Babson’s Graduates Remember the People Who Inspired Them
During his time at Babson, Gautam Rana MBA’25 often found himself amazed by his classmates. They were an adventurous group, both inside and outside the classroom, always seeming to push themselves, to accept challenges, to take risks.
Rana knew classmates who ran marathons and took bicycle treks of hundreds of miles, who enrolled in classes far beyond their prior experiences, who were not content to stay in their so-called lane. They took what he calls a “zig-zag approach” to their studies and their lives.
“Everyone is trying and doing new things,” Rana says. “That is inspiring. The sheer energy in my class is amazing.”
Rana was one of the many graduates who took part in Babson’s Commencement last Saturday. As they gathered in the Len Green Recreation and Athletics Complex, wearing their caps and gowns and waiting to march to the ceremony, they reflected on the people who supported and inspired them. Their stories tell of the professors, family, and community who walked beside them on their Babson journeys.
Thinking of Professors
Many graduates were remembering professors who raised them up and made them think about subjects in a new way.
When Defne Yildirim ’25 took a core course on operations management, she wondered why it needed to be a required class. The enthusiasm that Bojan Amovic, an associate professor of practice, brought to the topic changed her mind. His course even made Yildirim debate switching her concentration. “He opened my eyes,” she says. “Now, I think this is a key thing for success in every company. I didn’t know that.”
Chuck Giroux MBA’25 actually did switch his concentration after taking an accounting class with Bob Halsey, a professor of accounting, who is retiring this year. Giroux went from being inexperienced (“I hadn’t done anything with finance or numbers,” he says) to excelling.
“I get this, and I’m pretty good at it,” Giroux remembers thinking, as Halsey’s class ultimately led him to concentrate in finance. “It’s changing the course of my career.”
Finn Sunde ’25 praised the energy of Vincent Onyemah, professor of marketing and chair of the Marketing Division, as he taught about sales. Sunde runs a trading business, so talking to potential customers is a big part of his work. Onyemah helped him understand something fundamental about sales.
“It’s more about listening than talking,” Sunde says. “It’s about understanding what (customers) need and figuring out if I can actually help them.”
Alexandra Nunn ’25 also was inspired by Onyemah. She’s the first to admit she’s quite shy, so when he took a moment to single her out during one of her first classes, it made an impact. “You are going to do great things. I know it,” Nunn recalls Onyemah telling her. The moment stuck with her, providing a boost of confidence and laying the foundation for her undergraduate academic career.
Onyemah continued to inspire Nunn as she became more interested in sales, and they worked together to create Babson’s first sales concentration. She is now one of the first students to graduate with that concentration. “It’s a full circle moment,” Nunn says. “I’m excited to celebrate it.”
A self-described introvert, Emily Stouch ’25 has long been passionate about writing. “It’s a great way for me to express who I truly am,” she says. In a fiction writing class taught by Mary O’Donoghue, professor of English, Stouch found someone who takes her work as seriously as she does. O’Donoghue has offered Stouch constructive criticism and advice on where to publish her stories. “She really listened to me,” Stouch says.
Before coming to Babson, Asri Wijayanti MBA’25 successfully ran her own business back home in Indonesia, a fashion company focused on empowering local tailors, but she often fixated on a deficiency she had in her accounting skills. “I felt like I was stupid with numbers,” she says. “I felt like I was failing because of that. I thought, ‘I’m not good as a leader.’ ”
Brigitte Muehlmann, who was honored as the Thomas Kennedy Professor of the Year at the graduate Commencement ceremony, pushed back against that thinking. Wijayanti took the accounting professor’s core class in the subject. “You are a leader,” the professor assured her, and leaders don’t need to know everything. Rather, they must understand their limitations and find help to address them. “She changed my mindset,” Wijayanti says.
A Community Filled with Entrepreneurial Spirit
In addition to Babson’s professors, graduates mentioned how emboldened they felt by the College’s welcoming community and its entrepreneurial spirit.
Julieta Surrentini MBA’25 comes from the world of engineering, an environment that seeks clear-cut answers and isn’t comfortable with ambiguity. “It’s either right or wrong,” she says. “It is very black and white.” Entrepreneurs, by contrast, aren’t afraid of uncertainty, a mentality that Surrentini relished at Babson. “It made me want to do my own thing and go for it,” she says. “I was thinking of ideas and thinking maybe I can do them.”
A first-generation student from Dallas, Karla Pesina ’25 was fighting culture shock and homesickness as she first drove onto Babson’s Wellesley campus. “I was so scared when I showed up,” she says. “It felt like I was thousands and thousands of miles from home. I thought, ‘No. Nope. I need to go back.’ ”
It didn’t take her long, however, to meet fellow first-generation colleagues, who inspired her to stay at Babson. Their support and drive pushed her outside her comfort zone. “What inspired me the most was being surrounded by a community of really driven people,” Pesina says. “It was easy to get motivated, and everyone was always encouraging me to pursue my goals.”
That community also supported Pesina’s friend, Heidy Magaña ’25, another first-generation student from Texas. Magaña joined Babson’s first-generation student-run Semillas Society and later founded the special-interest housing community First-Gen Living.
“I feel like we’re very resilient and we care about each other,” Magaña says. “So even if we don’t really know each other very well, we still support each other, and I think that’s very inspiring.”
Dien Cao MBA’25 was thinking of one member of the Babson community in particular, Richard Kimball ’64, who served on Babson’s Board of Trustees for decades. Kimball spoke at Cao’s orientation, describing the entrepreneurial journey as one fueled by purpose and unwavering commitment.
Cao had decided to get his MBA because he wanted to take his career to the next level. After COVID-19, however, personal challenges slowed his studies to a crawl, limiting him to just a class or two here and there.
That’s when he remembered Kimball’s speech. Something clicked. “It inspired me to commit to finish getting my degree,” Cao says. He resumed a full course load with renewed focus. Over the next 18 months, Cao accelerated his program and finished what he started.
Can’t Forget Mom and Dad
Naturally, family was also on the mind of graduates. Ikechukwu Ubah MBA’25 has met many great professors and students at Babson, but as he reflected on this time in his life, waiting for Commencement to begin, his mind drifted to his father and the sacrifices he made to raise Ubah and his two siblings. “I want to give a nod to him,” Ubah says.
A single dad and an immigrant from Nigeria, his father worked long hours as a clinical engineer at a hospital to support his family. Ubah wants to live up to that sacrifice. His Babson degree is an educational milestone for his family. “This is the farthest anyone in my family has gone,” he says.
Jacqueline Semerly ’25 also thought of family, specifically her mother. “She’s the entrepreneur that inspired me to come here,” she says. “She’s the one that started it all.”
Semerly was a teenager when her mother opened a business in Lansing, Michigan, selling holistic spa equipment. “I remember watching that unfold and watching her become her own boss. She’s such a strong lady,” Semerly says. “It was really inspiring, and it made me think, ‘I need to do that. I want to be my own boss. I want to be like her.’ ”
Her mom isn’t just her inspiration—she’s also Semerly’s mentor, her partner, and a prime example of a successful woman entrepreneur. Even before she started at Babson, Semerly learned the entrepreneurial ropes at her mother’s business, handling logistics, operations, and data strategy.
After graduation, Semerly will work at her mother’s business while keeping an eye open for future ventures. “I’m always a side hustler,” she says. “I get things done.”
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