Patrick Savage (MBA ’21) was recently named to Poets&Quants’ MBAs to Watch list which honors members of the class of 2021 from across leading business schools who act as community builders and leaders among their peers.
“Pat aspires to leave the world a better place,” says Lynn Rosen, Assistant Director of Career Management. “He understands to do that, it’s critical to make decisions and act in ways that help shape the environment we all interact in, on a micro and macro level. Pat is mindful of how to use his voice to benefit the Katz community and that being the loudest voice doesn’t mean it’s the “right voice.” He has used his voice to open discussions with all members of Katz to address concerns and find opportunities.”
Before joining Katz, Savage earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and his master’s degree in physiology and biophysics from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He worked as a principal technical professional at Hilliburton Energy Services in New Orleans, LA, where he developed customized drilling fluid programs and supervised implementation by engineering teams in the Gulf of Mexico.
As a graduate student, Savage served as vice president for both the Adam Smith Society and the Katz Business Healthcare Club, as an MBA student ambassador for the school, and as a finalist room leader volunteer for the Katz Invitational Case Competition. He completed an internship with Pittsburgh Business Group on Health (PBGH), which he noted as one of his greatest achievements throughout business school.
“Through my PBGH internship, I was able lead a team of MS and MBA students working with a non-profit coalition of leading employers from across the region to find a safe way back to work with the pandemic still present,” says Savage. “The skyrocketing unemployment rates showed how important our project could be to helping our community get back to work. With that realization in the back of our minds, for a seven-week period our team collaborated with physicians, health data analysts and non-profit member companies’ executives to develop a novel pan-industry risk assessment.”
Savage chose the MBA program at Katz for its pedagogy, student selection standards, and ideal business learning environment.
“Katz, at the student, professor, staff and administrative levels, exemplified the caliber of people to whom I aspire: dynamic, intelligent, adaptable business leaders,” says Savage “In essence, it was the people at Katz who became the deciding factor for where I would get my MBA. The diversity and the range of experience that Katz assembles in their student population, a world-class faculty, and the personalized career management staff were too great an opportunity to pass. I believed so strongly in Katz’s program that I decided it was worth reinventing my career path.”
After graduation, Savage joined the finance leadership development program at Westinghouse Electric Company in Cranberry, PA. In the future, Savage hopes to have a leading role in helping a biotech startup grow with an owner who comes from a biological background similar to his, but who hasn’t had the time or bandwidth to immerse themselves into the finance side of business. He also hopes to expand and use his knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese to work as a global finance leader in Latin and South America.
To read more from Pat Savage’s interview with Poets&Quants, please click here.
