Shawn Brandt

MBA Class of 2010
Came to Chapel Hill from Central Florida

Hi everyone, I’m Shawn. Welcome to the Kenan-Flagler blog.

Born in California, I grew up in South Florida. I first came to the Triangle as an undergrad at Duke – yes, I’ve crossed over enemy lines. After a few years in the real world, my wife Lauren and I came back to the area to pursue my MBA and her career in Industrial/Organizational Psychology consulting.

After graduating from Duke, I spent a brief but glorious semester in law school at the University of Florida before concluding that I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I found my way back to Durham and worked for a hedge fund where a number of my coworkers were Kenan-Flagler grads. They weren’t the awful creatures I would have assumed during my undergrad days, which would shape my decision to attend Kenan-Flagler.

Life got in the way, in the form of my beautiful wife, and I followed her like a puppy dog to Central Florida where she started a Ph.D. program. While in Florida I worked for Best Buy in a services role (specifically working for Geek Squad). I even got a sweet badge out of the deal. My classmates who have learned this about me seem to have an inordinate number of problems with their laptops in my presence. I also spent a few years in a finance role for Rockwell Collins, an aerospace company. At Rockwell I was responsible for the finance piece of a program developing the surveillance equipment for the Boeing 787.

I’m hoping to secure a summer internship with a leading consulting company. I’d love to work in a high-tech space, and my interests extend beyond straight strategy to marketing consulting and change management/human capital.

I spend more time than any MBA student should following sports (especially the San Diego teams and ACC basketball). I’m a huge technology geek. If you can plug it in, I probably own one.