Shana Srikaruna, AMBA’25

Shana Srikaruna’s nascent accounting career was going great. She was a year out from her undergrad and already had a promotion under her belt, doing challenging work for clients by day while pursuing her Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) designation on nights and weekends. She had a knack for numbers, and she found the work fulfilling.

Then, one day, a partner at her firm made an offhand observation: that Shana was really good at adapting to unfamiliar settings quickly—a skill that would transfer well to consulting—should she ever be interested. It sparked something in her brain: “I asked myself: ‘Is this something that I actually really love to do, or is it something I enjoy because I’m good at it and have experience in it?’” she recalls.

That simple question opened a new path for Shana, one that led her to a job providing board-level advisory services at a boutique consulting firm. As a consultant, her technical skills were impeccable, and her ability to adjust on the fly was indeed the asset her former colleague said it might be. However, she began to feel something missing: A wider perspective on business matters beyond the balance sheet. An MBA would give her exactly what she needed—especially one that she could complete quickly, as she continued to work, leveraging the fundamentals she’d learned during her Commerce undergrad. Having had a great experience with the Smith School of Business while completing the Graduate Diploma in Accounting program a few years earlier, the school’s Accelerated MBA program seemed like the right fit. “The concept of learning something over two days, and then applying it at work the next day, was really captivating to me,” she recalls.

Shana started her Accelerate MBA (AMBA) at Smith in January of 2024. The workload didn’t faze her—her past pursuit of the CPA designation had primed her to balance professional and educational responsibilities. However, the team-based learning structure took some getting used to: She had to very quickly adjust to collaborating with people with very different work styles and backgrounds than her own, and to adhering to schedules that met the needs of the collective. “When I was studying for the CPA, I only had to worry about myself,” she reflects. “But with the AMBA, it was different. If we had a meeting set, I had to commit to attending. I couldn’t just shift it to the next day.” As the months passed, she found herself becoming a better and more constructive teammate. “I learned to manage different types of people with empathy, while still doing a really good job,” she says. “That’s become very important to me.”

Shana also started to pick up the big-picture thinking she’d been hoping to acquire. Initially, her process-oriented mind found the case-based learning at the core of most classes abstract and a bit frustrating. “When we were given assignments, we usually weren’t told what our deliverable would be, and I found that difficult,” she says. “But after a few projects, I realized: ‘Oh, that’s the point.’ In business, you don’t often get guidance about the solution. You’re given a problem, and it’s your job to make sense of it.” With each assignment, she became a little more comfortable with ambiguity, and a little more confident in her ability to work with colleagues to create productive outcomes. Midway through the program, her then-employer awarded her a promotion: “They could see how the MBA was benefitting me on a day-to-day basis.” 

Shana also took full advantage of Smith’s Career Advancement Centre (CAC). “I’d enrolled to learn and grow my skills,” she says, “But at the same time, there were obviously potential career implications to the program, so I decided early on to do everything I could to set myself up for success.” As the program progressed, she worked closely with the CAC to better identify her career goals, refine her resume, and polish her interview skills. By the time corporations started recruitment discussions with AMBA students in late summer, she felt fully prepared. 

When she got an offer for her current role, as a consultant with Boston Consulting Group, a few months later, she realized the full extent of what she’d gained in such a short period of time: “I realized I had the ability to manage a very intense experience—balancing work, school, and recruiting at the same time—all while learning and building great relationships with students and faculty,” Shana reflects. “I’ve been able to get so much out of this program. It’s been so worth it for me.”