Are you familiar with the famous MBA alumni in tech?
The names at the top of major corporations boast diverse and impressive resumes. They’ve founded companies, networked with household names and generated strategies that have changed the face of business. There is, however, one thing that these people have in common; one point that crops up time and time again amongst the lengthy lists of accomplishments.
For many of these leaders, it all started with an MBA: the degree that laid the foundations of success for some of the biggest names in business.
We’re kicking off this series about famous MBA alumni with a look at tech & social media, but stay tuned for more industries as we’ll introduce you to the MBA holders that are leading the corporations of the U.S., discuss where they went, what they studied and how it got them where they are today.
Famous MBA Alumni: Tech & Social Media
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Chicago Booth MBA Class of 1997
Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft on February 4th, 2014. The third person to occupy the role, Nadella is credited with weathering many a storm at the company’s helm, with facilitating a shift towards cloud computing, and with multiplying the revenue of the Server and Tools Division by several billion within only a couple of years. Some of these impressive achievements were executed in his pre-CEO role as the Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, some in his position as CEO, and all of them made massive impacts on the company’s success.
Nadella’s educational background is no less impressive, with three degrees on his resume and demonstrable commitment across the board. He gained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University, a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and then, wishing to bolster his technical ability with better business understanding, he earned an MBA in Business Organization from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1997. Across the two years of his MBA he was based in Seattle, not Chicago, a detail that led to a rather remarkable arrangement whereby he would fly from one city to the other in order to attend classes – every weekend for two years. The effort clearly paid off.
These days, Nadella serves on the board of trustees to the site of his MBA, the University of Chicago.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Duke Fuqua MBA Class of 1988
Like many of the companies in this series, Apple needs little introduction. A household name and the creator of over a billion peoples’ smartphones, the company has inarguable influence across the world.
At its head is Tim Cook. Cook’s resume is selective and impressive: he grew up in Robertsdale, Alabama, graduated from Auburn University with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, and shortly after served 12 years as the North American Fulfillment Director of IBM, where he earned his MBA in Finance from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He remained at IBM until 1988, where a pivotal career move brought him to Apple as the Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations, a position from which he climbed the rungs to COO and finally to CEO in 2011. Cook made waves across his Apple tenure, at one point rapidly cutting company costs and boosting profits by closing Apple’s factories and warehouses and replacing them with contract manufacturers.
Cook’s success can be easily traced back through his career, in particular to his MBA at Duke. Here, he graduated as a Fuqua Scholar, an honor given only to students in the top 10% of their class. The influence of his time there exceeded academic impact; Bill Boulding (a former teacher of Cook) claimed in 2015 that it was actually “Tim who taught me” during his time at Duke, passing on wise advice to narrow down priorities in order to achieve success and “have three things that you’re focused on, at most four.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, The Wharton School MBA Class of 2002
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Sundar Pichai grew up in Madras. The stories of his early life include cramped living rooms and shared sleeping quarters, but highlight an emphasis on one important thing: education. Pichai credits his father with ensuring that he received a good education that allowed his blossoming interest in technology to grow. As a result, he went on to earn a degree in Metallurgy – which in turn awarded him a scholarship place at Stanford University to complete an M.S. in engineering and materials science – which then led him to pursue an MBA at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in business strategy and operations management. Pichai proved himself to be no ordinary student, and was recognized throughout his time at Wharton for outstanding academic achievement and leadership, named as both a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar.
With such an impressive academic record, it’s no surprise the Pichai’s 2004 induction to Google was followed by a swift rise through the ranks, an inundation of competitive offers from Twitter and Microsoft, and large rewards from Google to remain in their service. Throughout his time at Google, Pichai is credited with pivotal roles in both the development of the Chrome browser and the negotiation of the $3.2 billion acquisition of NestLabs, while also winning the Global Leadership award in 2019 and the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India in 2022.
A little known fact about Pichai? He stepped into his first role at Google on none other than April Fool’s Day, a day that also happened to mark the launch of Gmail to the world.
Susan Wojcicki, Former CEO of YouTube, UCLA Anderson MBA Class of 1998
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Any online profile of Susan Wojcicki details her first, rather wacky, encounter with Google. The year was 1998, she was laying the foundation for her career in tech, and, crucially, she had space in her garage. She ended up renting this space to Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the two founders of Google who used their new “office” to develop their new search engine. The move, paired with what turned out to be her incredible impressive knowledge, won her a spot as Google’s 16th employee and their first marketing manager in 1999. Her time at Google was varied and influential, and she spearheaded the debut of features such as AdWords added fuel to the flames of the company’s growth. Her biggest move was the development of GoogleVideo in 2005, a development that led to the purchase of YouTube by Google and the resultant naming in Wojcicki as its CEO in 2014. The site is now worth an estimated $90 billion, after being purchased by Google for $1.65 billion ten years prior.
Wojcicki’s MBA is a plot point in the graph of her deep and varied education, one that ranged from history and literature at Harvard University, economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and finally the MBA at the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management. Perhaps most impressive in her list of academic and professional accomplishments is her advocacy for female representation in tech. Having been ranked as No. 13 in Forbes Power Women 2020, she uses her position to raise up other women alongside her, maintaining that “tech is an incredible force that will change our world in ways we can’t anticipate. If that force is only 20% to 30% women, that is a problem.”
Sheryl Sandberg, Former COO of Facebook, Harvard Business School Class of 1995
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Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg met at a Christmas party in 2007. Zuckerberg had no plans to hire a COO, Sandberg had no aims to apply for one, and yet the party laid the groundwork for Sanberg’s appointment as that very role at Facebook just a few months later.
Looking at Sandberg’s list of achievements, it’s not tricky to imagine a world in which she managed to influence the founder of Facebook in such a dramatic way. Named repeatedly by Forbes as one of the World’s most powerful women, she is often described as bringing the business talent to Zuckerberg’s engineering vision. No doubt some of that business ability was fostered during her MBA, which she completed at Harvard Business School in 1995, earning a fellowship in her very first year and graduating with the highest distinction. The connections she made at Harvard formed a network that would serve her throughout her career; studying both her undergraduate degree and her MBA there, she connected with Larry Summers, the economist who would later hire her as his Chief of Staff in the US Treasury Department.
