Five MBA Students Named 2019 Siebel Scholars

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From left to right: John Ettinger, Geoffrey Calder, Jennifer Villa, Tucker Kocher, Valerie Shen.| Photo by Stacy Geiken

This year’s Siebel Scholars from Stanford Graduate School of Business — Geoffrey Calder, John Ettinger, Tucker Kocher, Valerie Shen, and Jennifer Villa — came to the school from backgrounds that range from engineering to private equity.

The second-year MBA students share a drive to make the world a better place through their work. In receiving the award, they join an elite group of scholars from top graduate schools of business, computer science, bioengineering, and energy science.

Siebel Scholars are selected by an anonymous faculty committee based on the students’ academic excellence and proven leadership within the Stanford GSB community.

Geoffrey Calder

Geoffrey Calder grew up near Toronto, Canada, and attended the Ivey Business School at Western University, where he graduated first in his class and as an Ivey Scholar. He worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and spent two years in New York at the Carlyle Group. There, he was involved with a number of consumer product, retail, and travel and entertainment transactions. Over the summer, Calder worked as a vice president at Bain Capital in Boston. Calder is an avid golfer and serves as the co-president of Stanford GSB’s golf club.

John Ettinger

John Ettinger graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, where he studied economics, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and received the award for best overall record in the school’s Department of Economics. He worked as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in New York before working on middle-market private equity at Lee Equity Partners. Ettinger is passionate about investing and is co-president of Stanford GSB’s Private Equity Club. He spent this summer working at Grocery Outlet, a Hellman & Friedman portfolio company. Ettinger is originally from New York City and is an avid sports fan.

Tucker Kocher

Tucker Kocher is a San Francisco native and holds a BA in economics from Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude and with distinction in the major, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and played on the university’s soccer team. Kocher has worked as a member of the Blackstone Group’s New York Private Equity investing team, where he was involved in the evaluation of new investment opportunities as well as oversight of the portfolio. This summer he interned in the impact investing space at RSF Social Finance.

Valerie Shen

Valerie Shen graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, where she studied environmental science and public policy and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She started her career at McKinsey & Company and later joined Kleiner Perkins, where she worked with a team to launch G2VP, a venture capital firm investing in sustainable, emerging solutions for traditional industries. This summer she worked on an early stage energy project at X, Google’s “moonshot factory.” At Stanford, Shen is pursuing a joint MBA/MS in Environment and Resources, serves as co-chair of the MBA student association academic committee, and is the chief investment officer of the Stanford GSB Impact Fund. Shen is from Wisconsin, loves hiking, and has visited all 50 states.

Jennifer Villa

Jennifer Villa attended Duke University, where she graduated summa cum laude with a dual major in electrical engineering and biomedical engineering. She worked on microprocessor architecture at Intel, helping design the next generation of the company’s line of Atom CPUs. Villa is a student in Stanford’s MS in Computer Science/MBA joint degree program. She cares deeply about improving diversity in engineering organizations and developed a talk on this topic as part of Stanford GSB’s LOWkeynotes program. Originally from Miami, Villa is happiest on the beach or a boat, eating Cuban food, or dancing salsa.

About Siebel Scholars

Established in 2000 by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, the Siebel Scholars program awards grants to leading universities in the United States, China, France, Italy, and Japan. Following a competitive review process by the deans of their respective schools on the basis of outstanding academic achievement and demonstrated leadership, the top graduate students from 27 partner programs are selected each year as Siebel Scholars. On average, Siebel Scholars rank in the top 5% of their class, many within the top 1%.

About the Siebel Foundation

The Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, was established as a private foundation in 1996. Its mission is to foster programs and organizations that improve the quality of life, environment, and education of its community members. The Siebel Foundation funds projects to support the homeless and underprivileged, education and research, public health, and alternative energy solutions.