“I feared that during and after the outbreak, populations living in poverty would be much worse off, and new populations would fall into poverty because the outbreak was taking away lives, sources of income, foreign investment, and community stability,” explains Raji, who was born in Nigeria. “My short-term response to the outbreak was to coordinate donations in cash and volunteer hours to organizations involved in the Ebola relief effort. Long term, I realized I needed to help prevent communities in West Africa from falling deeper into poverty when disease outbreaks and other macro shocks occurred.”

A Pathway to Economic Development

The crisis prompted Raji to pivot from her position as a risk advisory consultant at Deloitte & Touche, which she joined after graduating with an accounting degree from Emory University, to work at McKinsey & Company. There she was responsible for strategy due diligence and planning for financial services and public sector clients in Africa and the Middle East. “I discovered a pathway to economic development in management consulting after learning about the huge impact that strategy advisory firms in Africa had helped create,” says Raji.

Through her work, Raji met HBS and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) joint-degree alumni, whose positive experiences confirmed her belief in the importance of furthering her education. She explains: “I knew I needed more grounding in economic theory, development policy, and general management to become a more effective development professional.”

While thrilled to be accepted into the HBS/HKS joint-degree program, Raji had to confront the challenges of financing three years of graduate education. She says that she was fortunate to receive scholarships from both institutions, as well as summer fellowships that have made it feasible for her to explore career options. “Without the financial assistance, it would have been impossible for me to pursue this joint degree.”

HBS Plays a Key Role

Raji reflects on the important role HBS has played—from the academic experience to the people she has met—in furthering her ability to pursue economic development as a long-term career path that will have impact.

“Articulating your ideas in very clear and convincing ways through the case method discussions is incredibly helpful, and I’ve grown from that. I’ve also learned that there are going to be people with very different life experiences and viewpoints from me and that it’s important to connect across these divides,” Raji notes. She adds that she will continue to serve this year as CFO of the HBS Africa Business Club and as a board member of the HBS Women in Investing Club.

This past summer, Raji worked remotely for Austin-based Vista Equity Partners, which invests in enterprise software and data and technology companies. It was yet another step toward fine-tuning what aspect of economic development she would like to pursue.

“I’ve been able to broaden the scope of the channel in which I could drive economic development in the short term, possibly technology. In the long term, I want to make my way to Africa-wide positions before eventually narrowing down on public-sector challenges in Nigeria, where I hope to use what I’ve learned from my time at Harvard to help transform the arc of development.”