Taylor Gilmore
BBA ’22
Manager, Event Operations and Client Services
Bay Area Host Committee
Why he’s one to watch: Vargas oversees human resources, community impact, and internal communications at Shipt, a Target-owned company connecting customers to personal shopping and delivery. He has created an ecosystem that showcases every employee’s worth through continuing education opportunities, mental health services, and a peer-nominated recognition program. “My focus is building a culture where people thrive and leaders grow.”
A seat at the table: After exploring accounting, finance, and real estate, Vargas discovered his calling with WSB’s management and human resources major. “It appealed to me and my desire to understand the role that leadership plays within corporations and in people’s lives. HR would also give me a seat at the table across many business functions.”
A champion for community: At Shipt, Vargas directs the economic and social impact agenda, collaborating with local organizations to make a positive impact in their communities. One standout partnership leverages shoppers with Shipt to deliver fresh food at no cost to food-insecure households.
The WSB advantage: Vargas credits foundational HR coursework for kickstarting his decades-long human resources career. During his internship at Target, he employed key learnings to successfully increase the attraction and retention of his store’s workforce, an achievement that launched his career.
Why she’s one to watch: Gilmore unites stakeholders across a diverse, nine-county region—from stadium officials to local policymakers—to coordinate logistics, operations, and experiences for major sporting events in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Super Bowl LX and the 2026 FIFA World Cup. “I figure out how to create the fun, energy, and culture around these different events in a way that’s accessible to the entire community and inspires pride.”
The WSB advantage: As a longtime gymnast and daughter of a college football coach, sports run in Gilmore’s blood. She credits WSB advisors for helping her channel that passion into a strategic career path. Pairing her degree with a certificate in sports communication and internships with the College Football Playoff and Pro Football Hall of Fame, she turned a lifelong interest into a profession.
Driving economic impact: Gilmore’s work with the Super Bowl LX Source Program gave local businesses and suppliers in the Bay Area critical opportunities to forge contracts with the NFL—and keep millions of dollars in Bay Area communities.
Embracing the journey: From coordinating enormously complex transportation logistics to setting up humble autograph tables, Gilmore’s career in sports has been shaped by moments both big and small, with every unique experience providing value. “Every opportunity you have, you’re learning what you like and what you don’t like, and it’s okay to be constantly evolving.”
Why she’s one to watch: By leveraging new technologies to streamline processes and centralize key information, Jackson is enhancing the holistic employee experience at SoFi, a one-stop financial services and technology company. While working to scale and automate HR operations, she helped launch a new platform that utilizes artificial intelligence to connect the company’s more than 6,000 employees to available resources. Additionally, she leads project management for the HR workstreams of SoFi’s mergers and acquisitions and international expansion efforts.
The WSB advantage: Jackson consistently applies WSB lessons from change management and negotiation classes to her current role—whether she’s working on an acquisition, helping employees adopt new technologies, or collaborating with senior leaders across departments.
Love languages: After spending two years in France as an au pair and working as a high school English teacher, Jackson made it her mission to become a fluent French speaker. Now, she’s also learning Romanian, a feat inspired by her husband’s home country. “Languages are more of a personal hobby of mine. It’s fun and it works my brain in a different way.”
Why he’s one to watch: A prolific scholar and trusted media voice, Kelly has become a go-to expert on financial stability, devoting his career to understanding why financial crises occur—and how to prevent future ones. He now serves as a key advisor to the FDIC chairman, providing research-backed insights on managing stability in an increasingly complex global market.
A powerful combo: After getting into UW–Madison, his first (and only) choice for college, Kelly studied finance and later paired it with a complementary political science major. “I realized if you could understand the mechanics of political institutions and the policymaking process, combined with financial mechanics, you could do a lot of good.”
The WSB advantage: Kelly points to the collaborative, problem-solving culture of WSB as a true differentiator and career booster. “It was always the students versus the class, not the students versus each other. That cooperation makes for better businesspeople down the line.”
Nice niche: Kelly’s self-described “niche” area of financial expertise has led to fulfilling jobs, consulting work, an adjunct teaching position, and a forthcoming book. His best advice for students? Explore and nourish those unique interests.
Why he’s one to watch: With a work ethic honed by late nights in Grainger Hall and early mornings on Lake Mendota, Bisset hustled to become one of the youngest managing directors in Barclays’ history. With steady leadership, deep technical expertise, and a knack for developing innovative solutions for his clients, the former student rower transformed the company’s convertibles sales division into one of its most profitable units.
The WSB advantage: Leaning on leadership lessons he learned at WSB, Bisset prioritizes building a positive team culture over everything else, striving to pass his self-described “beer test” on both good and bad days. “If everyone is still willing to come together and have a drink with colleagues after work, you’re doing something right.”
Surprise of a lifetime: Now a father of three, Bisset’s journey into parenthood began when his wife unexpectedly went into labor 2,000 miles from home, in rural Montana, the morning after his best friend’s wedding. The story of his daughter’s premature arrival, experience in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and Amtrak journey back to New York is chronicled in Bisset’s 2022 book, The Destination Birth.
Why she’s one to watch: Combining her operations and project management expertise, Woodbury turns strategy into action at medical diagnostics leader QuidelOrtho. She’s spearheading a multimillion-dollar management initiative to scale the manufacturing process, enhance product placement, and expand the company’s network.
Where flexibility meets business: Seeking to complement her engineering background and operations experience with business acumen, Woodbury found the perfect fit with WSB’s flexible, part-time professional MBA. “I needed something that balanced with my full-time job and allowed me to apply learnings in real time, while also creating a new network during my move from San Francisco to Madison.”
Gaining global perspective: About two years after graduation, Woodbury returned to WSB to pursue the program’s Global Business Badge, traveling to South Africa and Botswana. The trip fulfilled a lifelong dream to study abroad, while gaining insights to share with her international colleagues.
The WSB advantage: Through the MBA program’s project-based format, Woodbury learned how to seamlessly navigate group dynamics, relying on collaboration and trust to solve problems and complete tasks.
Advocating for equity: A passionate proponent for women’s empowerment and mentorship, Woodbury was president of the Society of Women Engineers during her undergraduate career and was a part of the leadership team of the Global Women’s Empowerment Business Resource Group at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Why she’s one to watch: Toon drives capital strategy and marketing efforts at Forward Community Investments, a Madison-based nonprofit expanding access to financial services to often overlooked communities across Wisconsin. Her work was instrumental in securing funding to support activation of community-centric projects like The Black Business Hub and McKenzie Regional Workforce Center. “We really try to get to a yes where others often say no.”
A strategic match: As a volleyball player at UW–Madison, Toon found a business major to be the perfect complement to her rigorous training and leadership work on the court. “Both experiences challenged me in different ways. WSB helped me translate the skills I had honed as an athlete into skills that I could use to grow and achieve what I wanted to in my career.”
The WSB advantage: Classes like business law are notoriously challenging, but Toon says these rigorous experiences were also some of the most rewarding. “Being put in uncomfortable situations forced me to grow in ways that I didn’t know that I needed to. That shapes your foundational skills and your potential as a leader.”
Why he’s one to watch: Gero has been scaling artificial intelligence efforts at Microsoft while championing responsible use of the technology since well before the generative AI boom. He previously helped run the company’s flagship Azure Machine Learning platform, led product strategy for Microsoft Foundry’s model catalog—including access to over 11,000 foundation models—and now drives customer adoption of the company’s entire AI portfolio, enabling organizations to create custom-built agentic applications and other AI solutions.
Sound of success: A music major with an interest in technology, Gero launched his career as an intern with a Grammy Award-winning record label in Chicago—then quickly worked his way up to become the company’s general manager. During this time, he traveled the country with bands like The Allman Brothers, producing on-the-spot recordings from concerts and festivals.
Next track: After working for an event production firm and heading up a spinoff company, Gero sought the next step to advance his career and found a perfect match with WSB’s full-time MBA program. “I wanted to get a solid data-driven framework to making business decisions, and I dove headfirst into that at Wisconsin.”
The WSB advantage: As an enterprise development fellow with the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship, Gero appreciated how mentors like Dan Olszewski (BS ’87) cultivated and shaped his passion for intrapreneurship. “You get to function like an entrepreneur, but with the backing of a very large corporation. I freaking love that.”