Chicago Booth School of Business recently recognized six outstanding MBA students who demonstrated leadership in entrepreneurship, venture capital, or private equity during their time at school.
The annual Student Entrepreneurship Awards have varying eligibility requirements and monetary prizes. For most awards, Booth entrepreneurship faculty and staff members from the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation nominate students and vote for the winners.
The 2024 Student Entrepreneurship Award winners are:
Christine Shtepani // Madison Dearborn Partners Private Equity Award // $2,000
This award is given to graduating students who have demonstrated leadership in the PE programming at Chicago Booth.
Christine grew up in Austria, Albania, and Canada, before moving to Houston, Texas, in high school. She graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Economics and an M.A. in International Economics and Development before starting her career in investment banking at J.P. Morgan. Prior to Booth, Christine worked at The Sterling Group, a middle-market private equity fund based in Houston. While at Booth, Christine served as a Private Equity Group co-chair, and was primarily responsible for career and recruitment programming. She was also on the winning team selected to represent Booth at the Oxford Global PE Challenge, where the team successfully brought home the win for Booth. Christine was actively involved in private equity programming while at Booth, completing internships through the Private Equity Lab, and serving as a TA for PE Lab and Cases in Financial Management during her second year. Following graduation, Christine will be joining Water Street Healthcare Partners as a Vice President on the Investment team.
Michelle Cao // Hyde Park Angels Venture Capital Award // $2,000
This award recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated leadership in venture capital through the courses he or she has taken by participating in VC programming.
Michelle is originally from the Metro Detroit area and grew up in Shanghai for nine years. She attended Northwestern University for college, majoring in Economics and minoring in Computer Science. She joined Deloitte as a consultant in the Chicago office and found her niche serving healthcare providers and payer clients on technology strategy projects spanning data analytics dashboard design, AI/ML use case prototyping, and business case development for key IT investments. After 4 years in consulting, she interned at Verily Life Sciences in a product marketing role to build her operational experience before heading to Chicago Booth to further explore roles in healthcare innovation through an investor lens. At Booth, Michelle has been involved with the Polsky Center as a George Shultz Innovation Fund Associate, serves as a mentor/coach as a Venture Capital Career Advisor, organizes well-being programming for the student body as a Wellness Fellow, and has also completed VC internships with Sands Capital and OCA Ventures. Michelle has earned concentrations in Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Accounting, and she will be joining OCA Ventures on the healthcare team upon graduation. Outside of her professional and academic activities, she enjoys rock climbing, yoga, and teaching new tricks to her mini goldendoodle.
Mittul Patel // Rattan L. Khosa, ’79, Against All Odds Award // $2,500
This annual award is presented to a graduating student who has overcome significant hurdles and demonstrated a spirit of entrepreneurship in launching his or her business.
Mittul was born in India but grew up in many places around the U.S., including Michigan, Mississippi, Kentucky, Philadelphia, and most recently Los Angeles. He attended the University of Kentucky to study Biology and Philosophy before getting his Master’s in Medical Sciences at Drexel University. Growing up in an immigrant family of small business entrepreneurs, Mittul was always drawn to starting his own business. So, after graduation he started a media agency in Philadelphia that operated for over three years. The challenge and fulfillment he found in these experiences made certain that the entrepreneurial path was right for him. Mittul came to Booth to further build a business toolkit and to launch a startup while in school. Outside of the classroom, he has found many opportunities to learn, engage, and give back at Booth, including being the EVC co-chair, Boxing Club co-chair, and an NVC finalist. Along the way, programming funded by Rattan Khosa and staff support from Polsky have been integral in his experiences.
“When people think of entrepreneurship, they often think of just the solo founder, but they don’t see the support network that goes behind entrepreneurs success,” said Patel. “The Booth experience has been one of support, from other students, professors, donors, and colleagues, each helps provide the programming that allows entrepreneurs to pursue the things that they want. This is the type of environment that I’ve always looked for and Booth has provided it to me. Any success that I have, and the success that other entrepreneurs here have, is because of that environment.”
Shreya Kalva // Moulder Student Entrepreneur Award // $2,000
This award recognizes a graduating student who has successfully launched or grown a venture while completing his or her coursework.
Shreya graduated from the University of Chicago in 2017 with a B.A. in Economics and a minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies. She spent the first five years of her career working in economic consulting at Cornerstone Research and as a consultant for a healthcare startup. She joined Booth as a Booth Scholar in 2022 with the goal of immersing herself into the world of entrepreneurship. In her first quarter, she excitedly took the class Entrepreneurial Discovery taught by Professor Mark Tebbe; it was in this class that she met two cofounders to build a new venture focused on amplifying South Asian fashion in the broader U.S. community, called Zaars. The team of three took Zaars into the 2023 New Venture Challenge (NVC) accelerator program, where they were finalists and received funding from the Polsky Center and Purcell Companies. They used this funding to build the Zaars platform and make the company’s first sales. In her second year, Shreya has given back to the entrepreneurship community at Booth in her roles as a teaching assistant for Entrepreneurial Discovery and the 2024 NVC. She is also a proud Chicago Women in Business Gender Equity co-chair, promoting gender equity at Booth and beyond through various events, lunch and learns, and building a stronger community for the women at Booth. Shreya is excited to continue working on Zaars full-time after graduation and looks forward to bringing the venture to her hometown of New York City.
“I came into Booth hoping to try entrepreneurship and am now leaving with a strong cofounding team and newly built business, all grown through Polsky Center classes and programming,” said Kalva. “My journey would not have been possible without Booth and the Polsky Center, and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to deeply immerse myself in entrepreneurship these last two years. I especially appreciate how much both Booth and the Polsky Center showcased entrepreneurship as a viable, strong career option for MBA students, and I am excited to continue working on our business full-time after graduation.”
Namrata (Nam) Vakkalagadda and Athena Saldanha // Vijay, ’77, and Sita Vashee Promising Entrepreneur Award // $2,500 each
This award recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated considerable leadership in the entrepreneurship program.
Namrata is a graduating Full-Time MBA student at Booth. Prior to Booth, she received her B.A. in Psychological and Brain Sciences and minor in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis and then moved to Chicago to work in technology consulting at Deloitte, focused on large-scale technology transformations in the healthcare industry. In her time at Booth, she has focused her professional explorations in the healthcare and entrepreneurship spaces, with a specific focus in women’s health. She is currently a venture partner at Coyote Ventures, a seed-stage VC focused on healthcare for underrepresented populations, and previously was a venture fellow at Samata Capital. She also participated in SNVC 2023 with ALEYE, a women’s health startup focused on supporting individuals with PCOS. She has been a student leader on campus in the entrepreneurship space as an EVC SeedCon co-chair and as a Venture Capital Lab TA. Outside of her professional focuses, she’s been heavily involved in AudioBooth as both a co-chair and performer. She is the lead singer of the Booth MBA band Murders & Acquisitions, which won the internal Booth battle of the bands and went on to compete twice in the inter-school competition against Kellogg. Post graduation, she will be moving to the Bay Area (where she grew up) with her tuxedo cat Bugsy to rejoin Deloitte as part of their strategy consulting practice, with a hope to contribute to their new Health Equity Institute.
“I came to Booth to explore different career paths, and all of the opportunities provided have let me explore that to the nth degree, which I feel like has culminated with this award,” said Vakkalagadda. “The classes, the faculty, the experiences here have really enabled me to explore the entrepreneurship and venture spaces more than I could have ever imagined.”
Athena grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, after her family immigrated from Dubai with the hopes of achieving the American dream. After graduating from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, she started her consulting career at EY. Most recently, she found herself consulting with Oliver Wyman, focused on technology and operations. After working at a nonprofit with teachers, Athena was inspired to develop Owler AI – a platform to help teachers grade and leave feedback on student work faster, so they can focus their time and effort on building engaging classrooms. She came to Booth with the idea of Owler and has used her time in business school to find a cofounder, conduct customer discovery interviews, design the product, and launch the business. Owler now has 750 teachers on the platform, two online schools, and a pilot in a Chicago-based charter high school. Athena is excited to continue working to grow Owler in the years to come!
