Surprises come with the territory when working in international development across India. As senior engagement manager at Sattva Consulting, Rahul Shah, PTMBA ’15, MFin ’15, must navigate uncertainty as he works across all domains with all types of stakeholders on a diverse subcontinent.

By Meredith Cobb New Jersey native Jenna Steckler ’94 is not afraid of change. It usually starts with simple intuition, she says, a “little voice” that suggests it might be time for something new. The description helps to explain how she graduated with a marketing degree from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and now, 25 years later, runs her own interior design firm that recently remodeled the Sigma Delta Tau house near campus in College Park.

Marine conservationist Johanna Polsenberg, EMBA ’07, never stays in one place for long. She has traveled through Asia and lived in the Bahamas, Alaska and Gabon on the Atlantic Coast of Central Africa. She now raises sheep with her family in Vermont, where she teaches skiing and middle school science. She also runs a consulting firm focused on corporate governance.

Intermediate French class started with the usual chatter on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech University. “It was a normal Monday morning, talking about what we did the previous weekend,” says Colin Goddard, MBA ’18, who took the course as an international studies major. When loud banging interrupted the routine, students assumed construction workers had started a project nearby. The professor looked in the hallway to investigate, then immediately shut the door and told students to get under their desks.

When Dublin-native Liam Brown, EMBA ’05, travelled to the United States for a friend’s wedding in 1989, he intended to stay only a few days. But an unexpected job opportunity in the hotel business kept him stateside, where he spent the next three decades rising through the ranks at Marriott International. Now Brown will head back across the pond to become president and managing director of Marriott International’s Europe division, which includes the United Kingdom, Ireland and continental Europe. He shares three leadership principles that have guided his career.

Different environments pose different challenges, which is why international business developer Rashida Petersen ’03 says seeking information about local contexts is more important than ever. As the founder and CEO of 1847 Philanthropic, a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in the financial stability of organizations in developing countries, Petersen takes a “first, do no harm” approach to her work.

Former Terrapin golfer George Bradford, a 1997 graduate of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, had a quick response when people told him to “get a job” after college. “I have a job,” he told the skeptics. “I’m a professional golfer.”

What does a typical work day look like for Kristie Curameng Bradford, a 2005 full-time MBA graduate at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business? Well, there’s really no such thing — and that’s precisely why she loves her job. “No days look similar,” says Bradford, business development executive at IBM Watson. “There are so many things I could be doing in one day.”

Entrepreneur Evan Lutz ’14 hates to see food go to waste. So in 2014 during his senior year at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, he co-founded Hungry Harvest from his dorm basement in College Park, Md. “We’re a produce delivery service on a mission to reduce food waste in the United States,” Lutz says. Already the company has spread from Philadelphia to South Florida — while the waitlist of potential new customers has swelled into the 10s of thousands in other parts of the country.

In the past year Tekisha Harvey, MBA ’08, has visited Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina, the Netherlands, Bali, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan. “It’s crazy that this is my life,” she says.