VIEW PROFILE FOR:
College
Columbia University, MIT
SPECIALIZES
Healthcare, Nonprofit, STEM
IDEAL CLIENT TYPES
International Students
David Fung spent nearly fourteen years training as a pianist — studying under well-known musicians in New York City, headed toward a concert career — before choosing MIT instead.
MBA
Columbia University, Columbia Business School (CBS)
SPECIALIZES
Healthcare, Nonprofit, STEM
IDEAL CLIENT TYPES
International Students
David Fung's career is the MBA narrative his clients are trying to write.
David Fung spent nearly fourteen years training as a pianist — studying under well-known musicians in New York City, headed toward a concert career — before choosing MIT instead. That decision, the one where you realize the thing you love and the thing you’re going to build your life around might not be the same thing, is the exact fork half his applicants are standing at. He’s been on both sides of it, and he coaches from the specific memory of what it cost to choose.
He chose chemical engineering. Then a master’s in chemical engineering at Columbia, then an MBA at Columbia, then a career that took him to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur running corporate strategy and turnaround operations before bringing him back to New York as Managing Partner of a consulting firm. Along the way, he stayed connected to MIT — as an alumni interviewer, a board member of the MIT Alumni Association, and an instructor who currently teaches a class on campus. When he reviews an application targeting MIT, he’s reading it from four vantage points most consultants don’t have.
David’s coaching method borrows from his corporate work: iterative, benchmark-driven, and allergic to vagueness. A first draft gets high-level strategic notes before any line edits. A second draft gets pushed deeper. By the third or fourth version, the essay says something the student didn’t know they could say — and says it in a voice an admissions reader recognizes as real. His consistent push: more of you in the storytelling, less of the résumé on the page.
He’s a strong fit for STEM-focused applicants, international students navigating the US system from Asia, dual-degree candidates targeting programs like Penn’s M&T or CMU’s combined tracks, and the serious musician or artist facing the conservatory-versus-university question he once faced himself. He also works comfortably with both parents and students.
Working with David feels like having a coach who is genuinely excited when you get it right — and genuinely unwilling to let you stop before you do. He still goes to Broadway shows. He still celebrates Dragon Boat Festival. He chose engineering over a concert career, and he has never stopped being both.
David Fung’s career is the MBA narrative his clients are trying to write. BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT, MS from Columbia, MBA from Columbia, then years across Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur running corporate strategy and turnaround operations for global businesses. He came back to New York as Managing Partner of a consulting firm specializing in turning around underperforming companies and driving profit growth. When he coaches an MBA applicant through their career story, he’s not theorizing about what admissions committees want to hear — he’s drawing on a trajectory that already answers the question.
Before any of that, he was a pianist. Fourteen years of serious training in New York, headed toward a concert career, before choosing engineering. That arc — art to STEM to business to global operations — is unusual enough to make him genuinely useful to applicants whose own paths don’t follow a straight line. He knows how to make the turns in a career look intentional on paper, because he’s had to do it for his own story more than once.
His method is corporate turnaround applied to application strategy. He starts with a diagnostic: what is this narrative actually saying, and where is it underperforming? Then he iterates — four or five drafts, each one pushed deeper, each one closer to the narrative the applicant couldn’t see from the inside. He pairs high-level strategic commentary with precise line-level feedback, and he works in close coordination with an editor to catch what he’s too close to see.
David is especially effective with STEM-to-business career-switchers, international professionals with Asia experience who need to frame a cross-border career for a US admissions audience, and applicants pursuing dual-degree or specialized MBA programs. He speaks Mandarin, has lived the Asia-US business bridge firsthand, and brings a global operator’s perspective to school selection and positioning.
Working with David means a consultant who treats your application with the same rigor he’d bring to a corporate engagement — and who, after the strategy session, will ask you what you thought of the last Broadway show you saw.
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