Assaf Wand:
I am Assaf Wand, CEO and cofounder of Hippo Insurance. I graduated Booth in 2005. The biggest joy that you have in entrepreneurship is that you choose who you work with, you choose what you work on, and you build the culture that you want to work with. I think different people go to business school for a different reasons. I wanted to experience corporate America, and I thought that Chicago Booth enabled me to do that.
One of the things that I like about Chicago Booth is that it elevate the inspiration level. The Chicago approach for business, basically teaching you how to solve something rather than what's the solution for something. Booth enhanced my curiosity of learning. I find it's a mature school. It's an independent thinking school, which is very much aligned with how I want to run my life. It lets you choose your own classes. That fits me perfectly to actually customize my learning experience.
I'm very proud and honored to win the Distinguished Alumni Entrepreneurial Award. It's something I never envisioned, never thought of, especially being a student. It was something on a pedestal. Fills you with pride, the fact that I'm getting this award, what I've accomplished, what I've done, how proud I am at Hippo Insurance and the people that we work with. If you know what you want, you know what the track, you value something which is more quantitative, more data, more warm and debate an intellectual curiosity kind of place, Chicago Booth is the perfect place for you.
