Haas Student Ambassadors
During the school year, we host a daily information session, Monday through Friday, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. A member of the admissions committee is present for a portion of these sessions to answer admissions-related questions. Prior to the information session, you can enjoy an hour-long lunch with current students. To participate, meet in the MBA Admissions Office at noon. Additionally, with 72 hours advance notice, we are happy to coordinate classroom visits for prospective students. For details regarding our visitation programs, please visit http://mba.haas.berkeley.edu
/visitation.html.
HSA also conducts interviews and coordinates events for admitted applicants. We look forward to assisting you in all stages of the application process and welcome your questions by phone, e-mail, or in person!
(510) 642-5610 hsa@haas.berkeley.edu
Full-time MBA Program
HSA team
The Haas Student Ambassadors Program is the student arm of the admissions office and thus provides a student perspective to campus visitors. HSA's mission is to ensure that all prospective students' visits to Haas are informative, positive, well coordinated, and as interactive as possible.
Questions? Click on a name to send an email to the HSA Team Member.
Alvin was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and remains a loyal Giants, 49ers, and Warriors fan. After graduating from St. Ignatius College Preparatory, Alvin left the Golden State to attend Cornell University in upstate New York, where he majored in Hotel Administration. Upon discovering his total lack of culinary talent, Alvin decided to focus on the real estate aspect of the hospitality industry. He found a summer internship with PKF Consulting, a real estate and financial advisory firm, and rejoined PKF as an analyst after graduating. At PKF, Alvin had the pleasure of working on a number of exciting projects including the proposed Transbay Terminal Tower in Downtown San Francisco, the redevelopment of Treasure Island, and the Post Ranch Inn, an ultra-luxury resort in Big Sur. Alvin became the youngest Vice President in the company, but after five years of consulting, he decided to move on to the principal side with hopes to one day have his own real estate investment and development firm. With strong programs in both real estate and entrepreneurship, Haas was the perfect fit for Alvin. In addition to being a Haas Student Ambassador, Alvin is involved in the Real Estate Club and the Entrepreneurs Association. Alvin was also a member of the team that represented Haas at the Annual University of Texas, Austin Real Estate Challenge. When he is not in class or talking to brokers, Alvin enjoys team sports, spending time with family and friends, and traveling. Alvin most recently traveled to Scandinavia and Costa Rica and is looking forward to exploring South America next winter.
This summer, Alvin will be working at Beacon Capital, a real estate private equity company. Alvin will be assisting the asset management, acquisition, and development teams in Beacon Capital’s San Francisco office.
Matt was born and raised on the wet, windy, and rural Oregon Coast; a fact clearly reflected in his wardrobe’s over-representation of fleece and Gore-tex. Matt left Oregon for the warmer and infinitely more urban environment of downtown Los Angeles for his undergraduate studies, where he majored in Business Finance at the University of Southern California. While at USC Matt was active in his fraternity as well as USC’s student ambassador organization, while also fitting in time for trips to Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and many other outdoor adventures. After four great years in Southern California Matt was ready for a change of scenery again and accepted a job with Triage Consulting Group in San Francisco. While at Triage, Matt assisted in revenue recovery and process improvement projects at hospitals throughout the Western US. Matt was fascinated by the many challenges confronting his clients in his four years consulting at for-profit, non-profit, and community-run hospitals, and wanted to expand his knowledge and perspective of the healthcare industry beyond his work expertise. The MBA/MPH (Masters in Public Health) dual-degree program at Berkeley offered the perfect blend of practical business education with a broad-spectrum health policy curriculum in an integrated and streamlined course of study. Since arriving at Haas, Matt has been active in the Haas Healthcare & BioBusiness Club. He helped plan the Berkeley Bio-Entrepreneurship Roundtable in the fall as well as took on the co-chair role for planning the 2009 Haas Business of Healthcare Conference. In addition to his healthcare pursuits at Haas, Matt is a member of Net Impact, the Haas Wine Club, and Redwoods@Haas. Outside of school, Matt spends his time enjoying all of that the Bay Area has to offer: mountain biking in Marin County, skiing in Tahoe, backpacking in Yosemite, and frustrating himself with a round of golf at any course that will allow a player of such low skill-level to play.
Matt will be spending the summer internship with Abbott Laboratories in their Diabetes Care division.
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Craig also grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Memphis, Tennessee. Craig returned to his home state to attend the University of Virginia where he majored in commerce; a fancy word for business administration. Upon graduating, Craig took a job with Lockheed Martin as a financial analyst in the Washington, D.C. area. Hoping to move into an investment role, he next accepted a position with Paladin Capital Group, a D.C. based multi-stage venture capital firm focused on homeland security investments. After four years in the labor force, Craig decided to escape the Beltway and round out his finance and defense background by attending business school. He chose Haas based on its extraordinary students, the intersection of general management, entrepreneurship and technology, and of course the Bay Area. In addition to being a Haas Student Ambassador, Craig is actively involved in the Haas Venture Fellows program, Haas Consulting Club and Entrepreneurs Association. Outside of school, he closely follows his beloved Washington Redskins, despite their continuous mediocrity. Craig also enjoys skiing, golf, travel and exploring Northern California. He will be working for L.E.K. Consulting this summer in its San Francisco office.
Although she was born in Toronto, Canada and spent time living in London, England and Melbourne, Australia, Kathryn is most likely to claim the Bay Area as home. Her family settled in Orinda, California by the time she reached high school, and she decided to stay in the Bay Area getting her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley. Kathryn majored in Anthropology and minored in Business Administration while serving in leadership roles within the Cal Greek community and her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, where she remains active today as an advisor. Following graduation, she went to work for E&J Gallo Winery in their Management Development Program. After a number of sales and field marketing roles with Gallo in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles, Kathryn decided to pursue an MBA at Haas to expand on her business education and open up new career opportunities. The talented and diverse students and the particularly collaborative learning environment made Haas the ideal choice (proximity to the wine country didn’t hurt either!).
Kathryn’s current activities at Haas include serving as co-VP of Diversity for the Women in Leadership organization (along with fellow HSA Lissa Wilson), VP of Events for the Wine Club, and active involvement in the Marketing Club and Genearl Management & Strategy Club. When not on campus, Kathryn enjoys weekend getaways to Tahoe and the wine country as well as spending time with her husband Jeff and their friends and family in the Bay Area. This summer, Kathryn will be interning at E&J winery headquarters in their marketing group.
Born and raised in Taiwan, Ashley decided to explore America at the age of 20 and transfer from National Chung Chang University to Boston University. Despite the initial struggle and culture shock, she graduated with her BS degree majoring in Finance and Accounting in three years. Upon graduation, Ashley joined JP Morgan Chase as a corporate financial analyst for the North American Fixed Income Group. After 2 years of number crunching, she moved on to the Risk Management Group. There, Ashley developed her thick skin dealing with demanding traders on the daily basis. After almost 4 years in the banking industry, Ashley made a brave decision to move to the West Coast and join Haas. Ashley chose Haas not only due to the nicer weather, but because of the impressive individuals she met when visiting Haas. In addition to being a Haas Student Ambassador, Ashley is VP of Marketing for the Haas Consulting Club, VP of Entrant for the Global Social Venture Competition, and is very involved in Net Impact, Asian Business Conference, and her board fellowship program at an Oakland-based creative writing organization. Outside of school, Ashley enjoys running, going hiking with her classmates in the nearby mountains, sharpening her poor tennis playing skills, and finding great sushi, Indian, and Korean food in Berkeley.
Jon was born in the U.K. and raised in the Bay Area. He headed to the South for college to attend Emory University in Atlanta, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in international affairs and Spanish literature and a minor in economics. While at Emory, he interned at the Carter Center in their Latin America program and spent an amazing semester studying abroad in Seville, Spain. After graduating, Jon decided to truly head south and moved to Sydney, Australia. He worked for a manufacturing division of Vivendi in their IT department. After leaving Vivendi, Jon went exploring and spent six months traveling around Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. Feeling the call of the Bay Area, Jon returned home to San Francisco during the heart of the dotcom bust. He joined Bank of America where he spent 5 years in a series of management positions in the Consumer and Small Business Bank. Jon decided to go back to school to hone his business and leadership skills and gain a more diverse functional and industry skill set.
Jon was drawn to Haas by the quality of the education, the caliber of students, faculty and administrative staff and the intimate nature of the community as a whole. In addition to being a Haas Student Ambassador, Jon is involved with Net Impact, the Haas Consulting Club, the General Management and Strategy Club, Global Initiatives at Haas and the Board of Directors of Street Tech, a non-profit dedicated to providing economic opportunity to underserved communities. If you can’t find Jon in Berkeley, he is probably teaching his classmates the ins and outs of nightlife in San Francisco, tasting wine in the Napa Valley or escaping it all in Lake Tahoe.
In the summer, Jon will be participating in the International Business Development by doing a consulting project on ecotourism in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He will be doing his summer internship at Deloitte Consulting in their Strategy and Operations practice in San Francisco.
Lissa comes to Haas from the health care consulting field, where she spent five years with Triage Consulting Group in San Francisco and Atlanta. At Triage she helped open the firm’s Atlanta office and spearheaded corporate social responsibility activities. She also racked up elite status with seven frequent flyer programs while managing consulting projects with hospital clients around the country. At Haas Lissa is actively involved with Net Impact, the Haas Healthcare and BioBusiness Club, and Women in Leadership.The child of Peace Corps volunteers, Lissa took a sabbatical in 2006 to volunteer with farming cooperatives in Ghana and has traveled extensively in Africa, as well as visiting every other continent except for Antarctica (she avoids the cold despite hailing from Alaska). Her travels have inspired an interest in a potential career in international health or emerging markets.After a childhood spent in Alaska, California, Texas and Oregon, Lissa went to Stanford where she earned a bachelor’s in political science and a master’s in sociology with an emphasis on organizational behavior. As an undergraduate she studied abroad in Florence and Oxford and interned in Geneva with the United Nations. In her increasingly rare free time Lissa enjoys photography, San Francisco’s live music scene, and working with The Reading Tree, an early-literacy non-profit organization.
For the summer, Lissa will intern with Boston Consulting Group in San Francisco following a month in rural Zambia working on a cook stove project with the Haas International Business Development program.
Meet the Vice-President of Admissions for the MBA Association
You can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take the California out of the girl! Morgan grew up in the Bay Area and lived her first 17 years just minutes from the UC Berkeley campus. So when it came time for college she packed up and headed east to see what Williams College and Massachusetts had to offer. At Williams, Morgan earned a BA in Economics, played on the soccer team, ran track & field and volunteered at the local elementary school. Deciding that New England winters weren’t so bad after all, she stuck around after graduation and worked in Boston as a mergers and acquisitions analyst for investment bank Robertson Stephens. After a couple years there, Morgan switched gears and transitioned out of financial services into marketing where she could leverage her strategic and analytical skills in a more creative environment. For the next five years she worked for Circles, a concierge and affinity marketing services company, in both client development and product management roles. Outside the office, Morgan kept busy training for the Boston Marathon, remodeling her South End condo, playing flag football, adopting the Sox and Patriots as her new favorite sports teams and earning her foodie reputation at Boston’s great restaurants. Finally, after seven years of diverse professional experience, Morgan realized that marketing was her passion and decided to pursue an MBA to develop her leadership potential and explore opportunities in brand or marketing management. Now at Haas, Morgan is happy to be home in California near her family. She is excited to serve her peers as an MBAA Officer and enjoys interacting with prospectives and applicants as the Vice President of Admissions.
This summer Morgan will be exploring a career transition into high tech as a General Management Online Sales and Operations intern with Google. She lives in North Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto and enjoys running, road biking, discovering neighborhood eateries and planning her next adventure travel vacation.
