MBA Student Accepted to Prestigious International Fellowship Program

Luis Garzon-Negreiros (MBA/MSFS’20) joined the fifth cohort of Wallenberg International Fellows this spring and became the first MBA student from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business ever selected for the prestigious fellowship.

Through the fellowship program, which is open to students in the Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, students from Georgetown University and the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) have the opportunity to learn together and to bridge the gap between public and private sector leadership in what Rosie O’Neil, deputy director of the Landegger Program, called “the premier international partnership that we have.”

According to Garzon-Negreiros, being selected for the program was “the proudest moment of my Georgetown career.”

Funded by the Wallenberg Foundation in Sweden, the fellowship is centered around identifying the next generation of public and private sector leaders. With only three spots at each school, the fellowship attracts high-achieving students. In addition to their GPA, applicants are evaluated on their leadership potential, O’Neil said. The other students selected for this year’s cohort were Christina Huntzinger (LAS’20) and Matthew Tibbitts (MSFS’20).

The versatility of the skills taught in the program attracted Garzon-Negreiros. “I want to be a multi-disciplinary individual who will better understand how to be a leader — not only in the world of business, but also in the public sector,” he said. “Now more than ever, we need leaders who understand that problems cannot be isolated into separate buckets.”

A key feature of the fellowship is an internship between the first and second years of the fellows’ masters degrees. SSE students are placed into internships through the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, while Georgetown students are placed in Wallenberg-owned companies and live together in Sweden in a “leadership incubator,” according to O’Neil.

During the fall semester of their second year, students from both schools take classes at Georgetown, including with the Wallenberg Chair in International Business and Finance Theodore Moran. Fellows also have access to a variety of co-curricular professional training such as leadership coaching.

The program also provides an opportunity for students to expand their work experience and global mindset. Garzon-Negreiros said his basic skill set is in finance, but he hopes the fellowship will connect him with a “network of multi-sectoral leaders” and will enable him to use his private sector experience to solve public problems.