In this episode, we sit down with Nicolas Echegaray (WG ’21) to unpack his path from Lima to Wharton – including how taking the GMAT early helped him score a 750, how he built a mission-driven narrative around financial inclusion, and how he navigated interviews as a non-native English speaker. Nico also shares how a viral LinkedIn post led him to an internship at Juno during COVID, why he ultimately chose Wharton, and how the MBA shaped his transition from investment banking to becoming COO of a fast-growing fintech startup. This episode is brought to you by Juno, the collective-bargaining platform that helps MBA students secure lower rates on student loans. Learn more at juno.us/m7a
I'm a Wharton graduate from the class of 2021, originally from Peru. I'm a CFA charterholder and former investment banker, and I've been COO of Juno since graduating from business school.
I was born in Lima, Peru, went to school there through high school, and got into a Peruvian university where I studied economics. It's a very proven path in Peru. There isn't the wealth of universities that we have in the US, so there were a couple of universities I was choosing from, and they have these programs where people study something broad when they don't know what they want to do with their lives. Economics was one of those - and I really liked it.
While I was in school I started looking for what I wanted to do afterward. My first internship was at a commercial bank that was just starting their own investment banking division. I had the opportunity to work with them during my junior year in college, and they offered me to stay. I was very excited to get the offer and ended up staying at that bank for almost six years, in very different roles - a little bit of capital markets, a little bit of product development, and also some P&L ownership on the structured products division inside the investment bank.
It's one of those banks where you either get to a role in which you go to an MBA or you have to move on. That's what led me to first consider business school.
Where it really became a reality and something that I started planning for was when I entered the investment bank. I saw my peers going through the same process - analysts and associates who were a couple of years above me - stressed out about the GMAT, and, if you're an international student, having to take an English exam as well. Seeing them go through that process, I thought, okay, I need to get my ducks in a row and start doing this if I want to progress in my career at the bank, which is what many people do. They go to their MBA, then they return to Peru, and then they get a managerial role at an organization.
How did you start figuring out which schools you wanted to apply to?
I took the GMAT very early - three years before applying - so it was not a concern at all. I'm one of the few people that enjoyed doing the GMAT, because I wasn't stressed out with application deadlines. I had the competition with the people that were actually stressed out going through that process, and I think that was a strategic advantage.
What did you get on the GMAT on your first try?
I got a 750, but a big part of the reason I got a good score is because I didn't have the stress. I definitely recommend: if you're a few years out, take it early. It's very different than doing it in the year you're applying.
I've been with my now wife for 17 years - high school sweetheart. At that point I was young, but I had already been with her for eight years. So it was always the idea of let's go together. She didn't want to do an MBA, so the initial thinking was let's try to find a city where we can both find places we want to go and hopefully get into places we're excited about. That's why I applied in Chicago, in Boston, in Philadelphia - university cities where you can find plenty of options.
I applied to Michigan because a very close friend of mine went there and he's an absolute fan of the football team - apparently it's amazing. And then I added other schools where I found people I really liked who had gone there and told me about the school, and I felt it matched my profile.
What was your final list of schools?
The usual suspects for someone aiming high: Harvard, Wharton, Booth, Ross, and Kellogg.
The first step was finding an advisor - someone who could help me structure my thoughts and help me find real fit. There are a lot of things going on when you actually submit an application, and you want to make sure that you're really putting your best self out there and thinking about how you want to portray yourself. I did a couple of extracurriculars here and there. I had a couple of ventures that I think spoke to the person that I am or that I wanted to portray in my applications. So just doing that introspection, getting those stories together, and trying to find a cohesive way of presenting them.
I really believed at the time that I wanted to return immediately after my MBA to my country. I did enjoy my work at the bank, and there were multiple opportunities in a big organization - at that time operating in many countries - so I focused on what I could gain from that and how I could apply it to the Peruvian or Latin American reality.
I had a small NGO that helped small, low-income business owners in Peru, and I portrayed how an MBA could help me grow that and help more people. I'm happy that it's still going on without my involvement now. That was the story I painted.
Was the NGO something you started and built on the side of also working at the bank?
Yes. Depending on the school and the questions they asked, I definitely used the NGO and how my work at the bank - and even volunteering for some of the bank's own community initiatives in Peru - all tied to my story on financial inclusion and education. I work in education now, and hopefully help people pay for school, so in some sense I'm still fulfilling that mission. That was how I framed it in the essays and what I wanted to get out of the MBA.
I also had a very clear post-business-school goal, even though it's not exactly where I landed. Business schools love someone they know is going to be very employable, and I almost had a job not quite teed up, but I really could have returned.
Interviews were terrifying, honestly. As a non-native speaker, there were things that kept me up at night. I've been here in the US for seven years and you can still hear my thick accent - so imagine how bad it was back then. Although living in Miami does not help that much.
I prepared both tactically and strategically. Strategically, I worked with my advisor and also hired a native English speaker in Lima to go through mock interviews - just conversations to feel more comfortable explaining the vision. I joined one mock TBD, what they call a team-based discussion. That was my strategy: to get more comfortable with that type of situation.
I chose to interview in Brazil because I thought probably all the non-native speakers would go to Brazil, so I wouldn't be at that much of a disadvantage. Unfortunately, there was an American working in Brazil in my TBD who had an unfair advantage - but it worked out.
Did you do all of your interviews in Brazil across all the schools?
I got interviewed in five places. Stanford unfortunately didn't offer an interview. I interviewed for HBS in Boston, I interviewed for Wharton in Brazil, and all the rest were with alumni in Peru. They were all in English, even the interviews with Peruvians, but those were a little more of a relaxed conversation than HBS with admissions or Wharton, where you are in a chaotic environment.
The feedback on "this is good content and you can give it a different spin" - that coaching helped me a lot. At that point there was no ChatGPT, so even correcting my English or phrasing things in a more direct way was valuable. I probably spent a thousand words to say something that could be said in fifty.
The consultant also kept me on track. I feel I'm organized in general, but he was able to give me a sense of, "Hey, you are behind on these schools." I applied to six schools in the first round, so it was a lot - and with work and extracurriculars, I wanted to make sure the pacing was right. The advisor gave me that confidence: "No, you have to put more time in here" or "You are fine here."
I got admitted to Wharton, Booth, Ross, and HBS. There was definitely some prestige involved. There are a lot of alumni in Peru - at Wharton in particular, and in my bank specifically, it was crazy. There were like 60 people in our division and there were like six Wharton alums. Of 60 people, counting analysts and people who had not done an MBA, like 10% had gone to Wharton, which was crazy. I wouldn't say there was pressure, but it was definitely very well seen that you got into that school. I have friends that went after me and also got into Wharton from the same division, so we have good representation there.
I went to the admitted students weekend and just loved the people there. My wife got way more friends than me in that first interaction. I went to a class and she was already with 20 other people, saying "you have to meet him and her," and everyone was like, okay, this is our place, we'll be happy here. She was also admitted to Drexel, right next door, to start a master's in what she wanted, so it worked out great. After that, there really wasn't much of a consideration to give it.
Wharton has this pre-term experience that I think is unique - it's in August and you get this dedicated time with a small cohort of people, something like three weeks. As the MBA progressed, you find your own friend group and it can get a little more like the 20 or 30 people you'll see more often. But at that time, no one knew anyone, so you were able to meet a lot of great people. The university did a great job putting together activities so we could meet and mingle with different people. That is one of the things I look back on most fondly. We grew very close, and my best friends here in Miami are from Wharton. We have about 20 people from my class here. The community we got from there is amazing.
I feel like I'm giving advice that I didn't follow, because they say choose carefully your clubs - you always overspend on clubs - and I was clear on that advice, and then I ended up being in everything. I signed up for a book club where people never even got together at any point. Everything looked so interesting that I just signed up for everything.
If I were to do it again, I think it's good to experiment with different things and just be open. That's how you get out there and see what's new and what you like. You only have so much time in a day, and you also want to prioritize the social side, which is a big component and a fun component of the MBA.
I loved it so much that I decided to stay, and here I am.
In the third quarter of my first year, I was actually in Peru with 120 of my classmates. We organized a trip to Peru - we said, "Let's get people to know our country." In the middle of that, the university shut down because of the COVID alert. People were trying to fly out of the country. One guy had to stay in Peru for three weeks and I think he got out on a plane from the US Embassy in Peru. People now remember that trip very fondly. At the time it was scary.
At that time I was also recruiting for internships. My approach to internships was: as mentioned, I probably had a guaranteed job back in Peru, so I could be a little riskier and explore things I really wanted to see if they were a fit for me. I always liked tech and wanted to see what was out there. I had no background whatsoever in tech, so it was about learning what I could put my skill sets into and what I liked. At that point, the internship process had really ended - there wasn't really anyone recruiting.
Chris, one of Juno's founders, had a very viral post on LinkedIn where he said that while big companies were rescinding internship offers, Juno had just raised their first round and wanted to hire a great class of interns. I was really motivated by the post. It was essentially: we are a small company, we just raised our first funds, but we want to hire interns to help us grow. Just tell us what you want to do here - we don't even have a role for you, just tell us - and this is paid, and we really want you to be a valuable part of the team. The problem was that around 6,000 people applied.
Between undergrads, grads, and everyone else - not only MBAs - there were really no internships going on at that point. I took a different approach and leveraged my capital markets background by pitching a solution for international students: I wanted to try to bring Juno to international students. Unfortunately that didn't end up working, but that's how I ended up getting the internship.
Did you end up working for Juno part-time throughout your second year?
Yes. There are certain limitations as an international student on what you can do, so I had to do a work-study arrangement with the university, but I worked around 15 to 20 hours a week during my second year. It was very different from what I was used to - at that point we were probably seven or eight people, literally just starting out, versus a bank of 35,000 people. I loved it, and I'm obviously super thankful to Christian for giving me the opportunity. I'm very glad I made that decision and that everything worked out.
Startups are very different from big companies. Big companies allocate budgets and go through the motions of hiring a class of interns. Startups really see interns as a core part of the team - we need you, we want you to help us grow. The more you can portray yourself as someone who is coming to learn but also to contribute your effort and your skills, that's what people are looking for. If you want to go to a startup, you have to think about how you as an individual will add value to what they're trying to do. The quick apply on LinkedIn just does not work.
Juno was started by Chris and Gil, two guys who were very happy to be admitted to Harvard Business School - not so happy when they discovered they had to pay $120,000 per year to attend. They decided to go shop for loans, saw that they were super expensive, and decided there must be a better way of financing their education. What they did was group up hundreds of their classmates. They were no longer taking a $200K loan individually - they were taking a $30 million loan between all of them. They went to lenders and said, "Are you willing to give us a discount if we all go together to your bank?" Lenders were obviously willing to engage, given the type of volume and the fact that it could all come in one place. The concept has repeated every year since then. Juno is very present at top MBA campuses - usually around 50% of each class joins the group. It's absolutely free: you join, we negotiate for you, and at the end of the day, if you want to take the loan you take it; if you don't, there's no commitment, no cost to join. We highly encourage people to join and see what we can offer and compare our offer to others in the market.
What's a day in the life as COO of Juno, and how has the MBA helped you in your current role?
As a startup, I do a little bit of everything across all the roles I've had in the past years. My main metric is how we can grow our three lines of business and how we can make sure that we maintain our core values in the process. That's how I measure my job.
This year is especially important because there are several changes to the federal student loan program. In the past, students could rely on private loans or federal loans, but after this year, MBAs especially will be capped on the amount of federal loans they can take. So private loans will be more important and more relevant for a larger number of people. We want to make sure that we have the awareness necessary so people know about us before they commit to more expensive options.
We just hired five people and there are more coming in. We want to make sure that we are in front of not only MBAs - incoming medical doctors, dentists, and other grad degrees will face the same issues - and we're trying to be in front of them so they understand our value proposition and check us out before they just Google "best student loan" and maybe not get the best rate that they can find.
The community, for sure - on a personal level, my best friends. From a skill-set level, it did give me mental frameworks on how to understand challenges - how to evaluate opportunities, how to think about ROI versus cost of acquisition. These types of things that may sound like buzzwords are actually important. As a manager, at the end of the day, what you want to make sure is that you're making informed decisions, that you have all the key data points before you decide to invest or how to allocate time, opportunity cost - these types of things. The MBA does a great job of giving you that mental framework to operate.
Once you decide to do it, it's done. I feel people dread it too much. Once you're there, enjoy the experience - it's never going to repeat. I tell everyone: I would switch sides with you and go back for an MBA again if I could. It's that awesome an experience.
Obviously do the math, make the rational financial decisions, don't spend more than you need to. But at the end of the day, enjoy it. You are going through an experience that is not going to repeat itself, likely ever, in your life. It's a great time. Don't over-stress about it, and things will work out fine.