At this year’s Cornell Commencement, three Cornell MBA students will be carrying more than their diplomas. They will also carry a transformative experience shaped by two distinct campuses, two cities and a shared commitment to innovation where business and technology intersect.

Graduating from the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business are Nghi Tran and Jordi Sabria, both students in the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program at the Cornell Tech campus, and Alicia Pettis, a student in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management’s Cornell MBA program. Together, their stories illustrate how Cornell’s dual‑campus MBA ecosystem prepares students for leadership roles in an increasingly tech‑driven economy.

SC Johnson College offers distinct yet interconnected MBA pathways: the traditional two‑year program at Ithaca’s residential campus and the immersive one‑year tech MBA in New York City on Roosevelt Island. Both programs are linked through dual‑campus opportunities that allow students to take classes across locations, collaborate on projects and access Cornell’s academic and alumni community, as well as New York’s innovation ecosystem.

“These programs are intentionally designed to align with where the future of business is heading,” said Vishal Gaur, dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. “Whether students study in Ithaca or Manhattan, they are learning in very dynamic settings to lead across industries, technologies and cultures.”

For Pettis, the two-year MBA experience blended leadership training in Ithaca with targeted weekend courses at Cornell Tech, including tech-focused electives such as Women in Leadership in Tech and SMARTech: Strategy for Media, Art and Retail Tech.

Her coursework exposed her to new ways of thinking about value creation. In Johnson Professor or Practice Mukti Khaire’s class, Pettis learned the “four C’s” model of commerce, consumption, culture and commentary, which reframed traditional economic thinking through the lens of digital and cultural products. Classes with Johnson Associate Professor Elizabeth McClean deepened her understanding of navigating the tech space as a woman and reinforced the importance of women helping shape the future of technology and AI.

“These classes pushed me to think beyond spreadsheets and strategy decks,” Pettis said. “They emphasized emotional intelligence, storytelling and cultural intuition, skills that are essential for leading in an AI and tech-forward world.”

As co‑president of the student council, Pettis also refined her collaborative leadership style, helping foster community and connection across the program. Through a summer internship with the company SC Johnson, along with on-campus projects with Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and CVS Health, she applied classroom concepts to real-world brand challenges, strengthening her goal of pursuing brand management roles in emerging technology companies.

“The dual‑campus experience allowed me to test new ideas in Ithaca and then pressure‑test them in New York through a technology lens,” she said. “That combination of leadership, creativity and innovation has been incredibly valuable.”

Read the full story on the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business website.

Sarah Magnus-Sharpe is a staff writer for the Cornell SC College of Business.