Amar Vark UoA 40 under 40

MikesBikes Student Makes the “40 Under 40” List

Delivering your best at every turn is difficult and even exhausting, but that is what appears to differentiate successful folks from the unsuccessful ones.

-Amar Virk

The 40 under 40 list recognizes graduates who are making a significant contribution to their field and community. We are proud to announce that MikesBikes student, Amar Virk, has made the list!

Amar is currently working for UberEats but his business journey began at the University of Auckland. Amar was an electrical engineering major but decided to take some business papers in his third year. This was where he happened across the Management in Action course taught by Professor Darl Kolb. At the center of this award-wining course is the MikesBikes Strategic Management Simulation.

Through the simulation and the unique experiential learning activities developed by Professor Kolb, Amar had the opportunity to experience what it was like to run his own company.

What I came to realize is that engineering is one thing, but there’s a whole universe that supports it. I came to appreciate how wonderfully complex a business really is. We could always invest more in R&D to make a better bike (which is how the engineer in me wanted to think), but that wasn’t enough. The bike had to be priced correctly, manufactured at scale, marketed correctly and only have limited pool of capital to deploy against all of the above.”

Graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering in 2008, Amar’s experience at the Business School was instrumental in deciding to enroll in an MBA at Cornell University. While his next steps were working at Parthenon-EY and Symphony Commerce, an opportunity presented itself in 2016 to work for UberEats. Amar admits it was a steep learning curve to begin with but also a valuable lesson in adapting to a very dynamic business model.

Read more of Amar’s story here.

Hear from Professor Kolb about his award-winning courses using our MikesBikes Business Simulation:

Adapted from an article written and originally published by The University of Auckland.