MBA graduate specializes in magic

He can swallow 50 stainless steel needles and a string of thread and then pull the thread out with all 50 needles attached.

He can take a take a ring off his finger and make it jump back on by itself.

Jared Molton is both a magician and a 2015 UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School graduate.

After seeing a Lance Burton magic show in Las Vegas, Molton began practicing magic at age 14.

“I’d always been really interested in it and never really kind of thought that it was something that was doable,” Molton said. “And I saw his show and was just blown away.”

To teach himself magic, Molton read books, visited magic shops and met other magicians who helped guide him along the way.

“At 14, I thought to myself, ‘Whoa, I can turn this into a business. I can make money doing this. How cool is that?’” he said. “I loved the magic and the art and all of that, and I also realized it was an opportunity to have a pretty great job.”

Molton became a professional magician in New York City after graduating from college.

He was general manager of one of New York’s oldest magic shops before coming to Kenan-Flagler in 2013.

“Being in business school, I was able to do magic when I had free time,” Molton said. “Once I got a sense of how to manage business school, the rest of it came pretty easily.”

Molton performed at Southern Rail, the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, the North Carolina Museum of Art and private parties.

“The most interesting thing about any law school or business school, I think, is people with many different backgrounds apply to B-schools,” said Tarun Kushwaha, a marketing professor who taught Molton.

Molton was part of a study abroad program in India and the United Arab Emirates led by Kushwaha and Stephanie Peterson, senior associate director of academics for the business school’s MBA program.

“He couldn’t speak the local language back in India,” Kushwaha said. “But he was able to connect with the groups, sit down, try to talk to them, try sign language, show them magic tricks. It was phenomenal. It was great to have him on the trip.”

Molton said his favorite type of magic is close-up, which can be done with everyday props such as cards, coins or rubber bands so that it’s easy to do impromptu tricks.

“He always had a way to break the tension while we were traveling,” Peterson said. “He was able to charm all the locals where we were doing company visits; he’d break out a magic trick and lighten the mood.”

Molton works in Seattle as a senior product manager at Amazon. Although performing magic is not a part of his job, he said he plans to to incorporate the magic business into his life once he is more settled.

Still, he said he finds ways to fit magic in his daily life.

“I just finished doing a little set for my team,” he said. “They got a kick out of it.”

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