Adaptive MBA Intensives

Impacting Consumers Beyond the Product

Speaker: Jonny Wesolowski

Description: Join Biola Alumni Jonny Wesolowski as he shares his integrated experiences from local pastoring to global product strategy at Nike. Through the 3-day seminar intensive participants will learn what it means to make consumer centric product decisions at a $50 billion footwear company and how that process translates well beyond the consumer goods and our faithful stewardship in business.

Key Takeaways:

• Introduction to the Foundations of Product Merchandising
• Learn how to build trend-right short and long term consumer journeys for any business type
• Understand how merchandising decisions impact every part of consumer daily life
• Pressure test real strategies from Nike, Jordan Brand and converse
• A look inside the how and why product and go to market decisions are made at a Fortune 500 consumer goods brand
• Transparent Q&A session centered around Nike, global consumer goods, and faith in a contemporary business setting 

Jonny Wesolowski is a Biola Alum and currently in Global Product Merchandising at Jordan Brand and Nike.

Private Market Investing

Speakers: Mark & Tim Rafalovich

Description: The Biola Private Investing intensive is an immersive experience where students spend three days exploring the dynamic world of private equity, venture capital, and angel investing. Through expert-led sessions and hands-on exercises, they will learn how to analyze private investment deals and navigate the complexities of the industry. This summit equips future investors with the knowledge and skills to evaluate opportunities, mitigate risks, and engage with seasoned professionals in the private investing space.

Tim Rafalovich is the Managing Partner and Head of Fund Investing (Private Equity) at Wells Fargo. He has over 25 years of experience in finance, private equity, fund investing, alternative assets, investment banking, and management consulting.

Mark Rafalovich iis the Head of West Coast at Merion Investment Partners. He is an investor and financier for businesses and operators in the lower middle market. He has particular expertise in advising on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructuring, and valuations. As the head of the West Coast office for Merion Investment Partners, a Philadelphia and Los Angeles based Private Equity Fund with $450MM of AUM, Mark can provide flexible debt and equity to companies with positive EBITDA to support organic growth, acquisitions, buyouts and generational transfer of ownership. The fund will co-invest equity alongside private equity groups and is comfortable investing in equity sponsored deals as well as directly with entrepreneurs.

Leading with Integrity: Building Trust, Attachment, and Self Awareness

Speaker: Ron Carucci

Description: Lead with truth and humility in today’s complex and fractured world. This three-day intensive, rooted in a Christian worldview, explores the call to lead with integrity as an act of stewardship—honoring the image of God in self and others. Learn how trust is built, how attachment shapes influence and how our formative origin stories — and the personal narratives they shape — reveal deeper spiritual truths and invitations to redemption. Drawing from the book To Be Honest, attachment theory, and formative storytelling, this course equips future leaders to lead with moral clarity, relational depth, and the kind of hope that reflects the redemptive arc of God’s work in the world.

Ron Carucci is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. With 30 years of experience across startups and Fortune 10 companies, nonprofits to heads-of-state, he has helped executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization and leadership and driven growth in 25 countries. Carucci authored nine books, including the Amazon #1 Rising to Power and the recently released multi-award winning To Be Honest, Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice & Purpose. He is a popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, where Navalent’s work on leadership was named one of 2016’s management ideas that mattered most. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes, and a two-time TEDx speaker; one of which, on the topic of power, has been viewed 1.3 million times.

Innovating Through Adaptive Space

Speaker: Michael Arena

Description: This intensive equips leaders to drive innovation in fast-changing environments, especially in the age of AI. Based on Dr. Arena’s Adaptive Space framework, the course explores how ideas emerge, move through networks, and scale into transformational solutions. Participants will learn how to create adaptive environments where innovation thrives, balancing creativity with structure and agility with alignment.

Michael Arena Ph.D. is the Dean of the Crowell School of Business at Biola University. He is also the chief science officer and co-founder of the Connected Commons, a research consortium that brings together business and academic thought leaders to develop and apply organizational network solutions. Arena also continues to teach in Penn’s Masters in Organizational Dynamics program. Prior to joining Biola, he served as the vice president of talent and development at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he leveraged network analysis to enable employee growth, organizational culture and innovation. Dr. Arena was also the chief talent officer for General Motors Corporation where he helped to facilitate a business transformation, which is highlighted in his book Adaptive Space. Arena also spent two years as a visiting scientist with MIT’s Media Lab researching human networks and acted as a design thinking coach within the Stanford dSchool for three years. In 2020, he was nominated to the Thinkers50 Radar class for his work on network roles in creating adaptive organizations. His research on adaptation and networks also won the 2017 Walker Prize from People + Strategy and has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Sloan Management Review.

Sports Business

Speakers: Varied

Description: Join this intensive to hear from the following speakers discuss their experiences and lessons learned in sports business:

1. Sienna Jagielski, Account Executive, LA Dodgers
2. Bill Shumard, CEO - Special Olympics of So Cal, Past organizations: LA Dodgers, USC, CSUF, LB State
3. Roy Engelbrecht, LA Lakers, Owner - Engelbrecht Promotions & Events: Sports Broadcasting Camps, Boxing, MMA, So Cal Professional Women's Flag Football League
4. Bethany Miller, Athletic Director, Biola University
5. Danny Sanchez, VP Communications, LA Football Club Past organizations: San Diego Padres, LA Galaxy MLS (Major League Soccer)
6. Claire Miller, Partnership Strategist, Portland Trailblazers
7. John Christensen, Principal, Cornerstone Communications Past organizations:Portland Trailblazers, MLB
8. Dr. Jake Aguas, Professor, Biola University