On April 8, 2026, the Naveen Jindal School of Management hosted its annual OWLIE Awards—Outstanding, Worthy Leaders, Involved Exceptionally—in the Davidson Auditorium. I am honored that JSOM recognized my work with the undergraduate Dean's Council Super OWL award, alongside Sindhuja Jamisetty.
The Super OWL goes to an active member of the Dean's Council who provides leadership and support across the council's activities. The school's write-up described Sindhuja's people-centered leadership and my work on a collaborative platform that improved how the council runs day to day. That platform is Apollo: software I built over the past year so the Undergraduate Dean's Council could operate with less friction and more focus on the students it serves.
Finance, advocacy, and a defining senior year
Serving as Head of Finance for the Undergraduate Dean's Council has been a defining chapter of my senior year. The role is not only oversight of budgets and allocations. It is student advocacy—making sure initiatives are funded thoughtfully, that committees can execute on their plans, and that the council's work leaves a durable mark on the undergraduate experience at JSOM.
That lens shaped how I approached Apollo. The council spans 40+ members and seven committees. The organization behind it represents more than 10,000 undergraduate students at the Naveen Jindal School of Management. When coordination lives in scattered threads and ad hoc documents, energy drains away from the work that actually reaches those students. Apollo centralizes the operational layer: who is doing what, what needs a decision, and how resources flow across committees so leaders can spend their time on programs and policy, not logistics.
What scaling impact looks like
Building Apollo reinforced a lesson I keep returning to in my consulting and engineering work: technology does not replace leadership, but it can scale it. A council that already cares about its community still needs systems that match its ambition. Giving 40 leaders a shared place to plan, track, and hand off work means fewer dropped balls before events ship, before advocacy reaches the dean's office, and before new students see what JSOM can offer them.
I have been grateful to see that work connect to outcomes the council cares about—clearer committee operations, less duplicate effort, and more bandwidth for the face-to-face work that still matters most.
Thank you
None of this happens in a vacuum. I would like to thank Dawn Owens for her leadership and support throughout the process. It has been a privilege to help strengthen the undergraduate student experience alongside faculty and staff who take that mission seriously.
If you are curious how the evening fit into the broader OWLIE program—faculty of the year, student organizations, alumni honorees—the JSOM recap of the 2026 winners captures the full ceremony. For me, the Super OWL is a reminder to keep building tools and processes that let student leaders spend their limited time where only they can: listening, advocating, and representing the community they serve.