It’s no secret that some of the Wharton alumni community’s brightest stars are its recent graduates: movers, shakers, and difference-makers in every sector, from finance to entrepreneurship to artificial intelligence. To recognize this vital cohort — which Wharton affectionately calls Graduates of the Last Decade, or GOLD alumni — we’ve rounded up 10 trailblazers for a closer look at who they are, what they’ve already accomplished, and the Really Big Things they’ve set their sights on in the future.
From Philadelphia to Beijing, these alums from both the full-time and the Executive MBA programs represent fields as varied as fintech, fine arts, and green investments — with accolades spanning award-winning podcaster, Pulitzer Prize recipient, and, most recently, Super Bowl champ. Get to know these “10 Under 10” — and much like for the “40 Under 40” features we’re published in the past, be sure to drop us a line at magazine@wharton.upenn.edu with some GOLD nominations of your own. We’ll look to give them a shout-out on our letters page in the Fall/Winter 2025 edition.
The Consumer-Brands Builder
Stephanie Omo-Abu WG18, MBA
New York, USA
Senior brand manager, SirDavis American Whisky at Moët Hennessy USA
A Queen Bey Collaboration
Getting the chance to work on a project with two of the biggest names in pop music and luxury liquor doesn’t happen every day. “Building a brand from scratch is a rare and challenging opportunity,” Omo-Abu says of her efforts to launch SirDavis American Whisky from Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Moët Hennessy. “Doing it for a brand with such an iconic founder has been a dream.” As part of SirDavis’s founding team, Omo-Abu helped lead its launch strategy and roll out its marketing plan. Since the brand’s release last summer, she has continued to focus on elevating brand awareness, visibility, and more.
Branding Buff
On the elements that ignited her passion for consumer branding and marketing, Omo-Abu says, “I’ve always been fascinated by consumer psychology — specifically, the deep emotional connections people form with brands. It’s incredible how brands can become a badge of identity, shaping how consumers see themselves. As a child, I was captivated by Nike commercials. The perception of value and belief in a brand’s identity has always fascinated me.”
Opportunity in Disguise
Not receiving a return offer from the company where she completed her MBA internship changed Omo-Abu’s expectations about her career trajectory. “Returning for my second year without an offer was both humbling and terrifying,” she says. “I eventually landed a job, but it wasn’t the one I had envisioned. And while I didn’t love my first role after business school, it provided me with the brand-management training I needed to land the next opportunity [at Absolut Vodka] — the one that truly ignited my passion and launched my career in wine and spirits. That experience taught me that what feels like a setback is often just redirection.”
The Arts Advocate
Michael Greer WG21, Executive MBA
Seattle, USA
President and CEO of ArtsFund
Elevating Creative Expression
As the leader of ArtsFund — a backer of arts and cultural institutions in Washington state — Greer oversees its support of the arts through leadership, advocacy, and grant-making efforts. Since he started at the organization in 2020, ArtsFund has distributed more than $40 million. Greer is also president of the ArtsFund Foundation, a separate but supportive nonprofit that manages endowed funds. “Access to arts and culture has been proven to increase health and wellness for individuals and communities,” Greer says. “To know that you have played even a small part in improving the lives of others is something that I feel everyone should experience.”
Arts, Meet Business
Before he was a business leader, Greer spent many years as a ballet dancer. “My experience as a professional performing artist influences everything I do. Once you’re onstage, no matter what happens, you have to see it through,” Greer says. “This is similar to executive management in so many ways: You run scenarios, model projects, and try to plan for every possible situation, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to act.”
Facing Doubt Head-On
Greer recognizes that despite his accomplishments, he battles imposter syndrome. “Many leaders struggle silently with this issue, and I think it’s helpful for all of us to put it on the table. I identify as a person of color and as disabled. I use a powered wheelchair, and I am the first generation in my family to graduate college,” he says. “I’ve had to train myself to understand that the images of leadership that are often projected upon us are only one example of what a leader can look like.”
The Playmakers’ Mentor
Connor Barwin WG23, Executive MBA
Philadelphia, USA
Head of football development and strategy, Philadelphia Eagles
Building a Winning Team
An Eagles linebacker from 2013 to 2016, Barwin returned to the team five years ago as special assistant to the general manager. Now, in his current role, he works with members across the organization on development plans and processes for each member of the 53-man roster and takes part in assessing both current and prospective players. The latest addition to his résumé: a Super Bowl ring last February.
Getting Schooled
“I used to say my rookie year was the hardest year of my professional career, but my first year in business school was more challenging,” says Barwin. “Working for the Eagles and [general manager] Howie Roseman during the week and going to school on the weekends was the hardest thing I have ever done. I am proud and happy that I did it.”
Paying It Forward
Barwin started his Make The World Better Foundation in 2013, during his first season with the Eagles, aiming it at reinvigorating public spaces for recreation, sports, and art. The organization has since deployed more than $30 million in Philadelphia’s public spaces. “I grew up playing basketball in inner-city Detroit, and I’m the product of incredible coaches who gave up their time in a very challenging setting,” says Barwin. “When I signed with the Eagles, I wanted to do something to support those coaches, neighborhoods, and recreation leaders.”
Gridiron Wisdom
“A great coach once told me, ‘You know you are on a good team when the vets try to teach the rookies how to take their jobs.’ That line always stuck with me, and over the last 15 years, I’ve realized what it really means,” Barwin says. “The best people, teams, and organizations are made up of people who are humble enough to always keep learning but confident enough to always keep sharing.”
The AI Authority
Allie K. Miller WG17, MBA
New York, USA
CEO of Open Machine, Fortune 500 AI advisor
Power Play
The former global head of machine learning for startups and venture capital at Amazon Web Services took the leap into entrepreneurship in 2022. “I knew the next AI model after GPT-3 was going to be a big hockey-stick moment. The urge to quit my job and take the entrepreneurial route went from a poke to a push to a full-on punch,” says Miller. Today, she’s recognized as an AI expert by the Fortune 500 companies, enterprises, and startups she advises. Miller also invests in AI ventures, trains workforces worldwide, and along with her speaking engagements is an instructor in a new generative AI course offered by MasterClass that also features Wharton professor Ethan Mollick.
Crystal-Ball Predictions
Among the AI trends to watch this year, Miller points to advancements beyond chat interfaces — think AI voice modes and sharing your screen with problem-solving bots — and the rise of personal software. (“You’ll come to AI with a problem,” she says, “and it will code the specific solution right in front of you.”) And if you’re skeptical about AI hype, she says, it’s time to become a believer: “We’re in the largest business-model shift in our lifetimes. This is the one I need all Wharton grads to key into. Do not underestimate this moment.”
Reprogramming Her Reality
Miller recalls moving to New York after a three-year road trip with nothing but a suitcase in 2023: “My new apartment was empty. I cried on the floor, wondering if I had made the biggest mistake. When I complained to my therapist, she told me to think of my empty apartment as the world’s greatest dance floor. That weekend, I hosted a life-planning session and a workout class for friends right in my living room.” Miller subsequently built a GPT that systematically taught her how to reframe stressful situations. Reflecting on the hundreds of AI solutions she’s created — such as a personal board of advisors and a decision-making finance simulator — she says: “I feel like I built a new brain for myself. This just wasn’t possible three years ago.”
The Fintech Founder
Ren Hooi WG16, MBA
London, U.K.
Founder and CEO, Lightning Reach
Origin Story
“When I started my MBA at Wharton, my long-term goal was to become a social entrepreneur, but the moment it happened was almost a surprise,” says Hooi. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people around me lost their jobs or had to shut their businesses. I realized how many people in the U.K. were financially vulnerable and struggling yet unaware of support that may be available to them — or struggling to navigate complex application processes for a fragmented array of support schemes.”
Taking the Leap
Hooi founded Lightning Reach as a tech startup for good: It’s a financial-support portal that makes it easier for people in the U.K. to find and apply for charitable grants, benefits, support for bills, and other financial services. With more than 170,000 registered users, Lightning Reach partners with organizations to improve the services they offer for vulnerable people. “Having stumbled across a huge problem to solve, I felt I had to give it a shot despite the risks and uncertainties,” she says.
Defying the Odds
Among the greatest obstacles Hooi has overcome is getting investor buy-in. “As a solo female founder who also comes from a minority and immigrant background, raising the funding we needed was one of the toughest challenges,” she says. “Many investors also questioned our commercial potential as a social-impact business. We were fortunate to eventually raise one million pounds from a group of mission-aligned investors who believe in combining profit with purpose, but we faced lots of rejection along the way.”
What’s Next?
“Our main goal this year,” says Hooi, “is to grow the number of people helped by expanding our partnerships across the ecosystem of local government, housing, charity, utility, and financial-services providers.”
The Sustainable-Investments Champion
Suzanne Shaw WG20, Executive MBA
Beijing, China
Senior investment officer, Financial Institutions and Funds Clients department, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Laying Groundwork
At the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Shaw works with local and regional financial institutions to establish green infrastructure financing facilities. Her efforts have led to an expansion of electricity generated from renewable energy, clean cooking solutions, and more. This work “facilitates wider-scale adoption of green-infrastructure initiatives, improves productivity, and creates jobs,” says Shaw, who led AIIB’s first investments in sub-Saharan Africa. Projects have included providing businesses with greater access to finance to spur economic growth post-COVID in Rwanda, expanding clean-energy access, also in Rwanda, and supporting road infrastructure in rural areas of Côte d’Ivoire to make transportation and international trade more efficient. Recently, Shaw has been working to expand AIIB’s green-infrastructure investments in Latin America, starting with renewable-energy projects in Brazil.
Infrastructure in Action
“One of the most rewarding aspects of my work is being able to see the tangible impact, both in the physical infrastructure that AIIB’s financing has supported and in the lives of the beneficiaries of our projects,” Shaw says. “I can directly see the additional energy, transport, and other infrastructure resulting from my projects and hear, from speaking to people using the infrastructure services, how their lives have improved as a result.”
What to Watch
Among the trends she’s eyeing this year, Shaw emphasizes nature as infrastructure and nature-based solutions. The former is the premise that environmental systems such as wetlands, forests, and mangroves can be alternatives or complements to traditional infrastructure — for instance, in wastewater treatment, and protection against extreme weather — while also contributing to biodiversity and climate-change gains. As for nature-based solutions, think green roofs and urban gardens, which help with cooling and stormwater management. “There’s a lot of untapped potential in these areas,” says Shaw.
The Audience Architect
Dan Petty WG22, Executive MBA
Littleton, CO, USA
Director of audience strategy, ProPublica
Make Them Look
At ProPublica, Petty leads a 12-person team that aims to connect a diverse readership with the nonprofit investigative news organization’s content. The team’s responsibilities range from crafting headlines to curating email newsletters to adapting their journalism for social media. “Our team works with every story we publish in some capacity, which means we stay busy throughout the year,” says Petty.
Wharton Network in Action
“Last year, we scaled a social-video team by hiring two full-time social-video producers and published more short-form videos for audiences on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram that collectively amassed more than 13 million views — more than three times what we had done the previous year during our attempts at piloting the program with existing resources,” says Petty. “Before we moved ahead with the plan, we engaged one of the Wharton undergraduate consulting clubs to help us think about the market opportunity.”
Key Accolade
During his seven years at the Denver Post, Petty was part of the team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, CO. Petty was the paper’s social-media editor at the time. Among the many reasons the Pulitzer board noted for presenting the honor was the team’s use of social media to cover the event.
Force of Attraction
“One of my favorite classes at Wharton was David Pottruck’s [C70 WG72] Managing Organizational Change course. He emphasized the need to become a magnet for talent. Leading bold change requires bringing in people with specific skills and experiences, and finding those people needs to be deliberate and thorough,” Petty says. “Throughout the past three years, as we’ve added many people, I’ve really leaned into my many Wharton classes’ teachings on how to hire effectively.”
The Business-Buzz Podcaster
Nick Martell WG19, MBA
San Francisco, USA
Co-founder and co-host of The Best One Yet (TBOY) podcast
How It Started
Martell and his freshman-year college roommate, Jack Crivici-Kramer, became authorities in finance with the success of their MarketSnacks newsletter. Started as a passion project while they were both working in finance, it also led to TV spots and the launch of a podcast. The duo sold the newsletter and podcast to stock-trading app Robinhood in 2019.
How It’s Going
Independent podcasters again since 2022, Martell and Crivici-Kramer are serving up daily news with The Best One Yet, which combines pop-culture and business news in three essential stories. Last year, the show was recognized by the Webby Awards as the People’s Voice Winner for business podcasts. Also last year, Martell and Crivici-Kramer launched a weekly deep-dive show with podcasting platform Wondery called The Best Idea Yet. The series tells the stories behind such products as the McDonald’s Happy Meal, Birkenstocks, and Super Mario video games.
Tackling Tough Topics
“Being a show dedicated to brightness but also covering the news, we’ve had to address tragedies such as school shootings and the outbreak of war,” says Martell. “After we sold our podcast and newsletter to Robinhood, we had to navigate the GameStop crisis for an audience that demanded answers. Jack and I bring laughter, fun, and chemistry to every show, but we also stretch ourselves professionally to handle dark news moments with extreme care, candidness, and empathy.”
What’s On Deck
“Transporting our pop-culture business stories from the podcast to the big screen,” says Martell. Stay tuned for more.
The Tech-Products Trailblazer
Ileana Cheszes Berguig WG15, MBA
San Francisco, USA
Head of product immersions, Meta
Tech Trifecta
Berguig’s dynamic career has led her to tech powerhouses including Apple, Google, and Meta. “Working at Google was like being in a startup with a safety net,” she says. “Launching the first office in Santiago, Chile, taught me to be nimble and creative, wearing many hats across sales, strategy, marketing, and partnerships.” Her time at Apple as a product manager “was a shift from breadth to depth,” she says. “I honed my technical skills and mastered the art of ruthless prioritization. It was like going from being a generalist to a specialist, and I loved every minute of it.” Now, at Meta, Berguig leads a global team within product marketing that uncovers insights from advertisers on Meta’s platforms to inform product road maps and launch strategies.
Talent Cultivator
Throughout her career, Berguig has dedicated herself to mentoring aspiring changemakers, empowering young professionals to reach their full potential. “Leadership is about elevating others,” she says. “I’ve learned as much from my mentees as they have from me.” By supporting other Latinas and product leaders in tech, Berguig hopes to create a ripple effect of positive change.
Hang 10
Among the greatest obstacles she has overcome professionally, Berguig points to the challenges of staying flexible. “Adapting to rapid business changes is crucial in a dynamic environment like Meta,” she says. “Traditional strategic planning often falls short, so success lies in embracing change and adapting quickly. By accepting change as inevitable and honing my ability to spot opportunities, I’ve turned obstacles into growth and learning experiences. It’s like surfing: You can’t control the waves, but you can learn to ride them.”
The Digital-Transformation Expert
Claudia Olsson WG24, Executive MBA
Stockholm, Sweden
Founder and CEO, Stellar Capacity; board chair, SpeakCharlie
The Spark
“My passion for digital transformation was ignited early on when I witnessed technology’s potential to solve real-world challenges,” says Olsson, who founded Stellar Capacity in 2018 to teach leaders about utilizing digitalization in ways that will move their organizations forward. “Our mission is to train skills that robots can’t replace.” Her work with SpeakCharlie also empowers organizations, with language training for global communications.
The Impact
“My proudest accomplishment has been empowering over 200,000 professionals through our digital upskilling and leadership programs, webinars, and seminars,” says Olsson. “In an era of rapid technological acceleration, we’re not just teaching skills — we’re enabling people to lead with technology rather than being led by it.” Olsson’s work has earned her recognition as a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, among other accolades, and has made her an in-demand speaker on exponential technologies, future trends, leadership, and governance across the globe.
Eye-Opening Experience
“Becoming a managing director in my 20s — and moving from Sweden to Southeast Asia to establish the first office in the region for my employer at that time — was incredibly challenging,” says Olsson. “Taking on such a significant leadership role meant navigating complex business dynamics and cultural nuances that stretched my capabilities daily. The experience taught me lasting lessons about adaptability, managing a multinational team, and resilient leadership — insights that continue to shape how I approach transformation initiatives today.”
Sharp Advice
“My mentors have encouraged me to nurture my natural curiosity — to ask questions and discover new possibilities — but also to follow my intuition,” says Olsson. “They have also taught me that one’s ability to change is a great measure of intelligence — a truth that becomes more vital as adaptability emerges as one of the most crucial skills for our rapidly changing world.”
Published as “GOLD Standard” in the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Wharton Magazine.
