Hometown: Abington, PA
Education: Bucknell University
Before Wharton: Lehman Brothers, University of Maryland, China Renaissance Partners
After Wharton: clean energy investment
My Day at a Glance
Walter Czarnecki
My Story About Me
What really exemplifies the best parts of Wharton is that I’ve been able to combine all of my interests and passions in one experience.
The Lauder Program
Before I came to Wharton, I lived in Beijing for a couple of years, working for a Chinese investment bank, leading the clean energy team. Up to this point, I had only seen business through a financial lens so I made the decision to come back to school for an MBA. I really wanted to develop other skills in different areas, like marketing and operations, areas I hadn’t seen much of in my career.
I didn’t want to just go back to business school to become a business person. The Lauder Institute at Wharton allows you to do an MBA at Wharton and an MA in international studies with a foreign language focus. This really appealed specifically to what I was looking for. Many other business schools allow students to take a foreign language, but usually at a beginner level. I was looking for a good combination of business and international studies with a more advanced foreign language component.
Passionate about clean energy
Short and long term, my goals are focused on working in clean energy, either from an investing or operating standpoint. When I was at Lehman Bros. as an investment banker, the finance was interesting, but I realized I was another cog in the wheel of this massive economic machine. I really wanted to do work that had some positive social impact. My interest in clean energy developed as a result of wanting more than just a paycheck.
To further that interest at Wharton, I got involved in the Energy Club from day one. I helped out with the conference and various events, and now I’m an officer, focusing mainly on external relations with other schools and organizations. We’re building a network across Penn’s campus and across the world to make clean energy a serious initiative.
An epic trip and lesson in leadership
This past year, I participated in the Antarctica venture trek. That was an epic trip, and for me, one of the most impactful lessons in leadership. I learned that you have to anticipate things you never thought you’d have to anticipate, and that no matter how much prep you do, there’s always something else you need to be thinking about to be an effective leader. For me, that resonated deeply. The fact that we were physically miles away from anything we knew on the trek, allowed us to focus at the task in hand, the different challenges we faced, and how to solve them as effective leaders...
The MBA/MA –Lauder program gives you the best combination of business and international studies with a more advanced foreign language component.
On combining interests and passions
What really exemplifies the best parts of Wharton is that I’ve been able to combine all of my interests and passions in one experience. After spending time in China and learning Mandarin, that’s obviously a big part of me. I also have a passion for international business and clean energy. One way I’ve been able to put all that together is in the thesis we are writing for the Lauder program about clean energy technology, the trends of technology transfer from Europe to China, and how that is impacting the Chinese economy. Wharton has allowed me to put all of those passions together, work on all of them at once, and move ahead with what I want to do with my career and my life.
