I spent most of my career harnessing the power of business to effect positive social change. Before and after attending HBS, I helped grow Working Assets (now Credo, founded by Laura Scher, MBA 1985) into a successful social enterprise that has generated more than $80 million for nonprofits. Whereas Working Assets is a for-profit enterprise whose business model includes 1% of revenue being donated to nonprofits, Accion Chicago is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to build communities through entrepreneurship. [...]

There can be a protean quality to great talent, a capacity for shape-shifting that enables them to succeed in a wide variety of functions within a broad range of industries. But the virtues you need – in both hard skills and “soft” temperaments – are often camouflaged within the rhetoric of specific roles and verticals buried within the resume’s customary list of achievements. Even when applicants are not obvious fits for the roles you posted, they may have the skills and talent you need – all the virtues you would like to see in a candidate, if you were able to read between the lines to surface the underlying skills. [...]

At Amazon, Tiffany Nida (HBS MBA 2012) leads a fifteen-person team in her current role as senior manager, product management, in one of the company’s frontier business segments, Amazon Transportation. Her five-and-a-half year tenure began, as it does for many Harvard MBAs, with an internship between her Required Curriculum and Elective Curriculum years. [...]

The above title was my answer when I was asked earlier this fall to sum up my experience in Milan in three words, working as an MBA intern within the office of the CEO of the YOOX Net-A-Porter (YNAP) Group. [...]

Tell us what you’re up to these days. I’m currently leading strategy for Williams-Sonoma, Inc., where I am responsible for M&A, new business development, research and insights, and cross-brand initiatives across Williams-Sonoma’s iconic eight-brand portfolio. [...]