Amit Sinha, MBA 04, a marketing executive at German software giant SAP, was named the IBD Alumnus of the Year Friday at the school's annual International Business Development Conference in recognition of his professional success and embodiment of the Berkeley-Haas culture.
The inaugural award was presented to Sinha during a luncheon at the International House, which followed a two-hour poster session featuring the 37 teams of full-time and evening-and-weekend students who took the course this spring and summer. The award was created to honor alumni who have helped make possible the IBD Program's growth during the past couple of years, including its expansion to the Evening & Weekend MBA Program this year.
Sinha participated in the IBD Program during his time at Haas, working in his home country of India with a health-care nonprofit. Almost 10 years later, he still volunteers his time as an adviser to nonprofits in India, working with partners he met during his IBD fellowship.
As head of marketing for database products at SAP, the world's largest software companies with a market cap of more than $85 billion, Sinha oversaw the launch of HANA, a platform for real-time big data analytics and applications, and one of SAP's most successful product in recent years.
"Amit is doing for SAP exactly what the mission of Haas is: He is a leader redefining how business is done─for literally thousands of customers around the world," says Elizabeth Kovats, program manager of the IBD Program.
Sinha also has maintained a strong connection to Haas, hiring many students over the years and most recently retaining a team of IBD students this summer to work on a project in China. He was recently featured in Fast Company magazine talking about IBD and the importance of MBA global education.
In addition to honoring Sinha, the IBD Program presented awards to the students who prepared the best presentation at the IBD conference and who took the best photo during their IBD trip. The team with the best presentation consisted of part-time students Michael Edde, Olivia Herbert, Rubbee Myggen, and Wole Olowu, all MBA 13, who traveled to Uganda as consultants to WE CARE Solar, which has developed solar suitcases for health facilities to power lights and fetal monitors to make night-time labor and delivery safer for women.
Here are the two winners of the photo contest:
Wildlife Conservation Society Full-time Berkeley MBA Team in Laos
Amar Lata Gramin Seva Foundation Evening & Weekend MBA Team