Chasing Whole-Hearted Leadership From the Pro Soccer Pitch to Business School

For Betsy Brandon (MBA ’25), the path to becoming a leader started on the soccer field. A standout student-athlete at the University of Virginia and a former professional soccer player, Brandon found her way to UVA’s Darden School of Business by following her drive to lead with purpose, tenacity and whole-heartedness.

Raised in Colorado, soccer and UVA’s strong academics and opportunities for a well-rounded experience outside of sports brought Brandon to Virginia. She studied speech communication disorders and Spanish as an undergrad. It wasn’t until her fourth year, while taking a class with Dean Scott Beardsley called Maximizing Leadership Potential in Sports and Business, that she first entertained the idea of business school.

Betsy Brandon (MBA ’25) started playing for the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League in 2019.

“Both my parents are CPAs, and I thought that business school was equivalent to being an accountant, and that is not something I want,” said Brandon. But the course with Dean Beardsley “really opened up my eyes to leadership as an avenue that I could be interested in.”

Encouraged by Beardsley and the course (and her mom), she applied to Darden’s Future Year Scholars Program, just in case. “I wasn’t certain that I would go back to an MBA program,” she said. “However, I visited Darden and loved the classroom environment, and academic growth is always at the top of my list.”

At the time, she was preparing for a professional soccer career, and in 2019 she was drafted by the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League. “It was such a surreal moment. It was something I’d wanted for so long,” she said.

Brandon helped her team in Hungary win the Hungarian league title.

Her soccer career took Brandon to unexpected places. It was a challenging time for her personally, and the world was rocked in the middle of it by the COVID-19 pandemic. After a little over a year in Houston, she went to Budapest, Hungary, to play for Ferencvárosi Torna Club, a Hungarian professional football club. When she first got the offer, Hungary was admittedly “totally off the map” for Brandon, but she took the leap and helped the team win both the Hungarian Cup and the Hungarian league title and compete in the qualifying round for Champion’s League.

“I fell in love with Hungary,” she said. “I loved playing there. I felt free.” Learning more about a different culture and history expanded her sense of possibility like a breath of fresh air, and noticing the differences between her professional experiences clarified her interest in leadership and community. “There were little moments along the way throughout my soccer career that really led me to Darden.  Observing the actions of some leaders made me ask questions like, why don’t people communicate better? Why don’t people invest in personal relationships with the people they work with? Not overly personal but just caring about someone for more than simply what they’re doing for you.”

Brandon decided to retire from professional soccer after such a fulfilling experience in Hungary, and she transitioned back to UVA as a Future Year Scholar Fellow at Darden, a role that gave her a bridge to the MBA program and a chance to reenter the world of work from a nontraditional career path.

“I remember my boss asking me to send a calendar invite,” she laughs. “And I didn’t know what she was talking about. I had never used Outlook before.”

Next came Darden, powered in part by a Forte Foundation Fellowship, where Brandon could more fully explore her interests beyond soccer, which are characteristically diverse. She earned her M.Ed. alongside her MBA, served as section rep and studied abroad in Spain part of her second year.

Brandon served as section rep for her fellow Section A classmates.

Brandon says that Darden fulfilled its hallmark promises, including helping her grow as a leader and a learner, get more confident in communication skills, operate in environments where you don’t know everything, ask good questions and learn how powerful mutual empowerment with classmates can be.

“Darden was everything I thought it would be, really. In my Master of Education, I focused a lot on positive school climates, social and emotional development, and the importance of seeing the person as a whole person, not just an academic being. And I actually found Darden is such a beautiful example of that.”

Now, as she prepares to graduate, Brandon is headed to Republic Services, a waste and environmental solutions company, as part of their general management accelerated  program (GMAP). “I came into Darden with an interest in sustainability and education…I wasn’t sure how those might interact with the jobs that exist,” she said. She first heard about Republic at the Forte Foundation MBA Women’s Leadership Conference, and after more exploration she saw some of her priorities come into focus there.

“As a GMAP at Republic, you continue to learn and grow so much, which I love, but also working with such a variety of people is really exciting to me. You’re working with truck drivers and maintenance techs, but then you’re also working with the sales team and the finance team.”

Brandon is looking forward to putting her leadership skills into action. “Coming to Darden and learning how to be someone who influences people in a positive way and helps people become better or achieve things in their career that they want, that’s who I want to be as a leader,” she said. “The GMAP leads you to a lot of responsibility within a short amount of time, and I’m just eager to learn.”