Athens, Ga. – Garrett Williams (BBA ’22), a recent economics and finance graduate from the Terry College of Business, has become the sixth University of Georgia student with Terry ties to be awarded a prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship.
Williams’s selection helped UGA set a record in 2025 of having three students selected for Schwarzman Scholars in the same year.
The UGA recipients are Williams, who now works in Atlanta, and seniors Aryan Thakur of Cumming and Amanda Whylie of Kingston, Jamaica. The prestigious award will allow them to pursue a one-year master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, starting this August.
“The University of Georgia is thrilled to have three Schwarzman Scholars in one year for the first time in our institution’s history,” said President Jere W. Morehead. “They represent a variety of academic and career interests while sharing the pursuit of excellence that unites all of us in the UGA community.”
Schwarzman Scholars are taught by leading international faculty and study a core curriculum focused on leadership, global affairs and China, helping them learn to navigate the complexities of an evolving global landscape.
The 150 scholars in the incoming Schwarzman Class of 2026 were selected from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants, the most ever to apply. The scholars represent 38 countries and 105 universities. Ten classes of Schwarzman Scholars have been named since the highly competitive program opened to applicants in 2015.
“You are a function of the people you spend time with, and I can think of no better way to spend my time than with 150 of some of the most interesting, ambitious and diverse 20-somethings in the world through the Schwarzman program,” Williams said.
Williams, who was a Ramsey Honors Scholar in the Morehead Honors College, graduated from UGA in 2022 with bachelor’s degrees in economics and finance with a certificate in personal and organizational leadership from the Terry College and the UGA Institute for Leadership Advancement. He also holds a minor in communication studies from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
As a Schwarzman Scholar, he plans to further examine how media is produced, consumed and monetized under different cultural contexts. He hopes to play a role in ensuring technological progress amplifies, rather than undermines, the power of human creativity to connect others.
“China’s entertainment and technology industries have grown over the last 20 to 30 years independent of Western influence because they have protected their domestic industries,” Williams explained. “That’s resulted in technological developments, innovations and consumer behavior different than the Western world, and I’m interested in learning how it’s evolved and how the global ecosystem could potentially be further integrated.”
Williams is a senior associate consultant at Bain & Company in Atlanta, where he advises clients in the media, consumer and technology industries. He spent a six-month externship in Los Angeles leading corporate strategy and business development efforts at AGBO, the independent studio led by the Russo Brothers with recent films including “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Extraction,” “The Gray Man” and Netflix’s upcoming film “The Electric State.”
While an undergraduate at UGA, he was a managing partner of the Georgia Kickstart Fund, co-president of the UGA Economics Society, leadership fellow through the Institute for Leadership Advancement, and treasurer of Model United Nations. He was a Deer Run Fellow, a high school national speech and debate champion, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi and the Blue Key Honor Society. He pursued public policy research at the American Enterprise Institute and taught speech and debate through LearningLeaders in Shanghai.
Williams also recently completed a 100-kilometer ultramarathon across Patagonia.
“Aryan, Amanda and Garrett are each very dedicated to advancing their fields in positive and necessary ways,” said Meg Amstutz, dean of the Morehead Honors College. “Their global mindsets make them terrific fits for the Schwarzman Scholarship. The education and mentoring they have received from UGA faculty and staff will serve them well as they work to make a positive impact abroad and at home.”
Previous Schwarzman Scholars with Terry connections include Swapnil Agrawal (AB ’19), Shaun Kleber (AB ’16), Zakiyya Ellington (BBA ’21), Elise Karinshak (BBA ’23) and Ashni Patel (AB ’24).
UGA’s major scholarships office, housed in the Morehead Honors College, works closely with all students across campus as they apply for national, high-level scholarships. For more information, contact Jessica Hunt at jhunt@uga.edu.
For more information on Schwarzman Scholars, visit www.schwarzmanscholars.org.