How a Second City improv class became a training ground for the next generation of business leaders

On a rainy Thursday afternoon, Rossanna Figuera found herself standing in a circle with a group of strangers in a large, square room with black walls.

She held an imaginary ball in her hands, then tossed it to the man next to her. He did the same. Over the next five minutes, the ball-passing exercise became increasingly complicated, as different made-up objects were introduced and passed around the circle.

An entrepreneur and co-owner of Wafels and Dinges, a New York based Belgian waffle company, Figuera oversees food trucks and five brick and mortar locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. She’s also one of a dozen people who decided to attend a workshop at The Second City, a famed improvisational school and theater. But rather than chasing dreams of Saturday Night Live, this group