School of Business

Elia Quintana ’11 EMBA was ready for a new challenge in 2022. Ten years before, she moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for two prominent nonprofits and the American Petroleum Institute, a global trade association, championing stakeholder engagement with communities of color and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Understanding the need for this kind of support for all businesses, she founded her own women-led consulting firm, Cima Strategies. “The timing was perfect. With the national discussions on race and social justice, many companies are eager to better understand and engage

Although he is a leader of business-to-business marketing of high-tech products, Kenneth Leung, MBA ’89, likes to remain grounded in the human side of life. That includes exploring different types of food. “I think what we eat is probably the easiest way to learn about cultures,” said Leung, Oracle’s director of Marketing, Database and Infrastructure. “I just find it a fascinating reflection of who we are and what we do. There's always a favorite food you want to eat, but it's also important to explore new things.” That spirit of exploration can be applied to many aspects of life, including

Whether he is mentoring younger business professionals or participating in a nonprofit program that uses golf to empower kids and teens, Anthony Bonales ’18 said his advice is the same: “You really get out what you put into relationships.” Bonales speaks from experience. He is part of the inaugural class of UC Riverside’s “40 Under 40,” and was recently promoted to manager for accounting special projects just two years after joining The Wonderful Company. He attributes his own success to asking questions, making connections and building trusting relationships. “I grew up in Modesto and came

As senior manager of retail operations at Fabletics, Diana Cullen ’19 is responsible for the internal processes of retail locations globally for the popular active-lifestyle e-commerce brand, which has scaled up from 30 to almost 100 stores in the last three years. “It’s been a wild, empowering ride,” says Cullen, who finds satisfaction in the challenge of a worldwide company. “I am continuously developing and maintaining retail standards and tools that touch all aspects of our business, from launching new initiatives and brands to tailoring and selecting the communications that come from our

A UCR undergraduate business course on the stock market and valuations pointed Randolph Kim ’11, ’14 to his career. “That particular course led me to where I am today,” says Kim, who is the senior investment associate at TI Capital Management, a single-family office focused on private equity investments. “I find fascination in the art of investing and dealmaking and enjoy the challenges that come with it.” Kim also earned a Master of Finance at UCR in 2014, and he was one of the student founders of the School of Business’s Hylander Financial Group, a student organization that dives into the

Thomas Walker ’08 recalls convincing his mom to take him to Blockbuster to buy a copy of “Titanic” at midnight, the moment it was released on VHS. When he studied business at UCR, he was a regular at the Multimedia Library, where he watched old movies, including every winner of the Academy Award for best picture from 1927 onward. Today, Blockbuster has gone the way of VHS tapes. UCR’s Multimedia Library collection has relocated to the Tomás Rivera Library. And the 2022 best picture winner was the first to be produced and released by a streaming service. But some things have not changed: Walker

Maria Anguelova ’03 made a bold move right at the beginning, when she decided to leave Bulgaria in pursuit of a strong education. She found it in the MBA program at UCR. “The UC Riverside program was very diverse and catered really well to international students,” says Anguelova, who is currently an executive vice president at Sony Pictures Entertainment. “Just the fact that there was so much diversity really helped, because you didn’t feel like you were singled out or the only person who had an accent.” Anguelova worked as a teaching assistant and connected with alumni to secure an internship

For every student wondering how they are going to find their place in the world, Tyson Avery ’96 wants them to know they have a superpower available to them as they pursue their degrees. “The one power you have that you don't know you have—or at least most don't think you have—is the power to ask,” said Avery, senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief ethics and compliance officer at Starbucks. Urging students to reach out to professionals to learn about career paths, Avery said: “While you are still in school, use every opportunity to ask someone innocently, naively, and