MBA Students Find Purpose and a Path to Consulting
Education is a valued commodity, but what can you do with it? If you’re an MBA student at the Knauss School of Business, you share your knowledge to help lift others. In the Knauss School’s MBA program, all students are required to complete volunteer work with a nonprofit organization before graduation. Many seek out consulting opportunities with small business owners in San Diego, allowing them to hone their consulting skills while helping aspiring entrepreneurs reach new milestones.
Giving Back Through Consulting
One such MBA student is Abhimanyu Sharma, who participated in the University of San Diego’s Access Mentorship program, a unique collaboration between the Knauss School of Business and Access Community Center to help low income San Diego microentrepreneurs advance their business goals.
“I had a client who wanted to start a food delivery business from their home,” says Sharma. “They wanted to make and sell soul food so I helped them with financial, marketing, branding and business planning. At the end of the process, they had a whole new way of looking at their business. Helping them and seeing their joy made me feel great. I’ve kept the line of communication open and told them I’d help them out pro-bono if they ever needed me.”
That consulting experience and others like it were so powerful that Sharma recently started as a paid junior consultant with The Brink Small Business Development Center at USD.
The Brink SBDC offers free, confidential advising and workshops for small businesses or start-ups with an innovative product or service that has high-growth potential.
An MBA that Hones Consulting Skills
This fall, the Knauss School debuted a new MBA curriculum that emphasizes hands-on experiential learning and integrates consulting opportunities into classwork through the Social Impact and International Consulting projects — projects that were previously available to MBA students but are now required.
Aubree Corporandy ‘21 began her consulting work before becoming an MBA student. But once at USD, she globalized her consulting experience through a one-month international consulting project with BMW in Germany, completed during USD’s Intersession term. In her project, she assisted with the U.S. launch of a new product by identifying competitors and their strategies, looking for barriers to entry in the U.S. market and creating consumer marketing strategies.
Corporandy then completed her MBA volunteer work as a consultant in the Access Mentorship Program. “Meeting people, learning about their different business ideas, offering new approaches, and seeing the results of those who had started their business was fulfilling to me, both emotionally and intellectually.”
At The Brink, Corporandy continues to utilize her business analytics skills by offering individual and group consulting, specializing in marketing, strategy and data analytics.
Turning Consulting Experience into a Career
Richard Clarke ‘21, who earned both his MBA and a Master of Science in Finance in 2021 — and is now enrolled in a PhD organizational management program at USD’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences — also relishes the chance to help others.
“I love it. My favorite thing is to say, ‘What’s on fire? Put me there. Let me go to work on that and when that’s done, put me somewhere else,” says an energetic Clarke. He started contract executive business consulting work in 2018, but honed his skills in the MBA program and now works with entrepreneurs at The Brink.
“Consulting keeps the mind sharp. I get to see companies hit milestones, fundraising goals, or even hire its first employee. Arming people with confidence that they can bring to the table moves the needle socially in our community.”
— Ryan T. Blystone