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MBA Voices
MBA Voices
I’ve always admired my mom’s courage and was amazed when I discovered she was one of twenty-eight women out of 800 in Harvard Business School’s Class of 1972. During her tenure, they didn’t even have a designated women’s restroom in Aldrich. While the experience was one of the hardest in her life in a white-male dominated institution, the struggle was worth it. [...]
This post is part of the Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI) “Leadership in Challenging Times” blog series, which highlights the inspiring work of the HBS community in addressing the health and economic consequences of COVID-19, alongside the fight for racial equity and an especially polarized political climate. In this post, Thierry Ibri (MBA 1997) discusses his work as Chief Operations and Program Officer at Second Harvest Heartland and reflects on how his team adapted to the challenges of 2020 and delivered more than 105 million meals to people in need. [...]
While in undergraduate, I was hungry to learn more about leadership and having a positive impact on communities through business leadership. Outside of the classroom, I was very involved with entrepreneurship and small businesses on campus through Harvard Student Agencies (HSA). As a student business manager within HSA, I gained valuable business and leadership experience managing teams of up to 25 employees and helped launch a startup that was venture funded and is still growing today. As I approached my final year of undergraduate, I knew I wanted to get some real-world business experience after graduation, but eventually would want to pursue a management and leadership education. I applied to the 2+2 deferred admission program because it was a great fit for my long-term goals. [...]
I had some idea early on in my career that I wanted to get my MBA, but to be honest I did not have a plan or roadmap for when I wanted to pursue this goal. I graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in Psychology and Business. My first job was with Cardinal Health in their leadership development rotational program. My time at Cardinal Health exposed me to the healthcare world and gave me the chance to work functionally in Corporate Finance and Corporate Strategy. The rotational program was a great fit, as I moved around to different places while learning about a new part of the business each year. [...]
I remember feeling tense on the day of my HBS interview. Not only because I was nervous about the interview—although I was—but because if I was admitted, I was unsure whether I belonged at HBS. I am a Midwestern, first-generation college graduate from a blue-collar family. It didn’t matter that I spent six years living in New York and Switzerland and that I built my career in public accounting and finance. Harvard—and the Ivy League for that matter—always felt like a place for other people. [...]
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The views and opinions expressed in the MBA Voices blog are those of the authors.
Any political views shared by students are their own; HBS does not endorse a
particular party or candidate.