Stanford GSB Alumni

08/23/2026

No matter how advanced technology becomes, there’s one aspect that can keep it from being adopted. Assistant Professor Helena Miton says, “Tech can get too cumbersome to be used.”

Why technological advancement is constrained by human cognition

08/21/2026

Stopping deforestation is one of the most effective and immediate steps to slow global warming. These faculty and student researchers have a model that could get farmers on board.

This game theory model shows why cooperation is the key.

08/18/2026

Fear is most dangerous when it goes unnamed, says lecturer Graham Weaver. That’s why his answer is to write it down. “Fear in your head is paralyzing,” he says. “Fear on paper is just a problem to be solved.” As a “Last Lecture Series” speaker, Weaver shared practical tools for pursuing what matters — without crushing your soul in the process.

08/17/2026

“Leadership is not one-size-fits-all. You can’t make any assumptions about people’s views and approach.”

Sierra Signorelli, SEP ’19, likes to say that risk is at the heart of her business. But even as she helps clients navigate uncertainty as a global leader in commercial insurance, she’s proven that she’s not averse to taking risks of her own.

Signorelli was initially drawn to environmental science and the chance to “make the world a better place,” she says. But when serendipity showed her a different way to have impact, she enthusiastically stepped through the door. “Insurance is not just a financial product; it’s really an enabler of progress. I’m passionate about our ability as an industry to help solve some of the world’s most complex challenges.”

Beginning as an underwriter with AIG, Signorelli embraced ever-increasing leadership opportunities, taking her from California to New York, Singapore, and ultimately Switzerland, where she became chief underwriting officer for Zurich Insurance’s commercial lines. But even as her career accelerated, she believed she still had more to learn. “Success can create momentum,” she says, “but it also can create blind spots.”

That conviction led Signorelli to Stanford GSB for the “intensive and immersive” experience of the Stanford Executive Program. “Stanford was a wonderful opportunity to step outside of my day-to-day environment, challenge some of my thinking, and reflect on the kind of leader I wanted to be,” she says. Returning to Zurich, she partnered with Stanford to design leadership programs for the company’s emerging talent.

Now the CEO of both Zurich U.S. and Zurich Commercial Insurance, Signorelli is still guided by her drive to make a difference. “We have the opportunity to help businesses think about their cost of risk, and not only insure it, but help them understand how they can reduce that cost through loss control,” she says. “That saves assets, but more importantly, it saves lives.”

This SEP alum doesn’t see risk as a threat, but as an opportunity.

08/09/2026

Creativity isn’t just for artists. Stanford https://brnw.ch/21x4Nmy executive director Sarah Stein Greenberg, MBA ’06, says anyone can be creative — it just takes a little curiosity.

https://brnw.ch/21x4Nmx

08/08/2026

Lightning-fast technological advances. Constant global crises. Unprecedented economic volatility. Lecturer Robert Siegel, MBA ’94, says these realities point to one conclusion: Running a business today is more difficult than ever.

Navigating modern business challenges through “systems leadership”

08/07/2026

“When you’re managing in different cultures, you have to quickly understand what are core values and what are non-core values.”

Luke Kang, MS ’10, has always believed that people are more alike than different. From his upbringing in New York City to leading the entertainment industry across East Asia, his experiences have convinced him that “People are people.”

Growing up, Kang’s exposure to diversity enabled him to see past surface differences. “There’s a tendency to create caricatures of people’s cultures,” he says. But even amongst his multicultural high school cohort, he recognized what they had in common — pop culture. “We all watched the same content.”

That realization would shape Kang’s professional path, enabling him to navigate cultural barriers around the world. From working at a Hong Kong-based digital media startup out of its Seoul office to eight years in Singapore leading regional strategy at MTV Networks Asia Pacific, he eventually joined Disney in 2011 as managing director of Korea. “Understanding commonality has really helped me throughout my career,” he says.

Between MTV and Disney, Kang made a pivotal stop at Stanford GSB. Despite so much geographic and cultural exploration, he says, “I realized that maybe there were other aspects of my life I hadn’t explored enough.” One year in the MSx Program proved the perfect opportunity. “It was a great environment for me to look at the world in a very different way. My time at the GSB also helped me to crystallize what I was good at and what I enjoyed doing.”

Today, as president of The Walt Disney Company in Asia Pacific, Kang has led the rollout of Disney+ across 11 markets and the production of over 150 regional originals. His approach remains rooted in that childhood insight. “You try to find commonalities and universal themes to bring people together,” he says. “Look at a film like Coco. It’s based on a Mexican cultural reference, but it was a huge hit in China because the values of family, honoring your ancestors — all of that resonated because they are shared universal values.”

This alum has built a global entertainment career by finding what connects us across cultures.

08/04/2026

“Sometimes your life pursuits can originate in places you didn’t expect.”

Saloni Multani, MBA ’06, describes herself as “a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other” kind of person. But while her early career steps were “all quite linear” — economics major, Blackstone analyst, private equity director — she eventually changed course. “I realized it didn’t have to be linear,” she says, “I could take some turns.”

The biggest turning point came when Multani became a mother and began thinking about the world her daughters would inherit. “I was motivated to align my time with my values,” she says, “but I didn’t have clarity about what that could look like.”

The answer came when Multani’s former Blackstone boss reached out about launching a family office focused on climate and sustainability. It was “a mission-aligned investing effort,” Multani says. “I was able to apply my background to what felt like a more values-aligned pursuit. This opened up a whole new ecosystem. It’s been a real gift.”

At Stanford GSB, Multani found an environment that encouraged her to reflect and refine her vision of impact even more. “My objective in going to Stanford wasn’t to make a career pivot,” she says. “It was to reflect on what kind of life I want to have. Stanford is amazing for that… helping you think about what you want your contribution to the world to be.”

Today, as a founding partner at Galvanize Climate Solutions, Multani is applying her investing skills to helping promising innovations reach the scale needed to make a difference. “I pinch myself that I’m able to do this work,” she says. “Human capacity for innovation is immense. I am hopeful we can direct it in ways to make global populations better off.”

https://brnw.ch/21x4FZl

08/03/2026

Only about 40% of Americans have worked with a financial advisor. But with more people turning to AI for financial advice, Assistant Professor Tim de Silva wanted to know: What are an LLM’s two cents actually worth?

This study finds LLMs can give helpful money management advice.

08/02/2026

Many people confuse machine learning with artificial intelligence. While the two are related, they aren’t the same thing. This quick explainer video reveals what machine learning is, how it facilitates AI, and how you’ve already seen it in action.

https://brnw.ch/21x4CHl