Romana Sohail, LUMS graduate of BS Mathematics 2013, Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering has been admitted to Wharton's MBA class of 2020. Romana is a qualified healthcare actuary, the first female healthcare actuary from Pakistan and has worked in Philadelphia and Singapore.
Speaking about why she decided to do an MBA after her undergraduate studies in Mathematics, Romana said, “In my latest role with AXA, I am responsible for turning around the performance of struggling health insurance companies globally through capital injection and operational improvements. This is closely tied to what I plan to do after my MBA i.e. healthcare investing. Wharton’s MBA (Healthcare Management Major) was absolutely the best choice for this – not only is Wharton a finance powerhouse but also the first, and arguably the best, healthcare management MBA programme in the United States. The alumni have gone on to attain leadership positions in every possible healthcare sub-sector whether it is hospital administration, consulting, and both sell-side and buy-side finance roles. I am incredibly excited to join this community and learn from them!”
Romana chose to join LUMS because it was really important for her to choose a university that allowed her design her own experience. “LUMS provided exactly that – a place where I could experiment,” recalled Romana. “I joined the School of Science and Engineering’s 2nd batch – class of 2013 and really loved the academic experience as I got a solid grounding in the basic sciences (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) which really influenced the way I think now and how I solve problems. I think I am a much better problem solver due to that early scientific training at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering. Ultimately I chose to major in Mathematics but took loads of courses at the Suleman Dawood School of Business and the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences. My five best friends from LUMS came from 5 different majors! This inter-disciplinary approach really differentiated my LUMS experience on the academic side,” said Romana.
In her sophomore year, Romana went to Singapore for an exchange programme with the National University of Singapore and that according to her really helped shape her global aspirations. After graduating from LUMS, she was directly recruited to a leadership development programme in the United States, Cigna, a health insurance company. “This was a really interesting time to be working in the US healthcare market because Affordable Care Act, Obama Care was being implemented,” shared Romana.
Romana has also worked at Mercer, Singapore in healthcare consulting, where she was seconded to eBay and PayPal.
