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Alumni Students 2010–2014
During the housing collapse, the sweltering summer heat of Phoenix was no place for a young salesman pushing pest control. But for Adam Keys it was just the kind of pressure needed to get the creative juices flowing. “Nobody had money and nobody liked salesmen,” Keys remembers. It was then that Keys matched the perfect product with its target audience. “I sold No Soliciting signs door-to-door,” Keys says. “Eighty percent of people who would laugh when they opened the door would buy it.” But this wasn’t just funny business: the 2011 finance graduate paid his college bills, learned graphic design, and gained experience running his own company.
In the area of market research, Cathy Chamberlain is a one-woman political powerhouse. Her influence, as well as the results of her studies, has been spread across the country from Washington, DC, back to the West Coast, and overseas as well. Since graduating from BYU in 1973 with a degree in business education, she’s tallied up more than thirty years of experience in market research and is still going strong.
When Josh Steimle won the BYU business plan competition (now known as the Miller New Venture Challenge) in 2001, he was awarded the $5,000 he needed to make payroll for the week and the confidence to keep his new company, MWI, going for the next twelve years.
Pretty Govindji was always an avid viewer of the Food Network, but when her sons came into the picture, her investment in tasty meals took on new meaning. Dinnertime goals soon centered on organic cooking, and before too long, Govindji realized what she served food on might matter just as much as good fruits and veggies.
Young social entrepreneurs are leading the way, rewriting the rules, and changing the world. It pays to do good.
This past fall the Romney Institute honored the Spanish Fork city manager, with its 2013 Wright Distinguished Alumni Award.
The red Porsche featured clean lines and 390 horsepower, but for fifteen-year-old Eric Watson, it might as well have been the family station wagon. This was the first time the high schooler had slid into the driver’s seat.
It's not often that a piano-playing gig leads to landing your dream job at Google.
Four students walk into a room: a chemical engineer, statistician, computer scientist, and business strategist. It might sound like the beginning of a gag, but bringing together savvy students from a variety of disciplines is what the Marriott School’s Crocker Innovation Fellowship is all about.
When Jeff Bjorkman isn’t reading the unabridged version of Les Misérables, camping outdoors, or trying to recreate cuisine he’s sampled abroad, he is knee-deep in accounting projects with the Marriott School’s MAcc program. His experiences as a student may leave you wishing you too were an accountant.
Jeff Holdaway, a 1982 finance graduate, knew there was a way for him to combine his passion for business and law. After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1985 and working at a national law firm, an opportunity arose that he couldn’t turn down. Twenty-four years later Holdaway is still glad he jumped at the chance to work at Marriott International.
When Sandy Wight earned a MAcc in 1990 and started her career with Arthur Andersen, she had no idea she would become a partner. “My goal was to get a job and have two years of experience on my résumé,” she says. Twenty years later Wight is still gaining experience for her résumé—as a partner in the human capital practice of Ernst & Young.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
With more than three thousand students, the Marriott School of Management brings together some of BYU’s best and brightest from across the globe. I recently caught up with one of these stellar students, Nicol Pedraza, a sophomore marketing major and Portuguese minor from Mexico City. Pedraza talked about finding her path to BYU, her experience at the Marriott School, and her plans for the future.
Wally works at Wal-Mart. It may sound like a tongue twister, but Wally Potts’s story is all business. In a little more than two years, Potts has brought in millions of dollars of revenue for the corporation.
The winning team is in Uganda establishing their nonprofit, Kuishi, to distribute needed medicine.
BYU alum Peter Harris was profiled on Forbes.com for his work as a social entrepreneur.
The BYU Management Society extended its reach to Africa this spring with a chapter in Accra, Ghana. The newest members of the society are looking forward to creating change for Ghanaians by focusing on the Management Society’s mission to foster integrity in business.
Jamie Shaw first caught the travel bug as an MBA student at the Marriott School. She had never left the country before but decided to participate in a new business study abroad program to several Asian countries. From the first stop, she was smitten.
With wet eyelashes, Reachel walked out of her bedroom and found a stranger sitting in her apartment. The guy casually resting his elbow on the couch was Andrew, a friend of her roommates. 
Cameron Moll knew he wanted to give something back to the customers who made his entrepreneurial venture a success, but he had no idea it would take him halfway around the world with an international celebrity.
Ten student companies walked away with prize money totaling $205,000 in cash and in-kind prizes.
Following the crowd isn’t usually a good idea, but entrepreneurs can generate serious capital by jumping on the crowdfunding bandwagon. That’s the premise of an innovative new course at the Marriott School.
BYU's Global Management Center recently named 14 internationally minded MBA students as Eccles Scholars.