UW Graduate Returns to Campus to Meet with MBA Students

Punit Soni, a University of Wyoming electrical engineering master’s degree (2000) graduate, will meet with Master of Business Administration (MBA) Program students Friday, Feb. 10.

As part of the UW MBA Executive Speaker Series, Soni will discuss his prolific career as the founder of high-tech startup companies. He will meet with students in the College of Business at 1:30 p.m. His latest startup company is Learning Motors.

He spent eight years with global commerce giant Google, in various positions such as product manager and mobile app developer. Soni moved on to Motorola Mobility as a vice president of product management. His leadership helped launch the Moto E, G and X smartphones. Soni also worked in his native India for Flipkart, the country’s leading online shopping business, as the company’s chief product officer.

“I worked with some of the best professors in the trade and learned a lot of the basics of electrical engineering from them,” Soni says in a November 2015 UWyo Magazine profile. “It’s what got me my first break. If not for my education at Wyoming, I would not be doing the kind of work I get to do today.”

UW MBA students are being exposed to entrepreneurs who bring real-world experience into the classroom, says Tanner Parmely, MBA Program recruiter.

“I'm interested to hear about the cultural differences in working, living and studying in such diverse locations as India, the East Coast, Wyoming and Silicon Valley,” says John Gorrell, energy management MBA candidate, from Folsom, Calif.

Last week, MBA students met with President and CEO Even Brande of Laramie-based Handel Technologies.

Brande founded Handel in 1997 after receiving his B.B.A. and MBA degrees, both from UW. He also has held other executive positions and has served on a number of boards during his career. He is the chair for the UW College of Business Advisory Board.

Brande spoke with students about what it means to own a business and how to leverage the knowledge an MBA can provide.

“He told us the most important thing about owning a business or having a career is that you must have a passion for what you’re doing. Your job shouldn’t be ‘work.’ It should make you excited to get out of bed in the morning,” says Upton’s Dani Esquivel, a JD/MBA candidate. “This stuck extremely well with me because that is the entire reason why I am in this program -- to place myself in a position that gives me the opportunity to have a career that satisfies my professional goals while fulfilling my personal interests and aspirations.”

For more information about the MBA Program, call Parmely at (307) 766-2449 or email tparmely@uwyo.edu.