Smith’s Lisa Sciannella Among World’s Best & Brightest Online MBAs

New Smith School graduate and Chief of Staff at Helpsy Lisa Sciannella is among 52 standout peers from across the world’s top online MBA programs featured in Poets & Quants’ Best & Brightest Online MBAs: Class of 2026.

Described in her profile as a “driven, inquisitive leader,” Sciannella returned to the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business more than a decade after earning her undergraduate degree in mathematics—this time seeking an MBA to match her pace and responsibilities in her role for a certified B Corp and recycling company that collects, sorts and resells secondhand clothing and textiles to keep them out of landfills.

For Sciannella, the Smith online MBA offered the right blend of flexibility and rigor. Balancing a full-time leadership role, travel, and raising two young daughters, she says she valued the ability to log into class from anywhere. “I really missed learning… Stepping back into that mindset—even from home while my kids were upstairs in bed—was energizing.”

Her experience also differed sharply from her undergraduate years. With limited time and greater responsibility, she approached coursework with intentionality, planning and discipline. That shift, she says, made the program more meaningful. She says she embraced early mornings, structured weekly schedules and deep work sessions that helped her thrive academically.

The Smith experience also was shaped significantly by the school’s integration of artificial intelligence across analytics and decision-making coursework. In her data mining and predictive analytics class, Sciannella used AI to generate code, explore alternative modeling approaches and create additional practice problems. She further developed the critical judgment required to evaluate AI outputs. “AI can produce confident but incorrect answers,” she says. “Learning when to trust it—and when to validate—became essential.”

She says that skillset shapes her professionally—strengthening her understanding of finance, accounting and strategy, enabling her to view the organization holistically and make more informed decisions.

Sciannella says her long-term goal is to lead at scale—solving complex problems where business success and broader social impact align. Her Smith experience, she says, has positioned her to do exactly that.

Read more about Smith’s Online MBA Program and Sciannella in the Poets & Quants Best and Brightest profile.