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Trojan Family at Work: How One MBA Student Turned a Career Setback into a New Opportunity

Trojan Family at Work: How One MBA Student Turned a Career Setback into a New Opportunity

Just before graduation Hannah Foley MBA ’25 learned her full-time offer had been delayed. As she considered her next move, the Trojan Family helped open the door to a new opportunity.

by: Alexander Bernard
09.18.26
Hannah Foley at the Coliseum

Hannah Foley MBA ’25.

[USC Photo/Brian Morri]

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When Hannah Foley MBA ’25 first enrolled in USC Marshall’s Full-Time MBA (FTMBA) program, she wasn’t certain what she would do after graduation. All she knew was that she wanted to take back control of her career.

Today, Foley has what she was looking for. She lives in Los Angeles and works as a senior associate, private equity strategy at KPMG. The journey to these goals, however, wasn’t the straight line the alumna first envisioned. Fortunately, Foley says, no matter what obstacles she faced, the Trojan Family had her back every step of the way.

“They showed up. It was an immediate yes,” Foley said.

Foley was still deciding between a few MBA programs when she visited USC’s campus in 2023. Marshall’s admissions team arranged for her to have a 20-minute coffee chat with a first-year MBA student. Those 20 minutes became an hour, during which multiple classmates and members of the Marshall community stopped by to say hello to the host and even tell Foley about the program. Seeing the warmth of Trojans, Foley knew she was where she needed to be.

“As cliche as it sounds, I had a sense of home,” Foley recalled.

Once enrolled, there was no time for Foley to rest on her laurels. Although she was still unsure of her long-term career goals, Foley decided to pursue consulting, drawn to the industry’s variety of projects and opportunities. She soon landed an internship at a major firm and, prior to her second year at Marshall, received a full-time offer.

Secure in her post-graduation plans, Foley spent her second year broadening her knowledge with elective classes, strengthening her Trojan bonds, and preparing herself for a new industry.

“Looking back, I can now say I’m glad it all played out the way it did, because my second year, I had a great time,” Foley said. “I wasn’t stressed about where I was going to end up because I had done the legwork my first year, and I had just the most incredible last year of business school.”

I can confidently say it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life because of the return on investment.

— Hannah Foley MBA ’25

Senior Associate, Private Equity Strategy, KPMG

On the Monday before graduation, however, her firm informed her that it was pushing back her start date. The company gave Foley three options: opt out of the offer entirely; defer her start date 10 months; or defer her start date over a year. Just five days before graduation, the soon-to-be graduate’s “sure thing” had disappeared.

Foley couldn’t imagine waiting another year to return to the workforce.

“I did not want to wait,” Foley said. “I hadn’t worked for two years. I was eager to put my degree to good use.”

Foley’s competitive drive kicked into gear. She reached out to her extensive network of Trojan classmates, professors, and alumni, diligently assembled over two years at Marshall. According to Foley, every Trojan was eager to help, never once making her feel discouraged or that her task was impossible.

“This is what the Trojan Family is,” Foley said. “As long as you have the capacity to do so, you want to help people and you want to support them as they’re going through a new change.” 

Multiple alumni set her up for meetings at firms. When Foley received interviews, her classmates told her about their own interviews and took time to help her with case preparation.

Most notably, she connected with a Trojan mentor, a fellow MBA alumnus at KPMG, who walked Foley through the interview process within the firm’s private equity practice. Although Foley had no professional private equity background, she referenced past coursework to prove her aptitude to the interviewers.

“I talked about a final project I did for one of my classes in which we valued what it would look like for one public company to buy another public company,” Foley said. “I had things that happened to me my first year that helped me prepare during my second year too.”

Some career pivots can take years. Foley did hers in just two months. By the end of July 2025, she received an offer from KPMG and started three weeks later.

“We found a way to get it done,” Foley said. “When I then got to tell all of these people who helped me in a very short time span that I did it, that I’d gotten a new offer, they were amped for me — called me, texted me, and really celebrated this career win for me. [They] believed in me the entire way.”

To this day, she works with the alumna at the firm, and continues to be an active member of the Trojan Family. Just last month, she returned to campus to speak to the incoming MBA cohort about her own career pivot.

Foley explains that while her journey may not have gone according to plan, looking back, she’s grateful her MBA experience turned out the way it did.

“I can confidently say it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life because of the return on investment,” Foley said. “Yes, from a career perspective, I’m a year into the beginning of that return on investment, but from a personal [perspective], I've built an entire new life for myself in L.A. with people who will be a part of my life for the rest of my life.”

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