Tyki Wada

After living and working in Atlanta for the past couple of years, Tyki Wada was looking for a change. What he didn’t expect, however, was a change in career path altogether. Tyki worked in strategy and analytics at The Coca-Cola Company but wanted to progress in his current role. He began looking at various MBA programs to make that change and decided to pursue Emory’s Full-Time MBA.

Although living most of his life in Japan, Tyki found Atlanta to be his new home away from home. “The reason why I chose Emory was because I live locally and that was very important to me. I have a family, so I wanted to make sure I was in a place that would support the environment.”

Upon entering the program, Tyki quickly discovered new opportunities and changed his focus from analytics to innovation. “I realized that I could potentially become a product manager as an MBA, so I decided to pursue that route.”

His passion for innovation was soon fueled by the Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is a hub for students to access all of the innovative activities that are going on on campus. I am plugged into the venture capital and entrepreneurship ecosystem, and I had a great opportunity of learning how I could start my own business and how people network and make relationships with each other to start businesses. That was something that was extremely important to me.”

Creating a work-life balance was also extremely important to Tyki when he entered the program. “I found out that Emory students, a lot of them MBA students, happen to have children so that resonated with me. What I learned about myself was that I was able to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time, and I was able to balance my family, my school and my extracurriculars.”