The Top MBA Podcasts

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At MBASchooled, we’re big fans of podcasts, and it’s one of the reasons why I launched the MBA Insider Podcast. As an avid podcast listener, I love to hear great stories and learn about business school topics. I’ve found these to not only be interesting but also informative, and many of the podcasts I listen to spur my own creative thoughts and ideas for MBASchooled or other aspects of my life. 

Furthermore, there are many talented MBA students and alum out there who have also created some great podcasts that can be valuable for prospective applicants, current students, and MBA alum. I want to highlight some of the best MBA podcasts for you here today.

What Are The Top MBA Podcasts?

Stern Chats 

Stern Chats is an MBA podcast managed by current students at NYU Stern. In each episode, the hosts interview a different member of the NYU Stern community from students, to alumni, to faculty, to administrators. 

Daniel Yellin, the executive producer of the podcast, says he’s trying to reach out to prospective students by featuring “as many professional interests, backgrounds, and identities as possible to try to have the show highlight a broad cross-section of the people that make Stern a great place to be.” By showcasing such a wide variety of stories, the hosts hope that incoming students will see themselves in the stories they hear. 

Evidence of that diversity can be seen in episodes highlighting Megan Fairchild, principal dancer with the New York City Ballet who’s concurrently pursuing her MBA at NYU Stern; or Jihoon Rim, a Stern professor and former CEO of one of the largest tech companies in South Korea.

Since the show’s inception, Stern Chats has released nearly 100 episodes, delivering new episodes every week during the school year.

Current Hosts: 

Business Beyond Usual

Business Beyond Usual (BBU) is a podcast hosted by current MBA students at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. According to Katie Coleman (’21), the podcast was “originally created by Ross MBAs as a way to shed light onto what MBA life is really like, but has morphed into something so much larger.” Coleman adds that now they even have parents, friends, and alum who tune in to learn more about what life is really like.

BBU prides itself on its thoughtful commentary and offering an unfiltered look into the MBA experience. Coleman says they tackle “everything from MBA admissions, to career pivots, recruiting to MBA life with a significant other, and everything in between. No subject is off topic for us.”

Episodes of BBU range from highlighting the weekly happenings at Ross, to dissecting admissions requirements, to exploring the voices of the underrepresented groups on campus.

Current Hosts and Team:

Executive Producers

  • Katie Coleman 
  • Jeff Church

Team

  • Alex Abrams, Lauren Abuouf, Eric Hopfenbeck, Varun Joshi, Robert Leupp, Bridget Manning, Ifueko Ogbeide, and Christina Weiber

 

One Haas

One Haas is a series of podcasts that are focused on the experience at the Haas School of Business. They have podcasts featuring stories and experiences from current MBA students, Haas alumni, and one solely focused on the undergrad alum experience.

The One Haas Podcast network was founded by Sean Li (‘20) who wanted to move beyond the typical information that can be gleaned from a Linkedin account to make more meaningful podcasts for MBA students. By sharing personal stories, they can fulfill their mission “to connect people through stories.” 

One of Li’s favorite episodes was with Haas alumni, Ace Patterson, who also happens to be an amazing rapper and musician. Woven throughout the podcast are Patterson’s own music tracks used as the intro/outro and transition music between topics.

Current hosts: 

How I Got Here 

How I Got Here is a career podcast focused on helping listeners understand how to make good career decisions. The podcasts co-hosts, Lara Mitra and Eric Eliasson (MIT Sloan, ‘20), interview successful professionals to better understand their careers and the key decisions that helped them find career success.

Mitra and Eliasson want to connect with people who may be just beginning their career and are still unsure of the direction they should take. Their podcast tackles questions like, “How do I know when it’s the right time to leave my existing role and move on to another?”, “What should I be optimizing for in my job?” and, “What makes for a fulfilling career?” They hope by sharing real life stories of successful business people and how they overcame challenges, that listeners can learn how to navigate their own path to success.

Two great episodes to check out are with Steve Cook who shares how a natural disaster fundamentally shifted his career priorities, and Dr. Melynda Barnes who, after decades of training and practice, quit her job as a doctor to explore her gut feeling that there was something else out there for her.

Current Hosts:  

MBA Insider 

Shameless plug (let’s be honest though – I’m not really that ashamed!), but I couldn’t forget to include my podcast, MBA Insider. In it, I hope to share stories, strategic guidance, tactical best practices, and thought leadership to help prospective, current, and former students in their MBA journey. 

I’ve been privileged to interview various MBA experts including students, alum, professors, thought leaders, and authors. I realized there weren’t enough podcasts for mba applicants and I hope these interviews can be helpful to prospective students to know what the MBA experience is actually like, as well as current MBA students looking for help navigating business school, and getting strategic and tactical career guidance from experts. Alum can also benefit from the podcast by getting career guidance to take what they learned in business school and to achieve their personal and professional goals.

Check out my episode on Breaking Down the MBA Hiring Process where I talk to Layne Austin, a recruiter and part-time MBA student. In it, we break down the MBA hiring process, and give listeners very practical guidance to how the MBA hiring process works and how a student can be successful.

The Tar Heel Hustle

Bola Mustapha and Javier Guillermo host The Tar Heel Hustle out of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. They hope to connect with business-focused professionals who may be considering studying an EMBA/Grad program, are looking at Duke or at the different school rankings, or are current students of Kenan-Flagler Business School. Their podcast addresses topics such as class size, diversity of students, school values, content and professors, and student networking. 

Listen to their most popular episode on stress and time management to get a sample of the podcast. Mustapha hopes to keep the reach of the podcast wide adding, “If you’re ambitious, team-oriented, and driven by excellence this podcast was made for you.”

Current Hosts

  • Bola Mustapha
  • Javier Guillermo

OneSky

OneSky is a production of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, that aims to demystify the full-time MBA experience and provide a glimpse into the lives of the students, faculty, and staff.

Co-host Meredith Tozzer observes that since students come to “Chapel Hill from all corners of the state, the country and the globe, in each episode, we’ll celebrate the diversity of experiences and backgrounds of the individuals in our community.” By highlighting these stories they hope students will get to know each other and foster community in an unexpected virtual setting. 

Though the podcast is brand new (just launched this December!), they already have episodes streaming that explore the inspiration behind the podcast, as well as interviews with current students.

 

Current Hosts and Team: 

  • Rhian Carreker-Ford
  • Meredith Tozzer
  • Gabriella Ferrari
  • Olivia Kozio

Spartan Stories Podcast

Spartan Stories Podcast host, Blake Robinson, started the podcast after reflecting on his time as an MBA student at Michigan State. Through getting to know both his fellow students and alumni, he realised what a wealth of experiences both professionally and personally they could share, and how diverse their pre-MBA journeys, internship experiences, as well as post-program careers were. Since there wasn’t currently a platform to share these stories with the public, he saw an avenue for creating podcasts for MBA students.

The podcast now offers unique insights not only into the Broad program specifically, but the MBA journey in general. Standout episodes feature JD/MBA student Abigail Swanson, and MBAA president Danielle Chatman-Moore. 

 

Current Hosts:

  • Blake Robinson – Podcast host/Executive producer 
  • Kate Irwin – Assistant Director, Marketing and Communications FT MBA (Producer)

 

Present Value

Present Value was founded in fall of 2017 by two first-year Cornell Johnson MBA students, and each year new student leadership teams have come on board to continue to grow the podcast. One of the current co-hosts, Paul Witko, sees the benefit a show like Present Value can offer: “At a school like Cornell, there are academic thought-leaders and industry executives everywhere you turn. To this end, Present Value is dedicated to sharing Cornell’s intellectual capital with the world.”

Though the podcast targets mainly students and graduates within the Cornell community, Witko believes anyone can benefit from listening if they’re “interested in thought-provoking conversations, mainly in the business domain.” So far, they’ve interviewed many notable people from world-renowned academic, Professor Robert Frank, to industry leader Reggie Fils-Aimé (former Nintendo US President), to a recent episode with NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum.

Current Hosts

  • Paul Witko (’21) 
  • Maria Castex (’21)
  • Greg Wool (’21)
  • Alex Vorwald (’21) 
  • Ghady Arida (’21)
  • Eric Jo (’21)

Career Conversations

Career Conversations comes to us from the Yale School of Management, and through their episodes they hope to embody the school’s mission to educate leaders for business and society. Current co-host and producer, Amy Kundrat (’21), hopes the podcast “engages meaningfully with curious students exploring career paths, prospective members of the community interested in opportunities for business school graduates, or anyone interested in careers at the intersection of business and society.”

Through the almost two years the podcast has been active, Kundrat has watched its listenership grow along with their ever expanding catalog of interviewees. In addition to interviewing both current students and alum, they’ve spoken with “CEOs, human capital and organizational design experts, a hospital president, consultants, founders and entrepreneurs, arts and nonprofit leaders… the list goes on.”

Noteworthy episodes feature current MBA student and Deputy Fire Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia, Crystal Yates, Chief News Strategist and Chief Product & Technology Officer at The Wall Street Journal, Louise Story, and Managing Director at New Forests, a sustainable investment company, Radha Kuppali.

Current Hosts:

  • Amy Kundrat ’21, Executive Producer
  • Emily Kling ’21, Producer