About us

Read more about the Yale SOM students on our trip.  In true SOM fashion, we're a diverse group with interests and experiences that span multiple sectors.

Cliff Emmanuel is a second year MBA student from New York City. He is interested in the intersection of technology and urban development and spent the past summer working in product marketing at Google in Mountain View, CA. Prior to Yale SOM, Cliff was a Consultant in the Bridgespan Group’s New York office. In addition to working on strategy projects for U.S.-based educational organizations and foundations, he also managed the measurement and evaluation for Goldman Sach's 10,000 Women initiative which included a program at Indian School of Business. He also worked on the business plan for Bridgespan's initial expansion into India. Prior to joining Bridgespan, Cliff was an analyst at McKinsey and Company in New York. Cliff graduated from Harvard in 2006 with a B.A. in Social Studies and was a 2006-7 Harvard-Yenching Fellow at Peking University.

Chris Harnisch is a student at the Yale School of Management and Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he is pursuing a joint MBA and Master’s in International Relations. At Yale, Chris leads the university’s Student Veterans Council. Immediately prior to attending Yale, Chris served as an Army officer on NATO’s counter-corruption task force during a 14-month deployment to Afghanistan. Previous to his active duty military commitment, Chris worked on the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researched and wrote about al Qaeda’s emerging safe havens, focusing especially on those in Yemen and Somalia. Chris also spent two years working at the White House on the staff of the Vice President. He has published pieces on foreign policy in numerous publications,including The Wall Street Journal, Middle East Journal, and National Review Online, and he has appeared as a guest analyst on various public panels and television and radio broadcasts. Chris graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in International Studies. Conversant in Arabic, Chris has lived and studied in Egypt and Yemen.

Anita Jivani graduated from Vanderbilt University with a dual degree in Human & Organizational Development and Spanish Language & Literature. Anita’s interest in public-private partnerships led her to study the role of business in transforming politic and social relationships through the Fulbright Scholarship in Mexico. She spent three years working on cross-sector consulting projects with organizations such as Walmart, World Bank, and the US Olympics Committee primarily in USA and Latin America. Before coming to Yale, she spent time assessing strategic business issues with a social enterprise start-up in Kenya and provided independent consulting services to Nestle Brazil’s Shared Value department. She is focusing her time at Yale understanding best practices for using management skills for social good. Anita hopes to use these skills to continue her work in socially-minded business in emerging markets, with a strong interest in Asia.

Jeff Kim is a second year MBA candidate at the Yale School of Management. Prior to Yale, he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a mergers and acquisitions accounting advisor and is a Certified Public Accountant. Jeff interned in investment banking at Citigroup and will return to the firm upon graduation. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in accounting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tiffany Morris is a second year MBA student who is passionate about responsible business and social innovation. Prior to business school, she worked at Ashoka, an organization that funds social entrepreneurs around the world, on its Strategic Partnerships team. Before Ashoka, Tiffany’s first job after studying International Relations at Stanford University was with the National Council for Crime and Delinquency, where she was a Research Assistant on city policy related to youth gang crime. Between her first and second years of business school, Tiffany interned at the Chicago office of McKinsey & Company. 

Rohit Nayak is a second year MBA student at Yale School of Management. Prior to Yale, he worked for four years as a management consultant in India and was also a part-time teacher at a local non-profit. He started off at a boutique healthcare consulting firm based out of New Delhi, and after two years transitioned to KPMG’s advisory practice. He graduated from Delhi College of Engineering in the year 2009. He is really interested in technology and healthcare industries, and roles that involve solving challenging business issues. At SOM, he co-leads the South Asian Business Forum, and is planning to organize the first of its kind Yale SOM India Conference. He would love to speak more about the conference and seek guidance.

Laura Onelio is a second year MBA student from Michigan. She is interested in the intersection of design and innovation and social entrepreneurship. Prior to Yale SOM, Laura worked in a variety of different functions across education and healthcare. She began her career in healthcare, first as a research fellow for a national study of bipolar disorder at the National Institutes of Health and then as an analyst at a consulting firm called The Advisory Board Company. Laura then transitioned to education, serving as the right hand to the Executive Director of a public charter school, where she led strategic planning for a number of initiatives including opening a 400-student high school and launching a new technology platform. She also taught eighth grade math with Teach For America. This summer, Laura worked at Deloitte Human Capital and she will be starting at a strategy and innovation firm called Innosight upon graduation. Laura graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Psychology.

Disha Patel is a 2nd year MBA student at SOM (originally from Vadodara, Gujarat). She is interested the intersection of business and economic development. Before SOM, Disha was in Indiana and Minnesota working in Manufacturing and Energy at Cummins Inc. She did her summer internship at Amazon (Music group) in Seattle. During her first year at SOM she helped organize the MBA Innovation Summit, was a part of Global Social Enterprise Philippines and was an undergraduate teaching fellow. She is currently the co-leader of Business and Politics club, Yale World Fellow Affiliate and SOM TA. Disha graduated from Purdue University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Economics and she has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Post SOM, Disha will be joining the Boston Consulting Group in Sydney, Australia.

Hugo Santillan was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York. He graduated magna cum laude from Pace University. He is an alumnus of the non-profit organizations Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), and a current Fellow of the Robert Toigo Foundation. From 2007-2012 he worked as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers and Barclays in the technology, media and telecommunication group where he completed ~$45 billion of closed transactions. Motivated to better understand our nation’s education system, he left the finance industry to complete a ten-month fellowship with Education Pioneers – a non-profit funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At Yale SOM Hugo serves as Senator on Student Government.

Irina Santillan is a Research Director at GfK, a marketing research firm. She is part of the Market Opportunities & Innovation team and focuses on healthcare. In her role, Irina oversees strategic research engagements like market segmentation and market opportunity assessments. In her spare time Irina enjoys training for marathons and learning the violin. Irina is originally from the Ukraine and lived in New York City prior to moving to New Haven with her husband (who is a second year student at Yale SOM).

Derek Wang is a second year MBA student, originally from Dallas, TX. He is interested in impact investing and the role of business in helping to tackle some of society's most challenging problems, especially in the field of education. Derek worked at PepsiCo in their Corporate Strategy (Beverages) group this summer, and after graduation, Derek will be joining The Parthenon Group in New York City. Prior to matriculating to Yale SOM, Derek was at Kobre & Kim LLP, a global boutique law firm specializing in financial litigation and white collar crime. Derek graduated from the University of Virginia in 2009 with a B.S. in Commerce and a minor in Economics.

Joanne Wong is a second-year MBA student from Boston. She is interested in using technology to harness and empower growth in the public sector, and interned as a marketing manager in Microsoft's Healthcare team this past summer. Prior to Yale SOM, Joanne worked in a variety of organizations in the private and non-profit sectors, first at a government consulting firm, where she focused on business process improvement for social welfare programs such as food stamps and disability income, and then at the National Tourism Office in Mali, West Africa, where she served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. She also analyzed district- and state-wide data for education reform initiatives. At Yale, she is helping to organize the Yale Philanthropy Conference and lead Global Social Enterprise. Joanne graduated from Wellesley College with a dual degree in Economics and East Asian Studies.

Kelly Xu is an MBA candidate at the Yale School of Management from Shanghai, China. She is interested in the intersection between business and environment. During her time at the Supply Chain Sustainability Group at EMC, she worked on conflict minerals and supplier social and environmental responsibility. Her projects included establish relationships with smelters and refiners in China to encourage participation in the Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative; and engaged with suppliers to enhance their sustainability practices. Prior to business school, Kelly also worked briefly at the Chinese government and investment banking. She hopes to learn more about Indian culture and business environment through this trip. Kelly graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. In Economics and spent a year abroad at the London School of Economics.

Lina Zhao is a second year MBA student with a background in the technology industry. She worked in China before Yale SOM and gained insights into Chinese internet industry while working at Baidu and Tencent. Also this year she started working with an American online education company on its Asian expansion. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and she hopes to get to know more about the Indian business environment through this trip.