Kiersa Sanders (WG’20) was recently named this year’s Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial Fellowship Scholar. This prize recognizes a second-year AAMBAA member who has demonstrated academic excellence and has made an outstanding contribution to and shown leadership in the community of color at Wharton, Penn or the greater business community. The prize includes a one-time $25,000 fellowship award. 

Ms. Sanders earned an associate’s degree from Seattle Central College in 2011 and graduated at the top of her class at University of Washington’s Foster School of Business in 2014. She then joined Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy and Operations department, where she worked on mergers and acquisitions in the tech industry. 

Ms. Sanders completed Wharton’s MBA Prep Program through Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) in 2017 and attended Explore Wharton. In 2018, she was accepted to Wharton’s Class of 2020 as an MBA candidate. She currently serves as 100 Series co-chair, helping to organize four events supporting students throughout the year. 

Through the AAM-BAA, she met her business partner, Theresa Shropshire. The two connected over an interest in fitness—specifically, how to navigate strength training as women in gyms where the weight section is often occupied by men. Their startup, currently called Builtable, is like theSkimm, but for fitness and strength training. “It’s a newsletter you get to your email inbox that’s really short and easy to read,” Ms. Sanders said. “The type of content you can expect is exercises demonstrated in the form of short videos or gifs, new Instagram fitness accounts for you to follow, or a comparison of different resistance bands.”