After working as a field engineer at SLB, Vishnu Kadirisani T’26 came to Dartmouth to pursue the MBA/MEng dual degree, earning a Master of Business Administration from Tuck and a Master of Engineering from Thayer. Below, he reflects on the experience and how it’s shaped his path ahead.
What drew you to pursue the MBA/MEng dual degree—and how did you know it was the right fit for your goals?
I came to Dartmouth after working as a field engineer at SLB, where the work was deeply technical but the questions I kept coming back to were strategic—like how the energy industry was evolving and who was going to shape that future. The leaders I’ve always admired most are people who never had to choose between understanding how things work and knowing how to build organizations around them. I wanted to develop that same kind of fluency, where the technical depth and the business judgment reinforce each other rather than exist in separate boxes. The MBA/MEng felt like the right environment to build toward that, and Dartmouth gave me the structure to actually pursue it as one integrated path rather than two parallel ones.
Can you share an example of a project, class, or moment where you saw the MBA and engineering perspectives come together in a meaningful way?
Through the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability, & Innovation, I worked with a team advising Vertimass, a cleantech startup with a novel approach to producing renewable fuel blendstocks from ethanol. Before we could develop any strategy, we had to understand what made the technology special, because the commercial opportunity was entirely a function of technical ingenuity. It was a good reminder that the things worth pursuing most, whether that’s cleaning up the energy system, curing disease, or reaching other planets, all require the same thing: breakthrough technology and the capital and strategy to bring it to the world at scale.
What has your experience been like outside the classroom, both within the Tuck community and across Dartmouth more broadly?
Tuck's cohort model builds real trust quickly. You are not just taking classes with the same people—you are working through problems and navigating graduate school together, which creates a level of closeness I didn’t expect. Moving between Tuck and Thayer was one of the more underrated parts of the program, exposing me to a wider range of people and ways of thinking than I would have encountered at either school alone.
How has the dual degree shaped your career goals or the types of roles you're now exploring?
The dual degree reinforced something I came in believing: the leaders who drive the biggest changes in technical industries are the ones who can operate with equal credibility on the engineering and business sides. I’m joining McKinsey after Tuck, drawn to working on the technology-driven responses to the energy transition, such as scaling renewable energy infrastructure and bringing small modular reactors from promise to commercial reality in the U.S. But the longer arc is toward leadership—building or running something where I can drive meaningful technological change at scale. The dual degree has given me a much clearer sense of what I need to develop to get there.
What made Tuck and Dartmouth more broadly the right place for you to pursue this path?
Tuck's scale was something I underestimated before arriving. A smaller cohort means real relationships with classmates, faculty, and alumni, and in a program where so much learning happens through the people around you, that closeness matters more than I expected. The ability to formally combine the MBA with Thayer’s engineering curriculum was also central, because this was never about adding a credential but about building a specific kind of integrated capability. The Revers Center for Energy was a significant deciding factor, giving me access to practitioners and applied project work from day one rather than having to wait until after graduation to engage with the problems I care most about.
Vishnu Kadirisani is a dual-degree MBA and Master of Engineering student at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and Thayer School of Engineering. Prior to Dartmouth, he worked as an engineer supporting oil and gas operations across the Middle East and other international markets. Vishnu is passionate about the intersection of energy, technology, and strategy, and will join McKinsey & Company after graduation.
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