Rankings come in all shapes and sizes, but can any ranking truly capture social cachet? For a different perspective on the value of an MBA, we turn to the New York Times society pages, where the editors select and profile promising couples. Each month, we dedicate one B-School Chart of the Week to tallying how alumni from top-ranked business schools are advancing their social currency ranking.
April showers bring matrimonial flowers for Harvard Business School MBAs. A total of five HBS brides and grooms were mentioned in the New York Times’ “Weddings/Celebrations” section this month, including alumni Jamira Cotton and Cameron Johnson—a senior associate in the New York office of McKinsey & Company and an investment associate at Greystar Real Estate Partners, respectively—who view their relationship as a boon to their business school success: “It’s much easier to put yourself out there if you have your partner in crime with you,” Mr. Johnson said.
Other HBS newlyweds include Garrett Hall, an investment manager at AlpInvest Partners who married Zachary Howell, a fund-raiser at Columbia University; Renny McPherson, the founder and head of business development and strategy at RedOwl Analytics who married Helen Lamphere, a former program director for a health access initiative at the Clinton Foundation; and Jessica Lohrman, a strategy and development professional at Warby Parker who will join HBS’s 2013-2014 incoming class and who is also the wife of Jason Prager, an analyst at Silver Point Capital.
Our year to date tally of MBA marriage mentions in the New York Times hit 52 this month, out of a total of 256 weddings since the beginning of January. Other notable April MBA weddings included Kathryn Sims and Kevin McQuarrie (the bride is a finance manager for PepsiCo, and the groom is a senior associate at Corporate Partners), who met while both were in business school at the Kellogg School of Management. In addition, three weddings this month included alumni from Wharton. For those of you keeping score at home, HBS and Wharton are thus far the most valuable “social currency.” We will see if this trend continues…
