SoFi is proud to introduce three members of our MBA Fellowship program, a select group of exceptional veterans evolving their leadership skills for the business sector. This fellowship is vital because it recognizes the invaluable leadership, resilience, and unique problem-solving skills veterans gain through their military service. SoFi actively supports these individuals, understanding that their backgrounds and experiences offer incredible perspectives that drive innovation and excellence within our company and beyond. Hear directly from our Fellowship participants on how they used their military backgrounds to solve complex business challenges at SoFi.
Josh Petrovic, Stanford Graduate School of Business
As an MBA candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Joshua’s background is an Army Officer and Aeromedical Evacuation Pilot. After earning a degree in systems engineering from West Point, he spent almost a decade in the military, where he led teams in high-pressure environments. His work at the intersection of operations, logistics, and healthcare gave him a strong foundation in problem-solving and decision-making.
“During my internship, I focused on mapping the financial journey of service members and their families. Key challenges included frequent relocations with unplanned expenses, juggling multiple financial institutions, and uncertainty about how to turn steady military pay into long-term wealth. SoFi is uniquely positioned to help by offering all financial tools in one place and designing tailored solutions for these needs. With direct deposit, members can access paychecks earlier than with traditional banks, giving them more control to manage and grow their money. Paired with SoFi Plus, service members can confidently plan for their future. Having lived many of these challenges myself, I know how valuable it is to have a partner like SoFi that makes finances simpler and more transparent.
The most valuable lesson I gained was the importance of empathy in design. My military background gave me credibility and a deep understanding of the community’s pain points, but the real insight came from translating those challenges into solutions that would resonate with both members and the broader business strategy. Leading in the Army taught me to frame complex missions in a way that’s clear and actionable for diverse teams, which directly applied to collaborating across SoFi’s product, marketing, and compliance groups.
Programs like this fellowship are invaluable because they help veterans bridge the gap between military and business by giving us a platform to translate our skills into impact. Service members are used to leading teams, managing resources, and navigating uncertainty, but opportunities like this show how those skills can directly contribute to innovation in the private sector.”
Vincent Chiu, Cornell SC Johnson School of Business
Vincent is an MBA candidate at Cornell University. Before business school, he worked in tech consulting and served in the Army as an Engineer. During a deployment to Iraq, he led and worked on construction projects, an experience that taught him how to perform under pressure, adapt quickly, rely on his team, and remain calm in challenging situations. These lessons in resilience have influenced every aspect of his career since.
“My fellowship was within SoFi’s Crypto space where I assisted in developing the listing guidelines for relaunching SoFi’s exchange platform, along with a governance charter that became the Crypto Steering Group. The biggest challenge was getting up to speed on the technical, legal, and regulatory frameworks. Coming in without a crypto background meant I had to learn quickly while still delivering which is where my Army experience came into play. I was often thrown into situations where I had to figure out things I’d never seen before. Sometimes there was someone to ask, but more often I had to dig into a technical manual and figure it out myself. That same mindset, diving in, asking questions, and adapting in real time, was exactly what I leaned on at SoFi. It is also connected directly with one of SoFi’s values: iterate, learn, innovate, and get to the truth.
I’m most proud of seeing the Crypto Steering Group take shape and knowing the listing guidelines I worked on will be a foundation for how our team evaluates assets going forward. It’s not flashy, but it’s the framework that everything else builds on.
This fellowship gave me the chance to translate my military leadership and problem-solving skills
into fintech. At SoFi, I applied the same principles, breaking down complex problems, anticipating
risks, and staying focused under pressure, while keeping the bigger mission in mind: helping
people get their money right. The experience reinforced how valuable disciplined execution and
creative problem-solving are, and I’m grateful to SoFi for investing in me and helping me grow.”
Ryan Williams, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
Ryan, a husband and father of two, spent 11 years in the U.S. Army with the last 7 in special operations where he worked on global problems, working closely with diverse, cross-functional, and cross-cultural teams. At Kenan-Flagler, Ryan is concentrating on Business Analytics & Management Science, which allows him to build on his operational background and sharpen the quantitative tools needed to help organizations grow more effectively. He has found that the most rewarding work comes from uniting people behind a common purpose, a principle he applied in both his military career and as president of the Veterans Club at UNC.
“My project with the Operations Infrastructure team at SoFi focused on mapping the end-to-end workflow of the Personal Loan application process. The goal was to find ways to improve the member journey and boost our First Contact Resolution (FCR) rates. The initial challenge was the sheer scale of the process, with countless stakeholders and sub-processes involved. Navigating this complexity required me to both analyze the granular details and maintain a big-picture perspective.
The support from my manager and teammates was invaluable. They helped me prioritize opportunities and ensured my recommendations were not only operationally sound but also aligned with SoFi's member-first philosophy. The most impactful improvement I identified was a framework to reduce avoidable member callbacks. By using OCR-powered checks earlier in the process, we could reduce friction, shorten resolution times, and increase FCR rates.
My military background in special operations prepared me for a project like this in two key ways: working in complexity and leading through ambiguity. In the Army, I learned to analyze incomplete information and identify leverage points in complex systems, a skill that translated directly to process mapping at SoFi. The second part was the focus on people. I had to work with diverse teams and learn from others, a practice that proved invaluable at SoFi, where I had to listen to specialists across different departments to consolidate insights into an actionable plan.”
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