![Photo of people in the article](https://business.wfu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/PandQBestBrightest-MaiaKennedy-1024x439.jpg)
Maia Kennedy (BEM ’20) has been named by Poets & Quants as one of the Best and Brightest undergrad students in the Class of 2020.
“Maia Kennedy is a remarkable example to her classmates because of the creative and energetic ways in which creates the most possible value with the skills and experience she has. Maia is easily able to achieve other people’s definitions of success—and regularly does—but she sets her own higher bar. After working as a student assistant for an innovative and globally recognized course on the role of business in society, she sought out opportunities to be involved in research, eventually writing an article on property rights and government processes in Costa Rica and Mexico. She took a deep dive into the complexities of the issue, never seeming to consider that she had taken on a research task many tenured professors would find daunting, and her astounding abilities as a writer and presenter-led to an award for best student paper from the international academy of business law professors.
The qualities that make her an award-winning researcher also make her a critical presence in the class of 2020, where she can be found connecting people across social dividing lines. She earns trust and respect from her colleagues for her unimpeachable integrity, hard work, and generous friendly manner, and leverages that to bring people together and to inspire them to their own successes.”