Meet the MBA Class of 2026: Aurora Straus
Aurora Straus
Emory University
Goizueta Business School
“Total nerd turned race car driver!”
Hometown: Cold Spring, NY
Fun Fact: I founded the world’s only sleepaway teen racing camps. As a 13-year-old girl who learned to race around 25-year-old guys, I felt like there was quite a gap in the market there! I promise you have never known true stress until you are personally responsible for 15 teenagers simultaneously driving $250,000 race cars.
Undergraduate School and Major: Harvard University; History & Literature
Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Professional Race Car Driver; Associate Consultant at Bain & Company (Was doing both concurrently – Ask me more over drinks about how hard that was.)
What makes Atlanta such a great place to earn an MBA?
I can’t imagine a more multifaceted, diverse, and convenient place than Atlanta to earn an MBA. When I visited Goizueta Business School, as a New Yorker, I was struck by how serene and walkable Druid Hills felt. Conversely, as a New Yorker who highly values having urban access, you’re around a 10-minute drive from the city. I’ve also quickly realized there is so much unique culture to be discovered in each individual neighborhood.
Hartsfield-Jackson is also a huge pull – I travel almost every week to go to racetracks, and I’ll be traveling frequently to P1 Motor Club, a new racetrack in Southeast Florida that I’m helping launch. Being 15 minutes away from the largest US airport, and almost never having to connect, is incredible. The cherry on top is that I am fanatically loyal to Delta and Coca-Cola already!
Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Goizueta’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you?
The emphasis on academics. When I was choosing between business schools, I asked students from each MBA program about their program highlights. Unlike students at other schools, Goizueta students almost always mentioned a class or professor that has changed their life. Goizueta’s small class size and insane student-to-faculty ratio makes it possible for each student to truly pave their own path, and for professors to become extremely close with each individual. As a history major from Harvard, I’ve joked that Goizueta is the closest I could’ve gotten to a liberal arts MBA program.
What is your unique quality that will enable you to make a big contribution to the Class of 2026? Why?
I’m a perpetual under-reactor. Racing cars is like taking drugs – it’s a completely altered state fueled by adrenaline and concentration, and once you crash at 200 miles per hour, normal life slows down. Because “life or death” is my baseline, I have discovered I am very calm during otherwise stressful situations! Over time, I have found that being a “stress absorber” is infectious, especially in a tough academic setting – friends who are frustrated with coursework or relationships come to me looking for calm reactions. My ability to help my classmates put crises into perspective and see the silver linings of stressful situations is the most unique quality I’ll bring to the table as a Goizueta student.
Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:
It was my first professional race win in 2018 (with BMW) and becoming the first woman globally to win a race in Radical Cup North America (2022).
Looking ahead two years, what would make your MBA experience successful?
My main academic and professional goal is to get a foundation in business frameworks that I missed out on by learning on the job across racing, startups, and Bain. I’m hoping to apply these learnings in real-time to a new racetrack in Florida I’m helping launch, P1 Motor Club, which will open in 2026. Long-term, I have no idea what’s in the cards for me, but I’ll continue racing and I’d love to run my own motorsports team like the Toto Wolff at Mercedes. Personally, I’d consider it a huge success to have found a few friends that I’ll keep for life – and somehow, I feel like this has already happened! Thanks to Goizueta’s Woodruff Scholarship, I’ve already met and bonded with three amazing men and women who will be attending Goizueta with me.
Interested in exploring Full-Time MBA opportunities? Learn more about Goizueta’s Full-Time MBA program.
