Five MBA Students Designated 2015 Siebel Scholars

The five join an elite group of the brightest students at the world's leading graduate schools of business, computer science, and bioengineering.

October 07, 2014

 

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Siebel Scholars

From left to right, Javier Ortega del Rio, Kelly Alverson, Sagar Sanghvi, Elizabeth Bird, and Peter Nurnberg.

A global health strategist, a former Airbus engineer, and three private equity professionals have been named 2015 Siebel Scholars at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

These five accomplished second-year MBA students join an elite group chosen by a faculty committee based on academic achievement and demonstrated leadership within the business school community during their first year. The honor, which includes a tuition grant, recognizes the brightest students at the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science, and bioengineering, who are at the forefront of the collaborative search for solutions to the world’s most critical issues. On average, Siebel Scholars tend to rank in the top 5% of their class, many within the top 1%.

The five Stanford MBA students are: Kelly Ann Alverson, Liz Bird, Peter Nurnberg, Javier Ortega del Rio, and Sagar Sanghvi.

Kelly Ann Alverson serves as co-president of the Private Equity Club at Stanford GSB. Prior to attending business school, Alverson worked at The Blackstone Group in New York; she spent two years on the advisory side in the Restructuring & Reorganization group and most recently, worked in the Private Equity group. She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 2009 with a concentration in economics and a secondary field in government. She was a recipient of the school’s Detur Book Prize, was named a John Harvard Scholar, and was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Alverson grew up in Glen Head, New York.

Liz Bird is a member of the leadership team of the Stanford Healthcare Consulting Group and sits on the Academic Committee for the Student Association. While at Stanford GSB, her interests have focused on health care in the United States as well as internationally. This summer she worked in the vaccines business of a pharmaceutical company. Prior to Stanford GSB, Bird worked in global health for six years, first in Malawi on a Fulbright Fellowship and with Partners In Health, and later for Global Health

Strategies, a small consulting firm based in New York. With Global Health Strategies, she worked closely with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build co-funding partnerships in India and Brazil. She also served on the senior management team of the company. Bird graduated from Brown University in 2007 where she majored in human biology, and was awarded the George Hagy Prize for Excellence in Human Biology.

Peter Nurnberg is the co-president of the Finance and Investment Club, a global study trip leader, the graduate student representative on the Stanford University Board of Trustees Committee on Finance, a teaching assistant for the corporate financial modeling class, an impact labs associate in the Non-Profit Board Fellows program, and a member of the Stanford Hillel Board of Directors. Prior to Stanford GSB, Nurnberg spent two years on the private equity team at TPG Capital, where he evaluated investments in the financial services and consumer/retail sectors. Before TPG, he worked for two years in the Financial Institutions Group in the Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Division. A summa cum laude graduate of Williams College, he was the valedictorian of the class of 2009 and the elected co-president of the student government. Nurnberg is a native of New York City.

Over the summer Javier Ortega del Rio interned with the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) in Accra, Ghana, where he worked with local entrepreneurs to develop new companies with potential to create social impact. Before enrolling at Stanford GSB, Ortega served as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company mainly in Europe. At McKinsey, he worked on several turnarounds, primarily for companies in the manufacturing and banking industries. Prior to McKinsey, he worked for one year at Airbus as an engineer in the Flight Physics department. Raised in Madrid, Spain, he graduated from the School of Aerospace Engineering of the Technical University of Madrid, where he received numerous honors and awards for his outstanding academic performance. Ortega studied violin for eight years, and music continues to be one of his primary hobbies, along with sports and traveling.

Sagar Sanghvi serves as an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow at Stanford GSB where he is also an elected member of the Student Association Academic Committee. An avid sports fan who helped organize Stanford’s first-ever Sports Innovation Conference last year, Sanghvi serves as a co-president of the Sports Management Club. Prior to Stanford GSB, he spent two years in private equity at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. where he evaluated investments within the Consumer & Media sectors. Prior to that, he was an analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he analyzed and advised clients on various financial transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, and capital raises within the Consumer & Retail sectors. A summa cum laude graduate of Duke University, he received a BS in economics and a BA in political science. He is a native of Olney, Maryland.

About Siebel Scholars

The Siebel Scholars program was founded in 2000 by the Siebel Foundation to recognize the most talented students at the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science, and bioengineering. Today, an active community of over 950 leaders serves as advisors to the Siebel Foundation and works collaboratively to find solutions to society’s most pressing problems. More information about the Siebel Scholars program can be found online.

About the Siebel Foundation

The Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, was established as a private foundation in 1996. Its mission is to foster programs and organizations that improve the quality of life, environment, and education of its community members. The Siebel Foundation funds projects to support the homeless and underprivileged, education and research, public health, and alternative energy solutions.

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