When Brian Rozental graduates this May with an MBA from UConn, his degree will not be the only accomplishment he’s added to his resume during his time in graduate school. During the past two years, he has been involved in club activities, experiential learning, and overseas opportunities.
Rozental graduated cum laude from The George Washington University with a BA in international affairs. But after working with various business endeavors, he discovered a new passion and decided to pursue an MBA.
Rozental carried that passion to the UConn MBA program. From the beginning of his studies in 2008, he became active in MBA clubs, holding officer roles. He was co-chair and a founding member of both the CIBER (Center for International Business Education and Research) International Business Roundtable and the UConn chapter of the MBA Net Impact Club, a national organization of up-and-coming business leaders promoting social and environmental sustainability.
The UConn MBA program is distinguished by its experiential learning opportunities. Rozental has taken full advantage of these. He worked at the Innovation Accelerator, where students assist entrepreneurial ventures with go-to-market strategies. He also developed a computer-based patent valuation and portfolio management model for General Electric (GE) Global Research while working at edgelab, a partnership between the School of Business and GE at UConn Stamford.
Currently, Rozental is working with the School’s newest learning accelerator, SCOPE (Sustainable Community Outreach and Public Engagement), developing business sustainability for Special Olympics International. He recently returned from Puerto Rico, where he and his student colleagues attended the Second Annual Latin American Games and conducted in-depth interviews with Special Olympics stakeholders.
“Every one of these experiences has given me direct exposure to senior management, and the work my teams did was acknowledged in each case as transformative for the respective organization,” says Rozental.
Puerto Rico was only one MBA travel opportunity for Rozental. He participated in an intersession abroad at EM Lyon (Ecole de Management de Lyon) in France, one of Europe’s most prestigious business schools. And shortly after graduation, he will travel to Japan to work with a team of other MBA students on a CIBER-sponsored consulting project for a Japanese company.
Rozental plans to return to Washington, D.C. and pursue a career in non-profit and social entrepreneurship and, eventually, his Ph.D.
