonprofit consulting firm providing pro bono services to other education-related 501(c)(3) organizations, an international development consultant with UNICEF, and a management consultant with EY-Parthenon. He holds a BA in Government from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. While at the GSB, Sam was the COO for the GSB Impact Fund, Co-President of the Education Club, Stage Director for the GSB Show, and a Peer Mentor to the MBA Class of 2021. He enjoys reality TV, written fantasy, and chatting about what matters most (and why).

Susan Hughes has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Yale University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Her career has included extensive experience in both the for- and non-profit sectors, throughout which she has been passionate about mentoring young people on both their educational and early career journeys. She has also served on the admissions committees at Yale and Harvard.

Susan spent the early days of her career working in investment banking with Morgan Stanley in New York and LA and in private equity on several turnaround efforts. After business school, she worked in strategy consulting with the Boston Consulting Group and as an independent advisor to a wide variety of organizations facing unique challenges – from businesses in start-up, high growth or change management situations to non-profits expanding their reach, impact, and efficacy. She spent the last few years leading private communities of C-suite executives from across the globe as a director at World 50, an organization that builds private, intimate peer forums for the leaders of the world’s largest companies with the sole purpose of helping them to share ideas and experiences that advance their efforts and organizations. In that capacity, she had the privilege of leading collaboration, conversation, and curated counsel on some of the topics most crucial to global leaders. It greatly informed her sense of what current students need to continue their journey toward impactful global citizenship. Most recently, Susan turned her experience back to the non-profit sector where she is now the National Director of Employer Partnerships for the Hire Opportunity Coalition, a role in which she supports major U.S. companies in the development of their capacity to hire and retain opportunity youth (young people ages 16-24 who are disconnected from school or work).

Fostering growth, success, and leadership in individuals has always been a passion of Susan’s. She has independently advised students on their college and graduate school applications, resumes, and job search efforts for many years. On a personal level, Susan is now based in Atlanta, GA and is the proud mom of two children, one a recent graduate and one a rising college junior. She spends her free time hiking, writing, traveling, volunteering, enjoying the arts and collecting new memories with family and friends.

Swapnil received his MBA from Kellogg School of Management and Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Swapnil is currently a consultant in the Singapore office of the Boston Consulting Group. Prior to joining BCG, he worked in strategy across technology and education sectors. He worked in strategy and planning at Uber in Asia Pacific, leading financial planning, multiple new product launches and growth initiatives. Prior to Uber, he was a consultant at Parthenon-EY, advising clients on investment opportunities, Go-To-Market and growth strategy. He has on the ground experience in over 20 countries across Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

Weisheng is a Manager at Qualgro, where he is involved in deep-tech areas. He is involved across the investment process from sourcing and due diligence to portfolio management.

Prior to Qualgro, he was Head of Southeast Asia at UpGrad, an online education startup, where he launched the Southeast Asian office. He was previously based in Hangzhou at Alibaba Group where he led projects to help startups engage with the Alibaba ecosystem. Weisheng began his career at Parthenon Group, where he advised on strategy and due diligence across Southeast Asia and China.

Weisheng holds a Bachelor of Accountancy from Singapore Management University and an MBA from The Wharton School.