Five second-year MBA students at Stanford GSB have been selected as 2027 Siebel Scholars in recognition of their exceptional academic achievements and commitment to creating a better future. The students — Cayla Davis, Philipp Gerber, Aakanxit Khullar, Amrita Palaparthi, Elijah Pierre — were chosen by a committee of Stanford GSB faculty. They will each receive a $35,000 scholarship to be put toward their final year of study.
Siebel Scholars, from left: Cayla Davis, Philipp Gerber, Aakanxit Khullar, Amrita Palaparthi, Elijah Pierre
The Siebel Scholars program was established by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation in 2000 to recognize outstanding students at the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science, and bioengineering. Each year, more than 70 graduate students are awarded grants during their final year of studies. The active community of over 2,000 Siebel Scholars currently serve as advisors to the Siebel Foundation and work together on some of society’s most challenging and timely issues.
The 2027 Siebel Scholars are:
Cayla Davis
Cayla Davis graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, where she studied economics. While at Columbia, she captained the varsity women’s soccer team and earned a Fulbright grant. Prior to pursuing an MBA at Stanford GSB, she worked in technology investment banking and in data and AI product management. At Stanford GSB, Davis is president of the Search Fund Club (Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition) and serves on the leadership team of the Sports Management Club. This summer, she interned at Peterson Search Partners on the investing team and at Forio, a Peterson portfolio company that creates educational simulations. Davis grew up in Pennsylvania and is an avid trail runner and Philadelphia sports fan.
Philipp Gerber
Philipp Gerber was born and raised in Germany, where he studied international business administration at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, graduating at the top of his class as a scholar of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. He began his career at Boston Consulting Group in Munich before joining Finesse, an LA-based AI-driven direct-to-consumer fashion brand, where he rose from founder’s associate to chief of staff over three years, leading strategy across the company’s U.S. and UK operations and establishing its London subsidiary. He is now a second-year MBA candidate at Stanford GSB, where he serves as CFO of the GSB Europe Club and coleader of the Mystery Retreat. This past summer, he was a fellow in the Botha-Chan Innovation Program, researching agentic commerce and how AI agents are reshaping the way brands and retailers reach customers.
Aakanxit Khullar
Aakanxit Khullar grew up in seven cities across India and Japan, which he credits for his comfort with new places and his discomfort with the question “Where are you from?” Prior to Stanford GSB, he was a vice president at Goldman Sachs in New York, where he executed private equity investments for the firm’s global buyout fund. At Stanford, Khullar is an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow and a Botha-Chan Innovation Scholar. He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University with a BS in financial engineering. In his spare time, Khullar enjoys writing, hiking, meditating, and the mild heartbreak of supporting Liverpool FC.
Amrita Palaparthi
Amrita Palaparthi is a Bay Area native from San Jose. Prior to Stanford GSB, she worked on building privacy-safe solutions for billions of users as an engineer at Google Ads. At Stanford GSB, she serves as an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow, a member of the Academic Committee, and copresident of the GSB Improv comedy troupe Archuckle. She spent her summer building Eka, a startup she co-founded that focuses on retail media for the South Asian diaspora. She graduated with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied electrical engineering and computer science, and she then earned her MS in computer science from Stanford University with a concentration in AI/machine learning. Outside of class, Palaparthi enjoys teaching, obsessing over Hindi and Telugu movies, writing poetry, and getting silly on stage.
Elijah Pierre
Elijah Pierre was born and raised in the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. He earned a BBA in computer information systems, with minors in mathematics and economics, from the Howard University School of Business, where he graduated summa cum laude as valedictorian and a member of the Executive Leadership Honors program. Prior to Stanford GSB, he was a private equity investor at Warburg Pincus in New York, where he focused on investment opportunities in technology and tech-enabled services companies and supported strategic portfolio company initiatives. Pierre is passionate about economic development in the Caribbean and hopes to support local entrepreneurs in building enduring businesses. In his free time, he enjoys football (soccer), soca music, and fitness.
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 education, the homeless and underprivileged, public health, research, and development around the world.
For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom.
