Bree Jenkins, FTMBA ’19 - Underrepresentation, Diversity, How We Can Do More at Haas, and Industrial Engineering at Disney

Episode #24: Bree Jenkins, industrial engineer extraordinaire, of the FTMBA ’19 class starts from humble roots in the Midwest. She later moved to Georgia with her family to attend high school and college at Georgia Tech. She pursued her passion for math and science which lead her to a career in industrial engineering. Bree fires up while talking about her work at Disney World and for the Disney Cruise Lines in Florida, where she helped manage everything from the logistics of thousands of costumes to the planning of cruise ship renovations. We then talk about the 900-lb gorilla in the room, how despite diversity efforts at Haas and through programs such as the Consortium, there is still a severe underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic, and Native American students in MBA programs. Bree speaks candidly about the courage required to join a program where you are severely underrepresented and is unreflective of the general population. I ask her on advice for underrepresented students who may be sitting on the fence, students who may have been accepted to Haas but may choose another school where they feel better represented. We hear how Bree has been involved at Haas serving as the leadership of multiple clubs and serving on the student board for the Center of Equity, Gender, and Leadership. We top off with Bree sharing with us her exciting path ahead, post-graduation, as the Head of Operations at Hayward Collegiate, a community-backed K-6 charter school opening at the end of Summer. She is already helping brainstorm and plan how to make the learning environment more fun for both the kids and the teachers.