“Someone who is eternally curious, a strong leader with a big heart and a lame sense of humor.”
Hometown: Visakhapatnam, India
Fun fact about you: I love food and can cook dishes from memory. I have a pretty good sense of smell and taste!
Basic education and qualification:
Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai, India
Bachelor of Technology, Production Engineering
Where did you last work before enrolling in business school? Deloitte India
Where did you do your internship in summer 2023? McKinsey & Company, Minneapolis
Where will you work after you graduate? Associate at McKinsey & Company, Minneapolis
Community work and leadership roles in the business school: (Include school awards and prizes)
President, Carlson for Community (C4C)
Vice President of Communications, MBA Association (MBAA)
Vice President, Global Business Student Association (GBSA)
Managing Partner, Graduate Volunteer Consultants (GVC)
Sands Fellow
Board member of Graduate Women in Business (GWIB), Carlson Consulting Club (CCC) and Technology & Analytics in Business (TAB)
What academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of while studying at business school? I am proud of this year’s C4C Annual Charity Auction. This event was our 19th year and I am super proud of my team for putting on an amazing event that was fun for everyone. We had around 225 participants and collectively raised around $39,000 for Cookie Cart, a local business that teaches life, leadership, and employment skills to teens of color through hands-on experiences and classes at nonprofit bakeries. Our club was the largest MBA club with 26 MBAs from the classes of 2024 and 2025. This year, both classes volunteered more than 100 hours over the course of the academic year. In addition to planning the charity auction, we continued to support Cookie Cart’s mission by bringing their members to Carlson, getting to know them through Family Feud, and helping them envision an innovative future here on our campus. It was heartwarming when the kids told me that our tour was the best campus tour they’ve ever had and that all the business students they met were cool people! C4C is a club that truly embodies Carlson’s motto of “business as a force for good,” and I’m proud to be able to continue to serve that purpose. This was also a place where I was able to put many business school lessons into practice.
What achievement in your professional career are you most proud of? Oh, that seems like an eternity. In my second year at Deloitte, I had to collaborate with another company, a competitor in the technology implementation space, to develop a web-based solution for our mutual client. This solution required working with internal and external stakeholders simultaneously to deliver better results to our client. This was a great learning experience for me as I was responsible for the entire implementation, which required me to constantly communicate the client’s business use cases to the technical teams and vice versa. I also led the user experience and training of the project and communicated with client teams in 25 countries. We ended up getting the contract for all remaining implementation waves for this web-based application, freeing us from dependencies on our competitor. Although I had no prior experience working with big data and cloud engineering platforms, I was able to quickly get up to speed with technical terms. I played a crucial role in this ownership transfer to our company.
Why did you choose this business school? For me, it was Carlson’s motto – “Business as a force for good.” In addition to my work at Deloitte, I volunteered for five years at a nonprofit called U&I and always wanted to make a bigger positive impact on the world. I wanted to learn how to make a profit and do good for the community around me. The fact that Carlson offers so many opportunities to explore this idea through courses, scholarships, and student-led clubs excited me. I was also sure that at Carlson, I would meet many people who value their community and I would find a great support system with them. I’m glad all of my reasons for choosing Carlson were true!
Who was your favorite MBA professor? One of the best things about Carlson is the experiential learning program. We have four great programs and I was part of Carlson Consulting Enterprise. Our director, Dr. Siddharth Chandramouli, has been a great mentor to me throughout my time at Carlson. From helping me with case study interviews to mentoring me through difficult leadership situations, he has been an integral part of my MBA journey and will continue to be so after I graduate.
What was your favorite course during your MBA? We have great classes and professors at Carlson. If I had to choose, I would say that Pricing Strategy by Mark E. Bergen is my favorite class. I’m sure many students who have taken his class would agree how great he is both as a professor and as a person. I will never forget to think about the customers and economic value with every pricing strategy. I used some of his teachings to set the ticket prices and discounts for our C4C charity auction. He was also kind enough to take the time to make a few recommendations that helped us a lot with the auction.
What MBA event or tradition did you enjoy most at your business school? I’ve mentioned C4C enough times already, so I want to mention another one of my favorite traditions at Carlson instead! We were able to revive our Global Gala, organized by the Global Business Student Association (GBSA), to its former glory after the pandemic! This is one of Carlson’s most colorful and fun events. We all dressed up in our ethnic wear (I wore a sari for the first time in 2 years!), danced, sang, and celebrated the different cultures our classmates represented. The best part was a cooking competition where we got to eat amazing food from different parts of the world cooked by our classmates. I can’t forget to mention the Cupid Shuffle. We all got to do this in the atrium with our classmates and their kids, and it was definitely a highlight!
Looking back on your MBA experience, what would you do differently and why? Everything happens for a reason and a few not so good decisions I made have taught me some important life lessons. However, if I were to give myself or another international student one piece of advice, it would be to ask for help sooner rather than later! It’s smart to learn from other people’s experiences and it never hurts to ask an honest question like, “Why is football called football and not soccer football?!”
What is the biggest myth about your school? The common myth about school is the unbearable winters! While I don’t deny that the lack of sun in winter can be harsh, the warmth of the people around you makes up for it! I had classmates who made my winters so memorable by teaching me how to ice skate and rock climb, among other things.
What did you like most about your business school city? I had never seen snowfall before coming to Minneapolis. It felt like I was in a snow globe and it was magical. I will never forget it. There are so many activities to choose from in the Twin Cities all year round. I especially enjoyed seeing “Christmas Carol” for the first time at the Guthrie Theater and walking across Lake of Isles during the Luminary Loppet.
Which MBA classmate do you admire the most? That’s a tough question. I admire a lot of people for different reasons and it’s very difficult to choose one. So I want to give a shout out to my core team! At Carlson, we are divided into core teams in the first semester and have to work with the team on several projects. I couldn’t ask for better people and wouldn’t trade any of them. A3 was my A-team, from studying economics together to practicing STAR stories to cheering the loudest and being each other’s closest confidants! Josh Hansen-Connell, Celina Her, Alex Jones and Jeremy Binder, you are the best.
What are the two most important things on your professional bucket list?
Working on problems that stimulate me intellectually and have a positive impact on the world. I want to be able to work on things that allow me to use both my mind and my heart.
My father has instilled this teaching in me throughout my life: “Be good, do good, and do good.” I want to be a good teammate, leader, and person every day, both at work and in the community. Through my work and at work, I want to have a positive impact on the world around me every day!
What made Manognya such a valuable addition to the 2024 vintage?
“Manognya “Mano” Wunnava has always shined as a standout student at the Carlson School of Management. From the beginning of the program, Mano embodied Carlson’s ethos of “business as a force for good.” Her involvement extended not only to CSOM but also to the broader Twin Cities community. As a first-year representative and later as Vice President of Communications in the Student Government Association (MBAA), Mano tirelessly advocated for MBA students both publicly and behind the scenes, fostering engagement and enriching the Carlson community. Beyond her on-campus commitments, Mano’s commitment to giving back led her to support local nonprofits through Carlson4Community, most notably by raising funds for Operation No Limits (2023) and Cookie Cart (2024), enabling these organizations to advance their missions. Mano is known for her integrity and generosity and is constantly looking for ways to encourage her fellow students and foster a supportive classroom environment.”
Kelly McLennan
Senior Associate Director and Career Coach
Carlson Business Career Center
DON’T MISS: MBAS IN MIND: CLASS OF 2024
