President:
Alex Canning-Choi
Alex is an aerospace engineer turned project manager who is passionate about start-ups and business innovation. Previously, he worked for 5 years internationally building test facilities for airplane engines, in countries such as England, Russia, India, Germany, France, Finland, Poland to name a few ;). Alex is constantly curious, willing to learn, and won’t back down from a challenge.
Jack of all trades … Master of None. Alex has also been known as a surfer, skier, triathlete, ultramarathon runner, mountain climber, kickboxer, chess player, pianist, photographer, and astronomer. He also has just a couple (12+) tattoos …
Fun Fact: Alex once ran for 19 hours and 17 minutes straight through the English countryside.
VP Academics:
Maria Tinoco
Maria is a mission-driven leader with five years of experience working in business development roles supporting global companies and high-impact entrepreneurs. She loves applying entrepreneurial skills to solve challenges and develop creative and flexible solutions. She’s a learning enthusiast, that is why she is currently studying for her MBA, she also wants to strengthen her skills to later contribute to a high-impact organization, and eventually start her own venture.
Maria loves building meaningful connections with people, enjoys singing, and outdoor activities. She is a chocolate fanatic, nature lover, and strongly believes that giving back is the right track for building a better future.
Fun Fact: She has scuba-dived 4 times without being certified.
Co-VP Comms: Nicholas Del Castillo
Nicolas is a product manager with 5 years of work experience. He enjoys being the bridge between teams and create a better flow of communication. He decided to pursue an MBA to achieve his lifelong dream to enter the video game industry.
As you can guess, Nicolas is an avid video game lover, but that’s not all there is to him. Amazed with the ocean he has a passion for scuba diving and basically any water sports.
Fun fact: Nicolas spend all the pandemic perfecting his cooking before coming here to Vancouver. He prides himself of making a killer ceviche!
Co-VP Comms:
Utkarsh Wali
Utkarsh is an engineer with 5 years of work experience in the Agile and IT industry. Previously, he has worked on business analysis, agile transformation, and project management. UW has worked internationally and managed multiple teams in his past. You share your product and vision, UW will plan and execute it, and to do this better he decided to come for an MBA.
Cat parent, Utkarsh likes to play cricket, chug cocktails, but most importantly, make people laugh with his jolly attitude. UW is the man with 100% energy from the second he wakes up till he dozes off.
Fun Fact: Landed at SFO airport (1st International trip) and booked a car then and there. Did not know the rules and how to left-hand-drive. To see what happened next, ping Utkarsh.
Co-VP External: Shubhav Jain
Shubhav is a computer science engineer who started his career as a programmer and progressed to a program manager and digital transformation specialist. He loves delivering business value through innovative IT solutions and was responsible for client management, project management, and leading complex cross-functional oracle enterprise projects. He worked globally in countries such as India, Finland, Norway, and United States.
Shubhav loves traveling, driving, and photography. He has traveled to more than ten countries. He is also fond of cooking, baking, watching anime, cycling, and playing tennis. He also strongly believes in giving back and actively participates in volunteering activities.
Fun Fact: He has completed half-marathon two times
Co-VP External:
Karina Nagy
Karina is a marketing and project management professional with 8 years of client-facing experience. She enjoyed building relationships and meeting new people and prides herself on being a lifelong learner. She decided to pursue her MBA at UBC to further her business intel and potential impact as an employee and community contributor.
Karina loves being with her friends, family, and two nephews. She loves traveling, exploring new sunny places, and loves FOOD. Cooking, trying new restaurants, and eating nachos are all considered a good time with wine. She enjoys working out, running, playing beach volleyball, cycling, and playing tennis. She's in a book club and is looking forward to summer, which is her favorite season. She loves Mexico and Mexican food above all.
Co-VP Internal: Aaron Mak
Aaron is a result-driven profession with 10 years of operation experience in hospitality industry. He enjoys being a generalist which allows him to wear different hats within organizations to work on various projects and optimize business performance. He aims to enhance his experience and knowledge through the MBA with a goal to switch career to consulting field.
Outside of school, Aaron loves spending time with his family. He spends most weekends with his two daughters at ice rink and parks. He also enjoys working out, playing soccer, traveling and cooking.
Fun Fact: Aaron is a soccer enthusiast and his favorite team is Manchester United. Even he had two foot surgeries in last few years, he keeps playing every week
Co-VP Internal:
Emma Herlinger
Emma is an avid story-listener and believer in the power of empathy, in life and in business. With a background primarily in nonprofits and education, she’s excited to use the MBA to build her knowledge and foray her experience into the for-profit social impact space. As VP internal Emma hopes to use her experience leading teams and rallying people around a common vision and shared goals to build a strong, united community in the 2023 cohort.
A born-and-raised islander, Emma enjoys being on, in, and around the ocean. She is, however, landscape agnostic and loves getting out on trails in the woods as well. She enjoys cooking meals with her sisters and crafting cocktail recipes – seasonal variations of Moscow mules are her favorite.
Fun Fact: Emma has been attacked by an owl, kayaked with orcas, and her “two truths and a lie” facts are almost always based on her strange but incredible run-ins with nature. She is happy to share stories but is even happier when she’s listening to others’ – so shoot her a message on LinkedIn to swap stories.
VP Events:
Angel Chiu
Angel is an event planner with 3 years of experience in event planning and 5 years of experience in hospitality. She’s passionate about creating wonderful experiences for guests to enjoy and immersing herself in the culinary world. She is also a pastry chef and enjoys making all sorts of desserts, cakes, bread, and pastries. Her favorite thing to make is wedding cakes. She aspires to push for innovations in the hospitality and culinary sector while being sustainable.
In her leisure time, Angel loves to travel and explore new places. She enjoys spending time outdoors cycling, hiking, playing golf, and photographing the countryside.
Fun Fact: Angel likes to create things in the wee hours. That’s when her creative juices come to life. Over the winter break, the -10 degrees weather inspired her to make ice cream in the snow at 1 am in the morning.
VP Finance:
Raghav Malik
Raghav is the finance whiz of the MBA cohort. He's spent a considerable amount of time working into the wee hours of the morning as an Equity Analyst for a marquee investment banking intermediary in India. His focus is now to use his financial prowess, coupled with his generalist mindset and the vast variety of interests, to land a role focused either on Strategy or having something to do with Venture Capital and Private Equity.
Raghav is a huge movie buff and Formula 1 enthusiast. He can talk to you passionate about anything and everything to do with new-age Bollywood and Max Verstappen's career graph even in his sleep. He is also a huge people's person and often the life of the party, or so he has been told. He often uses humor to lighten the mood and get through the frustrating and boring aspects of life.
Fun Fact: Raghav conquered his fear of heights by going skydiving, cliff jumping and flyboarding in three consecutive days, on a trip to Spain with his family.
VP Student
Development:
Armando Rocha
Armando is a Mexican industrial engineer with over five years of experience in the micro finance industry working as a Product Owner and Product Marketing manager. He had this dream of doing an MBA with his wife in Canada to become entrepreneurs and three years later, here they are.
Mission driven, and social impact lover. Armando loves helping people out. He has done plenty of volunteering, and has been a missionary for over 10 years. He loves playing sports, but specially triathlons, mountaineering and now, of course, skiing.
Fun Fact: Armando got hit by a car while training for a triathlon. It was his first time in an ambulance although he says it doesn't count since the driver never turned on the sirens. Send him a message on LinkedIn to chat with him