Profile: Alexa "Lexi" Brownell
Social Enterprise Newsletter, Winter 2003
I came to HBS specifically because of the Initiative on Social Enterprise (ISE). After college, I worked on a documentary film about adolescent prostitutes in Nicaragua. The experience propelled me on a career path devoted to helping the girls I met in Nicaragua and others like them.
With this objective in mind, I went to work for ACCION International, a microfinance organization that provides loans and business training to people living in poverty to start their own businesses. The CEO of ACCION was Michael Chu (MBA '76), a board member of the Initiative. Michael's own journey from Wall Street to ACCION, as well as the organization's practice of applying many private-sector operating principles and management practices to the world of economic development, inspired me to come to HBS. Specifically, I wanted to immerse myself in the offerings of the Initiative on Social Enterprise, which I viewed as a pioneer in extracting, communicating, and integrating best practices of the private and nonprofit sectors.
I joined the Social Enterprise Club (SEC) and volunteered in Tim Draper's BizWorld program, a series of business modules for elementary school students. Through the Community Enterprise program, I spent the summer after my first year consulting to City Year. During my second year, I joined the leadership team of the SEC and took the elective course Effective Leadership of Social Enterprise. These experiences underscored for me the power that lies in the intersection of the private and nonprofit (as well as public) sectors to effect positive change.
When it came time to decide what to do after graduation, I felt strongly that I needed to round out my skills in the business world. The Investments and Business Development group at American Express seemed a perfect match. The skills required in investing—financial aptitude, the capacity to think critically and analytically about complex issues, and negotiating ability—will hopefully enhance the contribution that I can make toward resolving some of the entrenched socioeconomic problems that continue to stymie us nationally and globally.
Parlaying a predominantly nonprofit background into a private-sector position was a tough sell, mostly because of a common misperception that the skill sets of the two sectors are distinct. At least three specific talents common in the nonprofit sector are extremely important to the business world: marshaling resources outside one's control in pursuit of an agenda that is largely underfunded and understaffed; operating efficiently and creatively with the limited financial and human support one rallies; and communicating a multifaceted message to a variety of stakeholders and building consensus among disparate groups.
At first glance, strategic investments at American Express seem a far cry from helping ameliorate the conditions surrounding adolescent prostitution in Nicaragua. However, the tie that binds is the very principle behind social enterprise—using entrepreneurship and business practices to create a more just society. The Social Enterprise program at HBS provides a foundation that helps students to move adeptly between the private and the nonprofit sectors. I anticipate that I will move within both throughout my career as the borders between the two worlds become increasingly permeable. My goal is to give as much as possible to each experience and, in return, glean those lessons that will enable me to help soften the blow that lack of economic opportunity strikes on the bodies, minds, and souls of the girls I met in Nicaragua and others who share a similar fate.
