Tampa | St. Petersburg | Sarasota-Manatee
Tampa | St. Petersburg | Sarasota-Manatee
TAMPA — The University of South Florida Muma College of Business announced today the 25 Under 25 Award honorees for the 2025-2026 academic year.
The annual program, presented this year by The Bank of Tampa, recognizes the college’s top business students who excel in academics, leadership, professional development and community service.
This year’s class is made up of first-generation college students, dual-degree seekers with perfect 4.0 GPAs, multilingual immigrants with a heart for community service, and founders on their way to becoming tomorrow’s CEOs.
Scott Gault, market president at The Bank of Tampa, meets with the 25 Under 25 Award honorees.
With their stories of achievement and perseverance as varied as their resumes, one thing is certain: These business students have made their mark in the USF classroom, in the Tampa Bay community and beyond.
Kiley Barton sold over 1,500 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for three consecutive years. The business advertising major interned at One Heart Worldwide, creating content to support maternal and neonatal healthcare in rural Nepal.
John Byrne completed four internships in three years, with two stints at Fortune 500 companies. He graduates in May, a full year ahead of schedule, and starts a full-time job as a commercial banking analyst in June.
Danh Nguyen put his supply chain management lessons to work by redesigning a process workflow system at Feeding Tampa Bay, saving over 100 pounds of food from the trash every day and getting more food to families.
Maria Ortiz and Isabela Gilberti are former Olympians, having competed in the Colombian Math Olympics and the Italian Philosophy Olympics, respectively. Elena Mere, a business analytics and information systems major on the St. Petersburg campus, is a third-generation Bull working to support veterans on campus and in the community.
Finance major Nathan Wilkie co-founded USF’s Future Business Leaders of America chapter and serves in the Florida Army National Guard as a paralegal specialist where he reviews legal documents and helps ensure due process for fellow soldiers.
The other accomplished honorees are Jack Shepherd, João Dapper, Leo McClellan, Adrea Wilson, Christian Schmidt, Marina Richter, Jim Phan, Austin Jones, Alora Rankin, Kailee Edwards, Matthew Major, Humberto Campos, Kaitlyn Christiano, Eddie Schmid, João Vitor Dalla Zen, Lauren Gonçalves, Elena Spall, and Riley England.
Kiley Barton
John Byrne
Humberto Campos
Kaitlyn Christiano
João Vitor Dalla Zen
João Dapper
Kailee Edwards
Riley England
Isabela Gilberti
Lauren Gonçalves
Austin Jones
Matthew Major
Leo McClellan
Elena Mere
Danh Nguyen
Maria Ortiz
Jim Phan
Alora Rankin
Marina Richter
Eddie Schmid
Christian Schmidt
Jack Shepherd
Elena Spall
Nathan Wilkie
Adrea Wilson
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Business News, Honors and Awards
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