HBS Launches Service Leadership Fellows Program
Social Enterprise Newsletter, Spring 2002
W. Carl Kester, Senior Associate Dean and MBA Program Chair
Many HBS alumni have emerged as leaders in careers that cross multiple sectors. To help graduates experience leadership challenges in the social and public sectors early in their careers, the School has initiated the Service Leadership Fellows Program (SLFP), which offers postgraduate fellowships in nonprofit or governmental organizations to a select group of graduating MBA students.
At the program's launch in February, Professor W. Carl Kester, senior associate dean and MBA Program chair, noted that SLFP is "consistent with the School's mission and what we think leaders need to learn about in order to be effective in the for-profit, nonprofit, and public sectors."
Professor Michael E. Porter
HBS will identify high-impact projects and subsidize fellows' salaries, to make the program a tremendous learning experience for graduates and affordable for sponsoring organizations. After participating in a highly selective process, Class of 2002 graduates will spend one year in assignments with organizations such as the International Rescue Committee, which provides relief, protection, and resettlement services for refugees and victims of oppression and violent conflict; Comunidade Solidária, Brazil's largest antipoverty organization; and the governor of Mississippi's economic development program.
Professor V. Katsuri Rangan
The catalyst for SLFP, University Professor Michael E. Porter envisions a network of Service Fellow alumni who will stay connected as they manage the overlapping relationships between the business, government, and nonprofit sectors throughout their lives.
Professor V. Kasturi Rangan, founding cochair of the Initiative on Social Enterprise, sees the Service Fellows as "change agents who will have an impact long beyond their tenure."