MBA News 

Students in the MBA program at BYU Marriott fondly refer to fellow cohort member and 2022 class president Ethan Felix as their "MBA dad." Despite being older than most of his classmates, Felix connects with other students and empathizes with those going through difficult times. Felix's life has been shaped by overcoming obstacles, both personal and educational.

A team of BYU Marriott School of Business MBA students won third place out of 4,500 teams during the 2021 Adobe Analytics Challenge held throughout the month of November. The students’ success earned them a prize of $6,000 and provided experience in real-world business situations. 

As Bob Ycmat arrives early at his office every day, he finds himself reflecting on his career path, which began in marketing and will end in finance. As CFO of Revere Health, Ycmat is proud of the lessons he has learned and the impact he has had throughout his career, a journey he says was reenergized by his participation in the executive MBA program at BYU Marriott.

Forty-five years after earning an MBA from the BYU Marriott School of Business, George Erickson is retired from a successful career in the railroad industry. Erickson’s dynamic career took him to 48 different states and a variety of prestigious positions, but as he reflects on his life, he says what he is most proud of has nothing to do with his work.

When Tom Peterson graduated from BYU in 1981, he thought he had already come to fully appreciate the value of his BYU education. What Peterson did not know at the time, however, was how much his love for the school would continue to grow, and that he would eventually return to the university as a professor with 25 years of industry experience. Now, as an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Peterson shares his unique life lessons with students.

As a part of this year's Homecoming celebrations, BYU presented an Alumni Achievement Award to Brandon Robinson, a 2009 BYU Marriott MBA graduate. Robinson received the award for his distinguished career in the financial service industry and his efforts to serve his local New York City community.

Eduardo Dallagnese's wedding day was memorable in more ways than one. Shortly after getting married in the Porto Alegre Brazil Temple, he received a long-awaited call from the admissions office of the BYU Marriott School of Business. The call informed him that he had received the Cardon International Scholarship (CIS) from the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) and that he was accepted into the school's MBA program.

The office door of BYU Marriott School of Business professor Jim Brau is always open. Brau, an Airborne Ranger Army veteran, believes making connections with his students is the most important part of his job. He continually strives to facilitate moments where he can create those connections. Brau’s consistency in leaving the door open through the years has resulted in countless opportunities to serve those around him.

The journey to becoming the first-ever chief operating officer and chief safety officer for the Natural History Museum of Utah was not one that Abby Curran expected. Curran says she owes her success to the MBA program at the BYU Marriott School of Business and her life experiences that taught her to never stop improving.

Trent Hamilton spends his days building teams of people who drive the medical technology of the future. Whether he’s hiring someone to research treatments for cancer or put together the first FDA-approved treatment for COVID-19, Hamilton’s work brings together the people whose innovations save lives.

The Whitmore Global Business Center at BYU Marriott announced that eleven MBA students were recently recognized as the 2021 Eccles Scholars.

Ten students were named as 2021 Hawes Scholars, an honor that carries the highest distinction given to MBA students at BYU Marriott.

The Brigham Young University Marriott School of Business MBA program has awarded ten students with the 2021 George E. Stoddard Prize, an award given to first- and second-year students in the BYU Marriott MBA program. 

The MBA director at BYU Marriott, Daniel Snow wishes he had a dollar for every time he’s received compliments about his BYU Marriott graduates in the workforce. Since becoming the MBA director in June 2020, Snow has dedicated himself to not only upholding the school’s values and reputation but also fulfilling his personal goal to make a positive impact on the lives of others.

When teaching his class ENT 401: Entrepreneurial Innovation to MBA students, associate professor of entrepreneurship Nile Hatch shares his own method of innovation: developing a deep understanding of others’ needs. With both management and engineering students in the class, Hatch also encourages his students to combine their strengths in teams and support one another’s needs.

BYU Marriott fared well in the recently released U.S. News & World Report 2022 rankings for graduate programs. Both the MBA and MPA programs were ranked, as were four graduate program emphases.

After decades of leading educational institutions such as the Harvard Business School and BYU–Idaho, Kim B. Clark is still sharing intellectual and spiritual knowledge with students as the NAC Professor of Business at the BYU Marriott School of Business. With a career in education that spans more than forty years, Clark considers his work at BYU Marriott to be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

During her career in higher education, BYU Marriott alumna Alison Davis-Blake has prized building mentorship relationships with students and colleagues. She loves to see people choose their own educational paths and succeed as professionals.

Whether Christian Hsieh, a BYU Marriott MBA alum, is talking with a veteran of finance or a young employee of a startup, he’s constantly learning something new. Hsieh’s current experiences as the founder of a crypto-asset management startup are just one step on his journey of lifelong learning.

To Uros Stampe, operations manager for doTERRA, success is a journey that comes one step at a time. Each experience Stampe has had—from watching his father work in manufacturing to choosing to attend the BYU Marriott School of Business with fellow Cardon International Scholarship (CIS) students—helped him uncover his interests and gain confidence in the skills he worked diligently to develop.