MBA

Profiles

Carter Romansky, MBA 2009

The creative side of the pharmaceutical industry engaged Carter Romansky in every aspect of the business: science, marketing, finance, law. But when his job became "less about its original goal (creating value for patients through innovation) and more about a secondary goal (sustaining a business through product sales), Carter did a major refocusing of his own. "I wanted to add values back into the picture," he says, explaining his attraction to the nonprofit sector.

"Traditionally," Carter says, "college career services are good at navigating students toward the private sector, but not to nonprofits. Nonprofits offer excellent creative opportunities, but don't have the capacity to recruit top talent." In response, Carter helped launch New Sector Alliance's Summer Fellows Program to "provide a bridge between college students and the nonprofits that need them." As one of five early team members, Carter pursued a mission to "equip and inspire" students to pursue, and excel in, nonprofit careers.

Empowered to take risks

Through the case method and the section experience, Carter believes, HBS is "not just about getting a degree. It's about the impact you have on your classmates, the school itself and the larger HBS community. We as students actively shape the learning experience."

Before HBS, Carter says, "I hadn't really thought deeply about leadership. Now I want to be the first person who puts a stake in the ground. Here, you're challenged to advocate in front of talented people with positions of responsibility. Everything at HBS is carefully aligned to facilitate a quality education. The case method is not just a great pedagogical tool, but great leadership training."

Carter got further lessons on leadership through his involvement with Habitat for Humanity on the January New Orleans Service immersion. A self-described "un-handy man," Carter was initially intimidated by his lack of carpentry skills. "On our first day, one of the Habitat veterans assured us that 'there's nothing you can mess up that we can't fix.' It was just the most fantastic encouragement – it completed charged us to move forward. That's the kind of leadership I like – empowering people to takes risks and be creative!"

Integrating the local and the global

Through Education Pioneers, Carter will fulfill a summer placement in the Boston Public Schools' Division of Early Childhood; later in the season, he will spend two weeks with Partners in Health, looking at ways to bring quality healthcare services to Rwanda.

Carter hopes to apply his summer experiences to his future aspirations in early childhood education or global health delivery. "Many organizations are great at being small- to medium-sized," notes Carter. "I want to help them become huge. The trick is figuring out what you can scale up, what things you have to tailor to local needs."