Jarrett Wright, EWMBA ‘22 - Leveraging Your Resources and Network

Episode #34: In this 34th episode of OneHaas, hosts Sean and Ray talk to current EWMBA student Jarrett Wright (‘22). They discuss his upbringing, background in real estate, his time in prison, and how he has been making the most of his time at Haas.

Episode Highlights:

• Jarrett also went to Berkeley for his undergrad and majored in Rhetoric. He knew from the start that he eventually wanted an MBA.
• He founded a real estate company when he was 19 and earned his first million within 30 months, ran the company for about a decade, but was wiped out in the 2008 crash.
• In his desperation to avoid financial ruin, he made choices that landed him in federal prison for 18 months.
• While living in a halfway house, he went back to school and worked with no computer, writing essays on his cell phone and graduated with a 3.98 GPA.
• Jarrett began the Umoja-UBAKA community for black students on campus at Laney College.
• Jarrett knew Haas was the right fit for him because of the empathy and values embedded in the curriculum. He is using his time at Haas to identify/fill gaps in his weaknesses, as well as articulating his strengths.
• Jarrett has been making extensive use of the CMG department (Career Management Group) to leverage the infrastructure and network at Haas.
• Jarrett founded and is currently the CEO of a company called Higher Rewards to give branded credit cards to the constituents of smaller community organizations and religious groups to compensate for the downturn in donations they’re seeing.

3 Key Points:

1. You don’t need to have it all figured out before coming in. Over 40% of incoming students classify themselves as explorers, whose goals are to find their “north star”.
2. Haas students are eager to share their knowledge and experience with each other, and this openness and generosity is reflected both inside and outside the classroom.
3. Make use of your cohort, other cohorts, and any/all resources on campus; there are over 1,500 MBA students between the different classes/programs and plenty of faculty/staff. The MBA is what you make of it.

Tweetable Quotes

• “If you ask me what’s your favorite seasoning & all I know is salt or pepper, then I’m either gonna pick salt or pepper. But what if I don’t know about sriracha or curry? I don't know to pick these things as options. That’s been my campaign all the way through.” –Jarrett Wright
• “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” –Jarrett Wright