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Max Samimi

Growing Globally

Born in Iran the year of the Islamic Revolution, Max Samimi (MBA 2007) now knows his native country by proxy. His close-knit family left when he was three and lived in Canada for a few years before settling in Southern California. “My parents kept the cultural and traditional ties of Iran close to home, even after we left,” he says.

But Samimi also enjoyed the freedoms of American life. He studied biopsychology at UC Santa Barbara, intending to be a dentist before an internship changed his mind.

Then, while working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car after graduation, opportunity slipped into the back seat one day. Samimi picked up a talkative pharmaceutical sales rep who told him about the business. It seemed like a good fit, given his science background and outgoing personality. Soon enough, Samimi landed a job with Sanofi Aventis. His four-year stint with the global pharma firm was remarkably successful. But he wanted more: “I had no formal business education, and began realizing that most of the people I was reporting to didn’t either.”

So he did something about it, with help from the UW Business School where he capitalized on every experience and opportunity that came his way. “It has been an amazing interaction with classmates,” he says, “individuals who are extremely intelligent, coming from various careers and different parts of the world, and all choosing a different direction afterwards.”

Samimi glimpsed a different direction while on an exchange in Shanghai, China, that included travels around the surrounding region. “There are a lot of things that happen in our lives that make this world seem smaller,” he says, “But when you go to Asia, you realize just how big the world is.”

After graduation, Samimi joins Wells Fargo, hoping eventually to work internationally. “My time in Asia has made me want to see more,” he says. “I would definitely like to work overseas, and Asia just appeals to me. China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand: historically volatile countries that are transforming before our eyes.”