Speed Networking in the City: Building Bridges from Tech to Business

The question sounded almost too simple: “What did you have for breakfast?”

But at the Marines’ Memorial Hotel in San Francisco, it was the perfect icebreaker. In a room filled with professionals from Adobe, TikTok, Visa and Walmart, the most meaningful conversations didn’t start with rehearsed elevator pitches. They began with genuine curiosity.

At the UC Davis Graduate School of Management’s annual Speed Networking event, Master of Science in Business Analytics, MBA and Master of Management students connect with alumni and industry leaders for an evening of fast-paced, high-impact conversations. Over two and a half hours, students rotate through short, structured sessions designed to explore how technical skills translate into business value—and how analytics shapes careers across industries.

The format is quick but personal. Alumni who once sat in these same seats return to share how they navigated uncertainty, built confidence and turned classroom knowledge into real-world impact. The evening is a reminder that strong networks aren’t built on perfection—they’re built on authentic questions, shared stories and the courage to simply start talking.

Video Transcript

Rachel Bandelaria, Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) Program Manager

Welcome. We are here at the GSM Speed Networking event at Marines’ Memorial in San Francisco with our MSBA students right behind me. They’re networking with our alumni. They’re here to make meaningful connections with our alumni so they can further their careers.

Talha Amin MSBA 26

This is an opportunity for students like me and my cohort to meet with professionals around the industry, to put more light into what they are working on and how they can add value to our future—and how we can learn from their talents and what they have been doing so far in their life, and how they can make it an important turning point in our life.

Paul Fortun MBA 28

As a current student at GSM, I've been to a few networking events before this, and I've met many alumni—and meeting those alumni, I can see how much they've grown even from the few years that they were in school. So I'm excited to meet the alumni here today. I'm sure there are going to be people I've never met before, and I'm excited to see how their journey has been since they have graduated.

Avantika Goyal MSBA 24, Data Operations Associate at Vida Health

Because this is a networking event—and being the person that I am—I could not speak enough about the importance of networking and talking to people. And I know it's intimidating. I was once in their shoes, and it's scary to just reach out to someone. But people always want to talk, and there's always something you can relate on and talk about.

You don't have to start with, “Hey, can you give me a job?” You can just be like, “Hey, what did you have for breakfast today?” or “What's your day-to-day at work?” And just from there, you get the ball rolling. And it's great to just get a foot in the door.