It was difficult not to notice, but 2019 was a great year to be part of the UVA McIntire community. Over the course of the last 12 months, our strong global network of alumni has been making unprecedented strides in a wide range of industries and proving that commerce continues to be a powerful and inspirational catalyst for change.
Many Comm School alums have deservedly been recognized for their outstanding efforts, and we’d like to take a moment to celebrate them by sharing their achievements here as well:
Doug Duenkel (McIntire ’92) of Knight Point Systems and Will Boland (McIntire ’03) of CarLotz were recognized at EY’s Entrepreneur Of The Year awards gala for the Mid-Atlantic group. One of the most prestigious business award programs in the country, Duenkel and Boland were acknowledged for their innovative contributions to government contracting and consumer innovation, respectively.
Forbes’ 30 under 30 list named three members of the McIntire community:
- Chris Rännefors (McIntire ’13), for his social entrepreneurship work with BatBnB—designer bat houses that provide a natural method of pest control and even earned an investment on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
- Nilla Ali (McIntire Business Institute ’12), Senior Vice President of Commerce at BuzzFeed, for her marketing work growing the company’s affiliate business 10-fold with retailers in seven countries.
- Now over 30, Bradford Manning (McIntire ’07) saw his younger brother Bryan Manning (A&S ’13) named. The siblings co-founded Two Blind Brothers, a clothing company that raises money and awareness for blindness. Two Blind Brothers has donated more than $500,000 to blindness research to date.
Ryan Ho (McIntire ’14) launched his team-building enterprise, Fun Empire, creating enough excitement to make his way on to Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Asia.”
McIntire Advisory Board member Shannon Nash (McIntire ’92, Law ’95) Esq., CPA, CFO of Insidesource, was named to San Francisco Business Times‘ 2019 list of The Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business.
Alex Wu (McIntire ’07), who made waves with his HomeCourt basketball skills tracking app that brought in big name investors like Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Steve Nash and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, had his handiwork named to TIME magazine’s list of Top 100 Best Inventions of 2019.
