Martine Drageset

She credits HBS with giving her the knowledge and confidence to transition her career towards a field that is close to her heart.

“I always appreciated nature and loved spending time outdoors,” she said. “I was always aware and concerned about the sustainability issue to some degree, but it was really at HBS that I became engaged.”

HBS supported Martine’s career transition in three major ways. Naturally, the first was academics, she says. Required Curriculum (RC) cases and Elective Curriculum (EC) courses taught her “how to think about business’ responsibility to act on the issue,” as well as solutions and obstacles.

Second, Martine says campus activities like conferences, speakers and clubs gave her better insight into how business and academia currently address sustainability, how to collaborate, where responsibilities lie, and what the outlook is.

Lastly, Martine says she was inspired and taught by her HBS peers, many of who were already engaged and working in the field. These peers form the basis of a valuable network as she tackles sustainability related work.

Martine hopes to continue helping more McKinsey clients understand and achieve economically viable solutions for meeting their responsibilities to the environment.

For incoming students with little or no experience in sustainability, she offers the following advice: “Don’t let concerns about your current lack of experience or knowledge in an area hold you back from involvement,” she says. “Engagement and passion matter, and that's why people come to HBS.”