News Releases 

Gabrielle Sorensen’s entrepreneurial journey has centered on blending creativity with meaningful client relationships. Sorensen, a 2019 BYU Marriott School of Business alumna, is the founder of her own floral design company, Fleur Gabrielle, where she strives to craft unforgettable experiences for her clients using the skills she gained as a student in the experience design and management program.

Attendance at the 2024 Women in Business Conference quadrupled from its intimate inaugural gathering in 2023, drawing students, alumnae, and faculty for professional development training and a celebration of women in business.

On November 7, 2024, Steven J. Lund, the young men general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, received the 2024 Patriot Award in recognition of his dedication to the values of faith, leadership, and patriotism.

When Masahiro Hokazono told his mother he planned to go to college in the United States, he couldn’t speak English at all. So, while taking his first year of classes at a university in Japan, he spent hours studying English. Now he has a full-time position at a Big Four firm in Chicago.

Kate Blaine started her military journey by joining BYU’s Army ROTC; however, she later felt inspired to join the Air Force ROTC. Blaine knew the switch would be a big change, but she followed through with her prompting, hoping to understand her path more as she served.

In fall 2024, the MPA program presented the Alumnus of the Year Award to Robert Carver, director of the NASA Agency Workforce Strategy and Transformation Office, to recognize his extraordinary service and leadership in the public sector and in his community.

Jeff Bednar, an associate professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the BYU Marriott School of Business, has seen how focusing on relationships and telling his personal story have brought the most meaning to his professional life.

College was far from Maile Berg’s mind for much of her life. She dedicated years of her youth to preprofessional ballet—attending school part-time and spending her summers training at different ballet schools. Then a career-ending injury changed her plans.

Swimming with sharks isn’t typically a precursor to entering a program at the BYU Marriott School of Business, but for Aleia Allen, a field study adventure in the Caribbean spurred her into her first semester in the experience design and management program.

Reid Tileston, an adjunct professor at the BYU Marriott School of Business, first became a business owner at age 16 when he took over his brother’s small airport-shuttle business. The experience helped Tileston begin developing an appreciation for entrepreneurship through acquisition that has directed his career ever since.

How does a student balance playing collegiate soccer with studying in the MBA program at the BYU Marriott School of Business? For Annabella Folino, it meant doing the program backward.

Fifty-eight high school teams from across Utah were given three weeks to develop a new marketing plan for the nonprofit organization Busankam Wola Foundation. The challenge? None of their work could be in English.

Paul Lambert hopes to empower students at the BYU Marriott School of Business to see their faith as one of their biggest assets in the workplace.

A life-threatening car crash was just one of many obstacles that Erin Cole, a senior in BYU’s Army ROTC, believes has shaped who she is today. Now she sees herself as someone who has accomplished mental and physical feats she once considered too difficult to achieve.

Jose and Adela Montoya Brañez—a sibling duo studying entrepreneurial management at the BYU Marriott School of Business—are passionate about entrepreneurship and the chance it gives them to serve others.

Growing up in Hanover, Germany, Rahel Meyer witnessed many of the ongoing difficulties faced by some of the 2.5 million refugees displaced to her country. Now as an MPA student at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Meyer is preparing herself to make the difference she wants to see in the world.

If Michael McLennan had followed his original life plan, he believes he would already have graduated from college and started working as a software developer in his home country of Scotland. Instead, McLennan followed the promptings of the Lord and found even greater joy and purpose.

During an internship in Berlin made possible by the Whitmore Global Business Center, Finance senior Emilio Ramos Barrios has learned that determination will take you places—literally.

“We don’t survive the junior core—we thrive in it,” says Adam Boswell, a strategy student who focuses on the growth, rather than the stress, of student life. Boswell is encouraging his peers to adopt the same attitude while he serves as president of the Strategy Society in the BYU Marriott School of Business.

As a young college graduate, Barrett Slade wasn’t looking for a job in real estate. Now a professor of finance and real estate at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Slade strives to equip his students with practical tools to thrive in the “real world” of real estate.