Man of honor

Andy Jin’s (BSBA ’24, BA ’24) introduction to business was in a small, mostly empty office space at a WeWork in Durham, North Carolina. It was one of the most thrilling experiences of his life.

During his first year at Carolina, Jin worked part time at TruLab, one of five employees sharing three desks and the spirit that the budding medical-sample management company not only could be something big but should be.

He had spent a summer in high school in a science lab pipetting samples from one test tube to another for eight hours a day. It is easy for a sample vial for a clinical trial to be mishandled or lost, but TruLab offers support through all phases of a clinical trial, making sure samples are in the refrigerator at the correct time and the centrifuge is at the right speed.

“To this day the idea is remarkable to me, that a simple problem I had in high school was so easily solved by a startup, a business that didn’t have any type of experience in science,” says Jin. “The founder, Scott Ogle (BA ’93), came from a financial background, heard about the problem and said, ‘Let’s try to solve this.’ That’s how much power I think startups have. That’s how much power business can have.”

For someone who had just started studying at Carolina and was unsure of where his varied interests would lead, it was an eye-opener.

“I didn’t want to get into business at first because of that stereotype of a non-human-centric, very profit-driven business world we live in. I couldn’t get over the fact that at the end of the day, it seemed to be just about the bottom line,” he says. “But I very quickly experienced it in a different way. I love the fact that we’re able to dissect problems and solve those problems to improve the world. That’s what business is to me now.”

And when Jin addressed his Class of 2024 classmates at graduation – speaking as the Hampton Shuping Prize winner for academic achievement, integrity, honor and leadership potential – it was clear that was what business will always mean to him.

“As UNC Kenan-Flagler graduates, the knowledge we’ve acquired, the skills we’ve honed and the resilience we’ve built are tools that not only empower us to navigate this open terrain but afford us the opportunity to affect change on a grand scale,” he said. “Whether it be through innovative business ventures, meaningful community service or social justice advocacy, each of us has the power to leave a lasting impact.”

Jin gravitated toward math and science while growing up in Potomac, Maryland, where his mom is a statistician in the pharmaceutical industry and his dad is a toxicologist. When he applied to Carolina, he designated himself as “undecided” about his intended major. That changed quickly during his first year.

“It was the people that solidified my interest in business,” he says. “The people who I really clicked with and connected with, those who I had really stimulating conversations with, almost all of them happened to also be interested in business. And then more and more I began to realize that this is what I want to do, and these are the people who I want to surround myself with.”

Jin embraced the new path. He joined business clubs, including the Undergraduate Consulting Club, which later served as president of, and applied to work at TruLab. He reveled in academic exploration, joining and holding leadership positions in 180 Degrees Consulting, UNC Ascend and the STAR (Student Teams Achieving Results) program. At the same time, he double-majored in economics and kept active on main campus in everything from men’s club volleyball to the Parr Center for Ethics.

He studied in a Global Immersion Elective in Budapest where he worked with students at Corvinus University, and took courses in behavioral economics in bargaining and negotiation at the London School of Economics.

In STAR, he worked on a project for a chemicals company, and the client flew Jin and an MBA team member to Nuremberg, Germany, for three days to conduct market research and interviews at a global conference. He landed an internship as a private equity search fund analyst at Carson Capital in Charlotte, North Carolina, followed by a consulting analyst internship at Insight Sourcing Group in Atlanta. Soon after that internship, he accepted a job as an associate consultant with Bain & Company in Atlanta to begin in fall 2024.

In his final year at UNC Kenan-Flagler, Jin completed an honors thesis examining stereotypes and biases inferred from facial features of CEOs across different races, especially those who are Asian. Just as he hasn’t ruled out working in a business of healthcare field or launching his own startup, he is also intrigued by returning to academia to earn a graduate degree to teach.

“I love the fact that we’re able to dissect problems and solve those problems to improve the world. That’s what business is to me now,” says Jin. 

“The support you get at UNC Kenan-Flagler is truly unmatched,” he says. “Students support each other without fail. The faculty and staff are amazing in terms of rooting for you and always being in your corner no matter what you’re doing. They help you with anything and everything. It could be that there’s an industry you want to learn more about or that you can have some small business idea. There is always a UNC Kenan-Flagler professor who has some sort of expertise in it and will walk you through it.”

One of his advisers described Jin strikingly in their Hampton Shuping Prize nomination: “His transformative leadership style, characterized by empathy, resilience and vision, has set a new standard for leadership at UNC Kenan-Flagler.”

To Jin, it was UNC Kenan-Flagler that set a new standard for him to follow.

“Remember the power we hold to shape the world, to lift up those around us and to leave a legacy that we can be proud of,” he said in his graduation speech. “Let’s move forward with the courage to pursue our dreams, the resolve to make a positive impact and the wisdom to hold onto the values we’ve cherished.