Host Karla Cohen interviews top clients, faculty mentors, and inspiring friends.
Conversations with M7 alumni, faculty mentors, and rising scholars about ambition, resilience, and the lessons that shape leadership. Each episode offers candid stories and insights designed to inspire your own path forward. Discover how bold ideas, real challenges, and unexpected turns create lasting impact. You’ll laugh, cry, and probably become a better person. You will
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Real, Honest, Inspiring stories
from the world’s best.
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They were once MBA hopefuls and PhD students. Today, they are industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers — and superstar consultant Karla Cohen, who built her career at INSEAD, Harvard Business School, and Stanford GSB before launching her own successful venture, sits down with the most inspiring people she met along the way to reveal how it happened and how you can follow. Beyond the M7 delivers candid conversations about ambition, resilience, and the journeys that redefine success — inspiring, unfiltered, and alive with wit and realness. A preview of some of her guests are featured below.
Karla Cohen is the Managing Partner of TAA Consulting and a former admissions executive at INSEAD, Harvard Business School, and Stanford GSB. With over 15 years in MBA admissions, she has served as Associate Director of Doctoral Programs at HBS and sat on the HBS MBA interview board. In addition to her consulting work, Karla is a screenwriter (with a Netflix series debuting in Q2 2027), fashion model, artist, and host of Beyond the M7. Her unique blend of insider admissions experience, creative talent, and ability to deeply connect makes her a guiding voice for leaders in progress.
Omar Shaya is the Founder and CEO of Please Platforms (formerly MultiOn), an AI company developing a consumer AI platform. Previously, he led product management for Core Product Ranking at Meta, worked on Microsoft’s Search, Assistant, and Intelligence team, and held product roles at Crealytics and LiquidM. He holds an MS in Management from Stanford GSB and BS/MS degrees in Computer Science with a focus on AI from Göttingen University, and he is the inventor on several AI patents. Beyond his professional work, Omar is a skilled classical guitarist and is dedicated to supporting Syrian refugees through education and career development programs. Named “the next Steve Jobs” by the Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine.
EJ is the Head of Strategy at Illumination Entertainment, where he oversees content, marketing, and ancillary strategy across franchises including Despicable Me, Minions, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Secret Life of Pets, and Sing. Previously, he led content strategy for drama and spectacle series at Amazon Studios, assessing projects such as Fallout, The Boys, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Earlier in his career, EJ worked as a strategist at 20th Century Fox Film and as an investment banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
Malika Aubakirova is a former Software Engineer at Google, where she worked on Search Infrastructure and advanced through multiple engineering levels. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she served as Co-President of the GSB Venture Capital Club. Malika earned her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Chicago. With a background spanning technology, business, and venture leadership, she brings a unique perspective at the intersection of engineering and strategy.
Ethan S. Bernstein is the Edward W. Conard Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School. His research explores workplace transparency and how observability shapes productivity, collaboration, leadership, and organizational design. He earned a JD from Harvard Law School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an AB from Harvard College before working at Boston Consulting Group and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. At HBS, he teaches Developing Yourself as a Leader, Managing Human Capital, and executive programs on leadership and innovation.
Övül Sezer is an Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, specializing in impression (mis)management — the subtle mistakes we make when trying to impress others. She holds a PhD from Harvard Business School and an AB in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. Known for blending academic rigor with humor, she also performs stand-up comedy, applying the same observational lens to life on stage and in the lab. Her research has been featured in top journals and widely covered by outlets like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.