Marco Aranda

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Gies College of Business

“Big fan of coffee, euchre, LinkedIn puzzle games, and making pretty PowerPoints slides.”

Fun fact about yourself: I met Sean Evans from Hot Ones!

Hometown: Roselle, Illinois

High School: Lake Park High School

Major: Marketing and Information Systems

Minor:  The Hoeft Technology & Management Program

Favorite Business Course: BADM 359 – Business Problem Formulation and Solution

Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles During College:

Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles:

• Phi Chi Theta Professional Business Fraternity (Vice President of Marketing, Professional Development Coordinator, Consulting Group Project Manager)
• Illinois Consulting Academy (Internal Partner, Vice President of Engagement, Course Assistant)
• American Marketing Association (President, Vice President of Corporate Relations)
• Illinois Business Consulting (Senior Consultant)
• Google Nonprofit Marketing Immersion (Team Lead)
• Euchre League (Co-founder, Membership Director)
• Student Alumni Ambassadors
• Gies Ambassador
• Hoeft T&M Class XXIX

Awards and Honors:

• Gies Scholar Honors Cohort
• James Scholar Honors Program
• Dean’s List Recipient
• Hugh W. Frey Scholarship
• State Farm Digital Business Fellowship
• Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) Scholar
• President’s Award Program Honors

Where have you interned during your college career?

• Motorola Solutions – Champaign, IL; Product Management Intern
• Bain & Company – Chicago, IL; Building Entrepreneurial Leaders (BEL) Intern
• Kearney – Chicago, IL; Summer Business Analyst

Where will you be working after graduation?  Kearney – Business Analyst

Who is your favorite business professor? One of my favorite business professors is Professor Steve Raquel. Being a clinical professor in Gies, Professor Raquel brings his career background into his classroom, framing concepts in ways that are relevant and applicable to the real world. He never hesitates to provide all the feedback he can in the classroom, and it is evident that Professor Raquel has the best interest of his students in mind. Before having any classes with him, I first got to know him through my time on leadership in the University of Illinois’ chapter of the American Marketing Association. I look back at how willing he was to connect me to professionals in his network to schedule as guest speakers when I served as VP Corporate Relations, as well as all his wisdom and guidance he provided on leading the club to success when I served as President. I credit him a lot in helping me learn the kind of leader and professional I aspire to be and am thankful for getting to know him because of that.

What is the biggest lesson you gained from studying business? The biggest lesson I’ve gained from studying business is that hardly anything worth doing can best be done alone. One of my biggest takeaways from my business education is the importance of collaboration, as the contribution of various viewpoints is critical to reaching the best outcomes. Coming to this realization through student organizations and experiential learning in the classroom has shaped the way I approach problem-solving, as I’ve seen firsthand the difference leveraging diverse perspectives and a broader variety of strengths can make in those settings. Success in the things that matter most takes more than individual thought, it requires the ability to build, learn, and achieve more together than we ever could by ourselves.

What advice would you give to a student looking to major in a business-related field? The advice I would give to a prospective business student is to collaborate across different disciplines. In my experience, it is really easy to get trapped in a “business bubble” of students and organizations when attending a broader university, limiting the kind of people you can meet, work with, and learn from. Pursuing a joint business and engineering minor provided me with the opportunity to work with engineers in my classes in addition to business students who I already felt familiar working with – and it felt like an entirely new collaborative experience compared with what I was used to doing. Working with others across different disciplines can teach not only how to approach problems differently yourself but also how to be a better teammate, which is essential in a career where you are likely to find yourself in diverse teams with people highly unlike yourself.

Looking back over your experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently in business school and why? If I could do anything differently in business school, I would prioritize relationships sooner. In Gies, it is easy to become overinvolved given the extent of student organizations and opportunities immediately made available to students, and balancing everything on top of classes made me lose sight of the importance of relationship building my freshman year. Looking back, the relationships I’ve made are easily one of the most valuable parts of my experience that I am walking away with. They have impacted the extent of my overall professional network and also contributed to some of my favorite memories I’ve made in my life. Had I prioritized them sooner, I could have deepened more of those connections and the benefits and memories that come with them.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What is one insight you gained from using AI? One of my favorite ways AI has been integrated into my business school’s programming is through AI-based projects in the classroom. This was most evident in BADM 360 – Digital Marketing. Here, we learned how to use various AI-powered platforms to generate scripts, dialogue, and stock video scenes that could be composited to create a full video advertisement for a local business, which was a component of our final project and report. An insight I learned from this experience was that there is still room to be creative in using AI; it might just come in a different form from what we are traditionally used to seeing. Getting to leverage AI in this unique yet fun way opened my eyes to how powerful it is turning out to be, and I’m excited to see the direction AI development continues to go (so long as it doesn’t take my job).

Which academic, extracurricular or personal achievement are you most proud of? Serving as the Internal Partner of the Illinois Consulting Academy (ICA) is the extracurricular achievement I am most proud of. ICA is an organization dedicated to preparing students to break into careers in consulting by helping members develop their business acumen, competence to think critically, and ability to build authentic relationships. Having been a new member during my sophomore year, the organization and the upperclassmen (at the time) are the primary reasons I chose to pursue consulting and found success in breaking into the industry, and I’ve been dedicated to the organization since then to be a resource to new members as those upperclassmen had previously been to me.

Through this role, I am particularly proud of co-instructing ICA’s bootcamp with our VP of Education, Suki Sundaresan, to teach the newest cohort of 43 students various topics and mechanics relevant to case interviews and technical programs commonly used in the industry. Additionally, I am proud of the initiatives I’ve pushed regarding resource access within the organization. This has included the introduction of a mentorship program to connect new members with accomplished upperclassmen, as well as the expansion of the organization’s resource repository to provide greater support to members during their semester of training and into the summer. My goal in taking leadership positions, such as Internal Partner, of ICA is to be able to be an example for others. I especially want to help those from traditionally unrepresented backgrounds, and to leave the organizations better than I entered them. I’m truly proud of the work myself and the rest of leadership have put into ICA and getting to serve it alongside my two friends and co-partners, Ashwin and Vidhi, has made it even more rewarding of an achievement.

Which classmate do you most admire? I feel fortunate to be surrounded by so many peers that make choosing just one a challenge, but if I had to name one classmate, I’d happily say that I most admire Louie Martinez.

Louie is a senior studying finance at Gies College of Business. When he isn’t doing research for stock trading that goes far beyond my level of comprehension, he can be found learning new skills or hobbies like 3D printing. I was fortunate to meet Louie during freshman year orientation, tie-dying shirts outside of Nugent Hall shortly before realizing he was my neighbor in the building. Seeing his commitment that year to get involved and explore the many facets of finance motivated me to follow suit with my own interests. As time progressed, his efforts toward taking leadership and recruiting for internships would continue to motivate me in my own pursuits. Even just as a student, he has proven to be one of the best leaders I know, exemplified through his roles and impact in the Investment Banking Academy, Investment Management Academy, the Investment Portfolio Organization, and Euchre League, an organization we co-founded with our friends.

Beyond his intelligence and dedication toward his own goals, I also admire Louie for his commitment to serving others. He has been a mentor to countless students and is still always willing to provide advice to anyone else I send his way. Above all, he’s been there for me at my highest and at my lowest. Truly, Louie epitomizes both the attributes of a purposeful leader and of a good and lifelong friend, and I am lucky to have gotten to know him over the past four years.

Who would you most want to thank for your success? I owe everything I have to both of my parents, but I am thankful to my dad especially for the success I have found academically and professionally. As a young adult, my dad made the decision to immigrate to the United States from Mexico to provide more opportunities for his future kids. Selflessly, he sacrificed the lifestyle he loved so much to start again with very little, having to learn English, become accustomed to cultural differences, and develop new skills to build a successful career. Although I still help proofread his texts and emails, I’ve seen him overcome each of those challenges as I’ve grown up. I’ve been continuously inspired to believe that you can accomplish anything with hard work. I believe that, without witnessing that proof of success from him first-hand, I would not be in the position I am today nor have the drive to always put my best foot forward. I will forever be thankful to him and my mom for all that they’ve done for me and hope to pay it back to them as I start my professional career.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

1. First, I aspire to start a passion project to create something meaningful outside of my work. Although this can come in many forms, the idea of consulting for nonprofits or engaging in any pro-bono work that benefits underserved communities excites me as a way to apply my knowledge and skillset in a way that also promotes social impact.

2. Second, I would love the opportunity to eventually return to an academic setting to teach. This spring semester, I have enjoyed being in two separate instructing positions that have allowed me to serve as a resource to underclassmen. Through these roles, I have realized that I receive a great sense of fulfillment in helping support the development of others. Although I’m uncertain of when or how, I hope I can find a way down the line to continue.

What made Marco such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2025?

“Marco Aranda was one of my students in BADM-323, Marketing Communications and BADM-360, Digital Marketing. I was also his faculty advisor when he was President of the Illinois Chapter of the American Marketing Association.

In my classes, I teach the foundations of marketing but provide more real-world examples and assignments to help the students get a taste of what they will ultimately experience upon entering the job market.

I purposely do not make them easy classes because as a non-academic, I feel it’s important for students to learn early some foundational concepts that can be very difficult to learn at their level. However, if they do, I believe it will help them become even better professionals.

Marco was an exemplary student in my class. He was one of the students who provided insight and attempted to answer difficult questions and his final grades reflected both knowledge and insight. It was clear that not only did she grasp the content, but also thrived in understanding and applying what he learned in both classes. He was always attentive and present in class.

In addition, he showed real leadership as President of the University of Illinois’ AMA and discussed his progress and asked for assistance numerous times. I know the organization grew because of his commitment to excellence.

Since class and his role as President, Marco has continued to reach out and ask for advice and direction and feel he has really grown as a student and as a person. He has shown his leadership and maturity both in the classroom and through all his activities.”

Steve Raquel
Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing

DON’T MISS: 100 BEST & BRIGHTEST UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS MAJORS OF 2025