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Executive Connections mentors
During the two-year W. P. Carey Full-time MBA program, you are encouraged to work with this elite group of mentors in as many ways and as often as possible. Their experience brings both a unique perspective and a necessary real-world component to the Full‑time MBA. Executive Connections will deepen your skills, challenge your thinking, and develop your expertise.
W. P. Carey’s Executive Connections program currently has 40 mentors — representing over 1,000 years of corporate experience.
Meet our executive mentors
The level of access and the number of coaching opportunities available to you through the Executive Connections program are rare among top business schools. Interaction with senior leaders of this caliber will help round out a more complete, more impactful MBA experience at the W. P. Carey School of Business.
The diversity of our mentors echoes that of our students, with a breadth of industries, expertise, demographics, and experiences represented.
Over half of Executive Connections mentors have C-suite experience, running companies while living in over 20 countries around the world.
Executive Connections mentors have over 400 years of managerial experience in technology, marketing, and finance.
Two-thirds of our mentors have worked at the executive level in consulting or manufacturing.
Mentor profiles and directory
Dave Yorita
Dave Yorita spent his 40-year career in high tech sales and 24 years in sales leadership roles. His experience ranges from selling solutions in areas, such as, business operations and customer engagement excellence that drove critical business outcomes with Enterprise Content Management, Business Process Management, CRM, and AI/Analytics for leading software companies. He is known for creating software business solutions for vertical industries, such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing (high tech, discrete and process) within functional operational departments for Fortune 1000 companies. His overall management and sales experience has been with publicly traded companies including FileNet, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Kofax, Pegasystems, and OpenText.
Dave’s leadership roles required him to work across internal functional groups (finance, development, support, marketing, legal and operations) to meet the desired outcomes for his client and company. Dave’s management style is one of a servant leader. This allows for team collaboration with effective results.
Dave holds an MBA from Arizona State University and a bachelor's in Business Administration, Marketing from California State University, Long Beach. He previously served as a Chapter Advisor for Alpha Kappa Psi (Professional Business Fraternity), Iota Xi chapter at Arizona State University, where he emphasized the importance and development of soft skills for the membership. He is an avid sports fan and leverages teamwork in his professional and personal life. He and his wife have a goal to attend a Major League Baseball game at every ballpark.
Getting to know the executive mentors was an invaluable part of my W. P. Carey MBA experience. They all gave so much of their time to coach us, sharing decades of their business and leadership knowledge. My classmates and I richly benefited from their generosity and wisdom. As I progress through my career, armed with the resources the mentors shared, I hope to pay it forward by keeping doors open for those behind me and sharing my own learnings with the next generation of business leaders.
Chikezie Anachu (W. P. Carey Full-time MBA)
