For many students, choosing a major may feel like choosing a lane. But at UC Berkeley, a recent panel argued the opposite: political economy isn’t a lane — it’s a launchpad.
“You are uniquely built to find a problem and then build a career around trying to solve it,” Political Economy alum Paras Maniar said.
Maniar and other political economy alumni in finance, tech and sustainability shared their career experiences and offered students entrepreneurial advice during a recent panel discussion, highlighting how an interdisciplinary degree like political economy can translate into building companies across many sectors. From Wall Street trading floors to climate-conscious housing ventures to AI startups, alumni shared how they built careers by applying how they think, not just what they studied.
Political Economy alum Mark Rosenberg offered a glimpse into the high-stakes world of political risk, where global events shape billions in investment decisions. After studying political economy, Rosenberg witnessed an opportunity to bring more rigor to the field and turned that insight into a company. He founded GeoQuant, which translates political and social conditions into data that investors and governments can actually use.
“I got to actualize political economy pretty quickly and understand that there was this whole industry called political risk, where folks were looking for a unique analytical perspective about how political and social factors impact commercial outcomes,” Rosenberg said.
Political Economy alum Katy Reynolds started in a more traditional place on Wall Street, including a long tenure at Merrill Lynch. But she quickly realized she wasn’t just limited to financial knowledge, based on her political economy experience.
“I not only understood economics and finance, but also geopolitics, economic incentives, wants of power — different forces on markets, not just the unit economics themselves,” Reynolds said.
After 9/11, she shifted toward work with broader social impact, eventually founding Shibusa Systems, a sustainable real estate company focused on balancing people, planet and profit. The turning point came after witnessing the devastation of housing conditions in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward following Hurricane Katrina, which pushed her to rethink housing systems more fundamentally.
“I think the great thing about UC Berkeley is that it instills in all of us to be mission and purpose driven, and trying to make the world a better place,” Reynolds said.
Maniar took a less linear path, but one driven by persistence. As a student, he hustled through a startup incubator under the Bancroft Hotel, handed out resumes and eventually broke into investment banking. That first role led to consulting, leadership roles in media and eventually founding an AI startup called text.ai.
For Maniar, the biggest takeaway from political economy wasn’t technical, it was human. He credits political economy for helping him connect across industries and cultures, understanding why people think the way they do.
“Make sure to be out there and talk to people, not trying to be what they want you to be, but by being honest,” Maniar said.
Berkeley Haas alum Laura Hassner, now a strategic advisor to Berkeley’s chancellor, and executive director of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Berkeley that helps emerging entrepreneurs, tied those stories back to the university’s broader mission. She emphasized that innovation isn’t just about having ideas — it’s about executing them.
“Our office of innovation and entrepreneurship defines innovation as new thinking or new ideas put into practice. So it’s not just enough to have that great new idea, you have to do something with it,” Hassner said “Your field of study prepares you to be able to understand the theoretical, but also apply in the actual.”
When students asked whether political economy majors have a real edge, especially in a world increasingly shaped by AI, Maniar noted that political economy majors are equipped with strong reasoning and problem-solving skills essential in AI prompting. According to Maniar, AI has lowered technical barriers, making it easier for anyone to build, including political economy majors.
Rather than offering a direct pipeline into one industry, political economy at UC Berkeley emerged as training for building across them, where alumni are not just entering sectors, but founding companies at their intersections.
