By Shona Simkin
Anna DeSousa has traveled the world working in sales and nonprofits. As the Initiatives’ director of technology and strategic operations, she brings together skills from both fields. We talked with Anna about what that job entails, the roots of her interest in technology, and her love of travel and cooking.
What is your role?
I am responsible for the Initiatives’ technology and data operations and the strategic operations around them. It’s a bit of a mouthful! My role has developed in the eight years I’ve been here—the Initiatives are 10 years old this year, so it's a very young department. I’m part of our core administration and I focus on a lot of the Salesforce CRM (customer relationship management tool) data and how we use our marketing tools for digital communications. Five initiatives use Salesforce to share resources and a process for sending digital communications about events and research to students, alumni, practitioners, and other constituents.
I describe the Initiatives as a department with many spokes—there are many different partners across the School that work with us in different ways. We are deeply connected within Executive Education programming, Career and Professional Development, Admissions, and Alumni Relations. We also support several activities with the alumni and student clubs. The Initiatives are always working on programming and efforts to elevate the work of the faculty and the School overall.
What does that look like day-to-day?
It’s really being a liaison on behalf of the Initiatives to IT and working closely with them on projects. When I first started, we looked at crossover between what each Initiative was trying to do—at first that was bringing in the alumni directory to update our contacts, so I spent a lot of time with IT and our vendors to make sure that we understood and honored the data management practices within External Relations. I’ve been trying to create some of the norms and business processes around that data and think more broadly about the strategies and relationships we have in order to ensure we’re moving in the right direction.
What was your career path to HBS?
I have had a lot of different jobs! My parents worked at Wang Laboratories back in the day in Lowell; they are immigrants who worked on the factory line. My dad would bring home non-functioning motherboards, and my brother and I would just poke around. We didn’t know what we were doing, and 30 years later, I still have a big eight-inch floppy disk in my workspace just to remind me of where I started. I was always a little curious about technology, but never actually studied and went into that field. Instead, I was more into languages and culture. I worked in sales, selling dial-up modems in Latin America because I speak Spanish and Portuguese fluently. That was a good fit, but I’ve always been more interested in the nonprofit sector, so then I worked in events management and development for a large nonprofit. After being laid off post 9/11, I ended up back in software sales where I eventually participated in a companywide migration to Salesforce CRM.
In 2010, I walked away from high tech sales to focus on things that mattered more to me. It was the year of the earthquake in Haiti, and a group of friends and community organizers wanted to understand how we could help. So we traveled to Port-au-Prince to learn and understand the needs. Upon our return, we started a nonprofit, FNE International, focused on bringing educational and medical funding to impoverished communities. I spent a few years doing service-learning trips with my alma mater in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru, and FNE supported some of those trips.
I had bills to pay, so I reduced my hours with the non-profit and worked at Trader Joe’s for four years. I always said that I’d want to work at Trader Joe’s because everyone seemed so happy, and they are! In parallel, I contracted with a small local college that then led to a full time role managing their student information systems and implementing Salesforce for their admissions application.
What are your favorite parts of your job?
I know it can be a little bit cliché, but it's totally the people. I often see myself as someone who sits in a cave working behind the scenes and not necessarily in the middle of all the action. And when I learn about what my colleagues do in this department, it's just amazing work, and it’s great knowing that I support it. Because I’ve been in nonprofits, I know how much effort this is, how slim some of these groups are and how much they get done—it’s pretty amazing. That's what energizes me and keeps me going—knowing that I'm contributing to a greater cause.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I like hosting and cooking for friends. I also love to travel, and I try to bring home an ingredient and prepare a meal for them. I’ve made paella with saffron from Spain, pesto from Italy, and baked goods with chocolates from various countries. I have relatives on five continents. My parents are from large families on Madeira Island, Portugal, and my uncles and aunts emigrated to the United States, South Africa, and Venezuela, and we now have family in Australia as well. I have a real passion for Spain and the Camino de Santiago, which I walked portions of five years in a row until COVID. Now, I'm trying to visit places I haven't been before.
I also like photography, Latin dancing, and swimming. I used to swim at Walden Pond four days a week with a goal to swim the circumference in one direction and back. It's hard to get there now, and it's always packed, but I love it. I think the water reminds me of my island roots! If I had more time, I would probably learn more languages and take photography more seriously. I've studied Spanish and French, and I'd like to study Portuguese more formally, as well as Japanese. I love languages and how it allows me to connect with others.
