As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your

candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program?

My first childhood companions were two chirpy guinea pigs I named Hamburger and
Cheeseburger. Though they were small, Ham and Cheese inspired 6-year-old me to invent larger
than life adventures for them, from secret missions in our neighborhood to frenzied forays at
Costco, and what started as short stories gradually evolved into chaptered chronicles. After a few
years of experimenting with various creative mediums, I taught myself how to make a website to
publish their escapades. From a young age, Ham and Cheese fostered my creativity and inspired
me to embrace my own “guinea-pig-like” tendencies to explore and experiment.

When I was not crafting stories or my website, I was piecing together how the world worked
around me. I distinctly remember discovering the radio and asking my dad about the difference
between AM and FM. His response was the same it was to all my other questions: “Go find out.”
As the first-born daughter to immigrants, I was frequently researching my parents’ questions (like
popular American dishes for our first hosted BBQ) or teaching elementary English to my little
sister and grandparents. I realized then that I was not only my parents’ guide and bridge to
American culture, but also their de facto guinea pig, exploring and seeking answers to help my
family navigate cultural norms and nuances that were new to all of us. Discovering and sharing
insights became a part of who I am and a source of pride and joy.

Learning to channel my desire to experiment was not without its challenges. In high school, my
unbridled curiosity led to overcommitment in too many extracurriculars, and I spread myself too
thin. While I ultimately focused on a few core activities, I wanted college to be different: I wanted
to achieve a singular, larger-than-life goal. Thus, in college I self-selected to be a guinea pig by
deciding to graduate a year early, as one of four students that year to do so and the only one to do
so with a double major in Finance and Applied Mathematics. My advisers cautioned against the
overloaded, overly technical courseload, but I was undeterred after learning how to focus my
exploratory energy in high school.

Similarly, I was advised to temper my internship expectations: as a young woman graduating

early, I was competing against students with an additional year of education and experience for
selective finance internships. Undaunted, my desire to “go find out” prevailed. Fast forward, on
the last day of my PIMCO internship, I sat in my car overwhelmed with pride, clutching my offer
letter – the culmination of months of hard work. My vision blurred as tears fell to the page, but I
could clearly see all my mentors: managers who patiently reviewed my projects, alumni who
answered my calls after working 15-hour days, and parents who encouraged me to dream big.
While I had the required grit and skills, I was so lucky to have champions who bridged gaps and
empowered me to excel. Because I experienced the impact firsthand, I am passionate about
helping others during their guinea pig moments. Once I rejoined fulltime, I was eager to do so,
whether it was creating youth development curriculums for numerous nonprofits, leading
trainings for new hires, or grabbing coffee with each “big-city-transplant” analyst to smooth their
transition to suburban SoCal.

My own guinea pig moments have pushed me to explore, experiment, and grow into who I am
today: a resourceful, spunky self-starter who thrives in ambiguous, demanding environments. In
my first role as a Product Associate, I broadened my understanding of the markets and
investment strategies and was able to seamlessly assume full leadership of commodity reporting
responsibilities following the sudden departure of a pivotal product manager. Those traits led me
to and allow me to excel as a part of our Executive Office, a seven-person team directly supporting
the CEO and CFO, by contributing fresh perspectives and innovative solutions. In this role, I
found a passion for enabling growth at the enterprise-level, increasing my impact from
individuals to the organization.

Six months into the Executive Office role, I was asked to join our Head of Corporate Development
to launch a new business: insurance-linked securities, a new asset class to PIMCO traded through
new securities requiring new teams, software, and processes. To capitalize on seasonal trading
activity, the ambition was to launch a dedicated hedge fund – requiring full operational,
technological, regulatory, and business readiness – in six months. From the start, I contributed by
mapping gaps in processes to stand up the business, one of my key strengths. However, as teams
compared the short timeframe against the complex risks, alarmist attitudes from select senior
managers intensified and trickled down, and it became evident that the critical hurdle was
building a cohesive support system across business functions. I learned that active listening and
facilitating communication across teams is impactful: while tedious at times, by bridging
communication gaps and understanding underlying concerns, we were mitigating risks, one
conversation at a time. The fund successfully launched in June, and we have continued our daily
update calls including six different teams across three distinct time-zones, which is the true
achievement – seamless integration into our broader operating model.

Looking forward, I aspire to grow into a leader on behalf of people, firms, and industries and to
make a difference that begins with each individual. My ultimate goal is to lead organizations that
enable new financial technologies and empower new generations as financial objectives shift in an
ever-changing economic landscape. Across my projects in the Executive Office, the two industry-
wide themes underpinning both successes and failures are people and technology, both of which I
hope to better understand through an HBS MBA. Specifically, I want to learn how to manage,
lead, and inspire teams through periods of technological disruption and market uncertainty.

When I visited HBS, an RC ambassador shared that the depth of the relationships developed in
her section far exceeded her expectations, which really struck me. As someone who learns best in
a collaborative environment, I am excited to learn through the experiences of others, either
through the lens of the protagonist(s) in a case or through the rich diversity of my classmates.

The most important lesson I learned is that it is easy to lead in a stable bull market – what
differentiates leaders is how they navigate choppier waters. I am confident that HBS, a case-study
based education built on shared experiences spanning lifetimes, is the school that will best equip
me with the leadership skills and core curriculum to do so. I am eager to contribute to my section
and the HBS community through my unique voice shaped by various experiences over the years,
which all began with my parents, my sister, and two chirpy guinea pigs named Ham and Cheese.