ADAM SUPERNANT is a member of the full-time MBA Class of 2017. For five years prior to UCLA Anderson, he was based in Shenzhen, China, where he worked for PassageMaker China, a U.S.-owned, China-based boutique consultancy and contract manufacturer. He rose from intern to department chief of the sourcing projects area in less than five years.
Throughout his two years at UCLA Anderson, Supernant enrolled in six on-campus global management elective courses, including “Global Macroeconomics,” “International Business Economics,” “Understanding the Asia-Pacific Economies,” “Global Supply Chain Management,” “Global Operations Management” and Global Marketing Management.” He completed his internship as a project manager with United Airlines data analytics team, where he worked with groups in São Paulo, Tokyo, Guam and Frankfurt to deploy new technology for measuring and improving aircraft performance.
Supernant’s AMR project developed a strategic framework for the International Labour Organization, an agency of the United Nations, to promote foreign investment and local employment in conflict-affected zones in Southeast Asia. He traveled to Thailand and Myanmar — countries that suffer from ongoing internal conflict, which to varying degrees has influenced local industries and foreign investment — to understand both the conflict on the ground as well as the business environment.
During his time at UCLA Anderson, he served as a teaching assistant for the core operations management course and was a member of the Management Consulting and Strategy and Operations Management Associations. He took full advantage and attended numerous global conferences, speaker events and policy forums that the CGM offered both on and off campus. While in Thailand for his AMR research, he attended the CGM’s global immersion course alumni event and networked with UCLA Anderson alumni living and working in Bangkok. Supernant is proficient in Mandarin and was the founding member of the Utter Mandarin Chinese language club as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where he earned a B.A. in history and political science and wrote an honors thesis on the political implications of environmentalism in China. Supernant accepted a full-time position as a business consultant with Elementum, a supply chain technology startup based in Mountain View.