Every year the Whitmore Global Business Center at the BYU Marriott School of Business honors first-year MBA students with the Eccles Scholars Award, which includes $9,000 to support students with a strong interest in and commitment to international business. With hometowns ranging from Orem, Utah, to Paraná, Brazil, and speaking languages like Tagalog and Italian, this year’s recipients were chosen for their academic performance, prior international experience, second-language fluency, and focus on developing an international career in business.
Because of the generous support of the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, 11 MBA students received the Eccles Scholars Award: Alessio Giolitto, Gregory Hutchings, Curtis Jensen, Rebekah Koster, Joseph Lunt, Dallin McLean, Lorenzo Montanari, Guilherme Pila, Jesse Poffo, Teancum Stafford, and Adjetey Wilson.
About the 2025 Eccles Scholars
Alessio Giolitto, from Negrar di Valpolicella in northern Italy, served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chicago. He earned a degree in business and international marketing from the Università degli Studi di Modena and went on to earn his certification as a financial advisor, helping clients across Italy with personalized investment, insurance, and succession planning. At university, Alessio also earned TOEFL and TEFL certifications, gaining experience teaching English as a second language. In 2023 he joined Edusogno SRL, a leading e-learning startup, where he conducted market research, customized B2B products, and helped land the company’s first B2B sales. Now, he is pivoting from sales to project and product management in the MBA program. He’s passionate about streamlining processes, fostering collaboration, and building effective, data-driven strategies that move organizations forward.
When Gregory Hutchings was 16 years old, he spent a summer in Nicaragua mentoring youth in rural communities. The experience deepened his empathy for underserved communities and ignited his interest in addressing global challenges. As an undergraduate, the Alpine, Utah, native pursued an internship at the Fair Employment Agency in Hong Kong where he coauthored a training curriculum for more than 350,000 Filipina domestic workers and drafted a five-year plan for the company to expand in South Asia. Hutchings speaks Spanish and has worked in Cuba, where he coproduced a documentary about human rights violations, and in Malawi, where he and his wife cofounded a microfinance organization in the country’s Dzaleka refugee camp. He plans to pursue a career that bridges business strategy with social impact in international markets.
From Sandy, Utah, Curtis Jensen is currently a product management intern for eCommerce accelerator Pattern, where he is responsible for organizing dashboards and providing insights into supply chain operations across Asia. The job isn’t his first time being involved in international experiences, though. Jensen, who learned Portuguese on a church mission, served as a software sales lead working with Canadian clients and has traveled to Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe. He also speaks Spanish and has begun learning Mandarin Chinese with his family. Jensen looks forward to developing his career as a global business professional through global entrepreneurship and leading global strategies to help alleviate food, water, and shelter insufficiencies through educational and economic infrastructure development.
Rebekah Koster, a student from Mesa, Arizona, has long been drawn to international business. Her passion deepened after taking MBA 584: Introduction to Global Management and then enrolling in BYU Marriott’s Global Business Certificate program. Her global perspective was shaped early on by a church mission to the Philippines, and she has traveled to more than 15 countries. Fluent in Tagalog, Koster, has worked with international teams at Pattern, where she managed webinars and events that strengthened her cross-cultural communication and leadership skills. She also led HR efforts across six countries as head of people and culture at Order Protection. Koster, plans to pursue a career in consulting and hopes to one day live abroad with her family, developing global business strategies and helping companies navigate international growth.
Joseph Lunt, from Holladay, Utah, has visited more than 25 counties in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He has served a church mission in Chile, where he gained an appreciation for the Spanish and Haitian Creole languages. Lunt has also volunteered internationally, coaching a Jewish and Palestinian youth basketball team and traveling to Ukraine to mentor displaced youth. But Lunt’s international experiences go beyond volunteering: As an intern for Global Financial Advisors, Lunt provided analysis and financial modeling for multiple international companies; he also participated in and translated for investment meetings in Chile, Argentina, and Peru during an internship at Lunt Capital. After completing his MBA, he plans to return to Lunt Capital and help the company integrate more international investment strategies.
Canada native Dallin McLean has long appreciated the impact of global perspectives and opportunities to connect across borders. His interest is particularly focused on the southern half of the African continent in countries such as Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia because of his family’s rich heritage in the area: His father was born in Zimbabwe, and his family tree is full of men and women who helped to build railroads and infrastructure in those regions. During an MBA 584: Introduction to Global Management class, McLean was inspired by a guest lecture and realized the potential for doing good through international business. He plans to use the Eccles Award to fuel travel to Namibia or Botswana and begin establishing connections within those countries.
Born and raised in Italy, Lorenzo Montanari’s professional and academic pursuits have been charged by his passion for global commerce. Montanari has worked across many sectors in multiple countries, including Ireland, Italy, and the United States, allowing him to develop a deep understanding of global market dynamics. As a consultant at Oracle, he specialized in financial services, and at Microsoft, he managed tech sales accounts across healthcare, automobile, and fashion industries. Montanari, fluent in Italian and English, is learning Spanish to increase his ability to communicate in diverse cultural contexts. He accepted a role as a sales strategy and operations manager MBA intern at Google. His long-term goal is to influence global go-to-market strategies and create meaningful impact on a global scale.
Guilherme Pila’s interest in international affairs began when, as a senior in high school, he was selected by the US Department of State to be a youth ambassador and participate in a social entrepreneurship program in Washington, DC, and Seattle. Pila, who is from Paraná, Brazil, earned an engineering degree from Brigham Young University, and has worked on engineering projects in the United States, Brazil, and Turkey. He has recently worked with attorneys in France, China, and the United States to facilitate the protection of American technology abroad through the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Pila is currently learning Italian to prepare for an upcoming student exchange at the Università Bocconi in Milan. He envisions using his engineering, legal, and business skills to build bridges across professions and cultures throughout the world.
From Joinville, Brazil, Jesse Poffo was inspired to learn multiple languages as a youth and is now fluent in Portuguese and English, and he is also able to communicate in Italian, French, and Spanish. Poffo has leveraged his language skills and led global initiatives at Nidec Aerospace to enhance enterprise systems, working with teams from across North and South America and Europe. In other roles at Nidec Motors and Nidec Global Appliances, Poffo also managed cross-functional projects in Austria, Mexico, and Slovakia, strengthening operations and partnerships across continents. Through his experiences, he has learned that understanding cultural nuances and respecting diverse viewpoints are as important as technical skills in driving meaningful outcomes. Poffo is eager to continue broadening his global career and perspectives by contributing to real-world solutions for complex global problems.
Ever since Teancum Stafford, from Orem, served a church mission in Arcadia, California, the Spanish language has been an integral part of his life and career. As one of only three Spanish-speaking financial advisors at Empower Retirement—a company with more 10,000-plus employees—Stafford served more than 100,000 Spanish-speaking customers across the United States and Puerto Rico. That experience pushed him to find greater international impact, starting with an MBA at BYU Marriott. Spanish also plays an important role at home: Stafford and his wife, a native Spanish speaker, are teaching their four sons Spanish and helping them appreciate their ancestry. Stafford plans to use the Eccles Award to fund a business experience in Spain.
Adjetey Wilson was born in refugee housing in Benin, West Africa, after his parents fled a violent dictatorship in Togo. After being granted asylum in the United States almost a decade later, Wilson continued speaking Togolese at home while learning English and developing friendships with people from around the globe, including Albania, Pakistan, India, Bosnia, and Poland. In his career, Wilson has collaborated with colleagues globally working in affiliate management and operational risk at American Express. Wilson, who is also fluent in Spanish, is a board member of CoAfrica, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building schools in rural parts of Africa, and he values the opportunity to give back and shape opportunities for others. Wilson is looking forward to gaining hands-on global experience through future internships and employment.
About BYU Marriott
The BYU Marriott School of Business aspires to transform the world through Christlike leadership by developing leaders of faith, intellect, and character. Named for benefactors J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott, the school is located at Brigham Young University. BYU Marriott has four graduate and nine undergraduate programs with an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students.