Haas School of Business
Surprise! Berkeley Haas’s Fernando Mendoza Walks Across The Stage This Year
College football has always produced stars, but few have crossed worlds the way Fernando Mendoza has.
This spring, Mendoza paid a surprise visit to UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre. During the MBA graduation ceremony, Mendoza – a star college quarterback, was walking in cap and gown to claim the undergraduate diploma he’d missed earlier in the week.
Haas Dean Jenny Chatman was in on the surprise, telling graduates on the mic she’d invited someone with a really good excuse for missing his commencement.
MENDOZA’S ROOTS AT HAAS
Mendoza is widely known for being an IU’s MBA. But for those who haven’t followed closely, it’s important to know that he started his higher ed journey by earning his BA in three years at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
After wrapping up his final Haas courses last summer, he led the Hoosiers to a 16–0 national championship season — a run that earned him Indiana’s first Heisman Trophy, the first-ever for a Cal graduate. In his Heisman speech, he thanked Berkeley for “being the first to believe in my future,” a line that lands even harder when you consider the academic load, travel demands, and pressure he carried simultaneously.
Even with the Las Vegas Raiders making him the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, Mendoza hasn’t drifted from the people who shaped him at the Haas School of Business. He still checks in with professors like Distinguished Teaching Fellow Alan Ross and lecturer Dan Himelstein.
He’s especially close with finance instructor Steve Etter, who said that Mendoza is “a formula guy… a throwback,” because he preferred solving financial problems by hand instead of using Excel. Faculty describe him as the kind of student who made others braver. In Cort Worthington’s Improvisational Leadership course, Mendoza was the first to take risks, be vulnerable, and make the “inevitable public mistakes” that build trust, Worthington says.
EXPANDING HIS IMPACT ON AND OFF THE FIELD
Today, athletes are increasingly building brands, degrees, and philanthropic ventures alongside their on‑field careers. It’s not uncommon to see them pursuing another path alongside their sports career – but what is uncommon is to see an athlete pursuing three paths at once like Mendoza is.
Currently, Mendoza is balancing NFL playbooks with an MBA at IU and a new role as U.S. Bank’s Chief Financial Playmaker, where he’ll help design financial empowerment programs for NFL players. Beyond this, he’s extra busy launching the Mendoza Family Fund with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
“Like so many Berkeley leaders before him, he’s expanding the idea of what’s possible with a Haas degree,” says Emma Hayes Daftary, assistant dean of the undergraduate programs.
“We’re so proud of the way he’s navigating this chapter,” Daftary continues, “going beyond himself as he sets up a family foundation and continuing to stay true to his values as he puts in the work and approaches his new job with determination, with humility, and with quiet confidence.”
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