The Best & Brightest

Two undergraduate students from the C. T. Bauer College of Business have been named among the nation's best on the 2024 Best & Brightest Business Majors list by Poets&Quants.

The list includes finance and management senior Karenina Urquieta and entrepreneurship and finance senior Alim Maknojia, who were recognized for their academic achievements and extracurricular activities.

Alim Maknojia is a double major in entrepreneurship and finance who has demonstrated leadership, initiative and innovation as a student.

Through a competitive application process, Maknojia was selected as one of 28 students to join the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, consistently named the No. 1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program in the United States. During his time in the program, he served as the leader of the Wolff Real Estate Roundtable, where he and a group of students and alumni acquired a property, renovated and flipped it to gain hands-on experience in real estate investment, then sharing that knowledge with UH students.

Maknojia’s entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and tireless work ethic have greatly contributed to the entrepreneurship community at Bauer. Inside and outside the classroom, he has exemplified the values of creativity, calculated risk-taking and management excellence.

Upon graduation, Maknojia plans to expand his real estate portfolio and begin his own company.

“Receiving this award has been a very honorable and humbling experience,” he said. “I was walking to class when I received the email and continued to read it over and over again. To say it is an honor to receive this distinction would be an understatement.”

Karenina Urquieta is a finance and management senior who fully immersed herself in the many opportunities offered to Bauer College students.

Urquieta was selected for the Bauer in D.C. Fellowship Program, where she lived, learned and interned in the nation’s capital for a semester. She also served as a consultant as part of the Stimulating Urban Renewal through Entrepreneurship℠ (SURE℠) program, where she advised a small business from Houston’s Third Ward to help them grow. For three semesters, she served as officer and president of Bauer Ambassadors, a group that serves as representatives for Bauer at events,.

As she pursued activities outside the classroom during her undergraduate career, Urquieta maintained accountability to her studies, achieving a perfect GPA while also juggling multiple part-time jobs to finance her own degree.

After graduation, Urquieta plans to pursue her Juris Doctor degree.

“I am so honored and thrilled to be Bauer’s nomination for Poets&Quants,” she said. “Thank you to Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives Roger Barascout, Program Manager for Undergraduate Student Organizations and Activities Jorge Arellano and the Bauer committee for choosing me for this honor. This truly goes to show how much involvement in the college plays in your future steps.”