2 Carlson MBA Graduates among Poets and Quants’ 50 Best and Brightest of 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Graduating Full-Time MBA students Tim O’Neil and Alyssa Callister were named to Poets & Quants' Best of the Class of 2015 list by demonstrating academic prowess, leadership in extracurricular activities, and personal excellence.
Poets & Quants accepted more than 100 nominations from 60 top-ranked full-time global MBA programs. The 50 students who make up the list are a diverse group of emerging professionals that come from a variety of backgrounds.
Alyssa Callister
Alyssa Callister, ’15 MBA, arrived at the Carlson School with a wealth of work experience. At 20, she founded an international non-profit that brought technology education initiatives to Eastern Africa. Within the first year, the organization grew to $100K in capital through seed grants and fundraising efforts. From there, she turned her attention to the private sector and started at Goldman Sachs as an equity derivative analyst. Given her lack of finance experience, Callister studied up on the industry and asked plenty of questions, eventually becoming one of the highest performing members of her team.
As an MBA student, she participated in the Elite Eight competition and the Carlson Consulting Enterprise, and excelled in her classes.
“Alyssa is a truly remarkable student. Whenever there is a more challenging question to address during a case discussion, I can see from the corner of my eye that Alyssa’s sharp mind has formed an opinion. I can always count on her to invigorate the argument. She is brilliant, respected by her peers, thoughtful, and innovative in her thinking,” says Supply Chain and Operations Professor Enno Siemsen.
Callister will join McKinsey as an associate after graduation.
Tim O’Neil
Tim O’Neil, ’15 MBA, is a Marine Corps veteran and burgeoning entrepreneur. Helped in part by his participation in the STARTUP class , he co-launched Fidelis Co., a company that makes packs, bags, and accessories based on military components.
O’Neil further developed the business throughout the Carlson Ventures Enterprise—an experiential learning program that challenges students to research, validate, and implement new business concepts using entrepreneurial best practices and methodologies.
After graduation, he plans to leverage the success of a recent Kickstarter campaign to grow the venture.
According to his nominators, O’Neil’s successes have made him a role model for other veterans in the Carlson MBA program.
“Tim has been an inspiration to the students around him, most certainly the entrepreneurial minded risk takers that came to our school to leverage new business start-up programming. With his singular focus on Fidelis Co., Tim and his partner have introduced to the student body an ‘all for one, one for all’ mentality,” says one nominator.