West Coast Athlete Finds New
Home-Court Advantage

Sennai Atsbeha, MBA 2009

Career Specialization: Brand and Product Management
Internship: Nike, Beaverton, Ore.

Growing up in Seattle, Sennai Atsbeha lived to play basketball. After college ball at Texas A&M in Corpus Christi, he played semi-pro. When a close friend died suddenly, he had a wakeup call that caused him to re-evaluate whether he wanted to continue to play basketball or look to other otions. He decided that while his passion was sports, he wanted to combine that passion with business. His goal became jump-starting a career in the business of sports. Following his first year in the Wisconsin MBA, Atsbeha landed a summer internship with a marketing icon—Nike—working in his dream field—brand planning for basketball.

“One of my good friends told me about the Wisconsin MBA program, and I said: ‘I’m not going to Wisconsin. It’s cold there, plus I don’t even know where Wisconsin is.’ But I eventually agreed to come for a visit, meet people, and learn more about the program.

“I’m a relationship type of guy, I really like to interact with people. I felt everybody I met at Wisconsin was really sincere, really down to earth, as opposed to other schools that felt really formal, and where it felt like they didn’t care a whole lot about me. At Wisconsin, people had done research on me, people had questions for me, wanted to talk with me. It was like when
I was recruited to play basketball in college.

“I’m a West Coast person. I like big cities. I have to admit, and maybe it’s because I came from LA, I had kind of an elitist attitude toward Wisconsin. I thought it would be a lot of, for lack of a better word, country bumpkin folks. I was really surprised by the types of people I’ve met. It’s super diverse, which I didn’t think it would be. People have some incredible backgrounds and everybody’s stories are just so interesting. So the people definitely just floored me.

“I have friends at other schools, and in thinking about the people there compared to the people here…you know, you can find smart people at any school across the nation, but finding smart people who are cool, I think that’s hard to find.

“When I first heard about the concept of career specializations, I really didn’t like it because I want to know everything. But eventually I realized that I want to be in marketing, and a specialization is exactly what I need. I don’t need to know about a ton of things, I need to master one thing! And it’s interesting…I’ve found there are lots of parallels between basketball and brand management.”