Q and A: New ISE Director
Social Enterprise Newsletter, Spring 2001
What attracted you to the Initiative on Social Enterprise?
We are at a time when business, nonprofits, and government are teaming up more than ever before to build solutions to social problems. HBS graduates can be involved directly in the management of nonprofit organizations, participate at the board level, or find ways to collaborate across the sectors from our roles in for-profit companies. I was at a point in my career where I was ready to be involved more directly in these activities.
I was searching for a job in the social sector and wanted a general management position that would allow me to gain a broad perspective on the sector as a whole and have an impact on thought and practice. All of this in an organization with a mission that resonated with my personal definition of success, which is to help others be successful. I guess that sounds like a tall order, but when I heard that the director position was open, it seemed ideal for me.
What was your background prior to HBS?
I was a cofounder of a technology infrastructure company in Silicon Valley and was responsible for generating the company's first revenues.
Before coming to HBS as a student in 1998, I spent ten years in the electronic security industry in sales and general management roles. As a regional general manager for ADT Security Systems, I led a business unit with six offices across four states, 350 employees, and a $28 million revenue target. My favorite aspect of the job was the chance to align people's skills with business objectives to accomplish goals.
I went on to launch a corporate university for the company, serving 12,000 employees in 148 offices nationwide. I was involved in crafting public partnerships with state and local governments in conjunction with welfare-to-work job-training initiatives. This sparked an interest in workforce development that eventually led me to focus on social enterprise coursework and independent research on job training and e-learning while a student at HBS.
I also taught in a Texas public high school for a year after college, which is why I'm very interested in education reform.
How were you involved in social enterprise as a student?
In my first year I was a member of the Social Enterprise Club and a tutor at an inner-city elementary school. I was also a Community Enterprise Fellow in the summer between my first and second year. I worked with two other HBS students on a team project for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, with oversight from McKinsey & Co.
In my second year I took two electives, Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector and Effective Leadership of Social Enterprise. Both were terrific because of the incredible diversity of the students' experiences—we had people from the other grad schools at Harvard plus people from Tufts and MIT—which made for some of the richest discussions of any of my HBS classes.
What other activities were you involved in as a student?
In my first year I was elected Section Ed Rep, and at the end of my second year, I had the honor of being elected Class Day Student Speaker by my classmates.
As an Ed Rep, I got to know my classmates and professors very well and served on the Education, Academic, and Dean's Award Selection committees—experiences that helped me learn much about the way HBS operates administratively. This led to relationships with faculty and staff that have already proven beneficial in my new role at the Initiative.
The Class Day Speaker experience was a great way to end my student career at HBS and, interestingly, has made me recognizable to much of the HBS community that I never met through the normal course of student life.
I was also heavily involved in the HBS Show—an annual student-run satirical revue—but that's a story for another time!
What are areas of growth for you and the Initiative?
The Initiative has experienced tremendous growth in the hands of the directors who have come before me. My challenge is to work with Initiative faculty and staff to sift through the myriad opportunities before us and to identify the handful of things we should undertake that will build on our past success, while continuing to execute the successful programs we already deliver. Our overall goal is to leverage our faculty, intellectual capital, and the HBS brand in ways that influence the social sector and help us better prepare MBA students and Executive Education participants to be better leaders in the social enterprise field.