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MBA Voices
MBA Voices
As the youngest of five siblings, Joshua Mbanusi (MBA 2021) grew up watching his single mother juggle two—and sometimes three—jobs while getting the undergraduate degree required to resume the nursing career she left behind when she immigrated from Nigeria. Her efforts to lift her family out of poverty instilled in Mbanusi both an understanding of the difficulty of doing so and a desire to help others do the same. [...]
When Cathy Chukwulebe (MBA 2021) set up a plastic bin with books about antiracism and the Black experience in the Harvard Business School Schwartz Pavilion in the summer of 2020, she never imagined that the collection would grow to sites across the country, much less to HBS’s own Baker Library. [...]
Growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, Alexis Jackson (MBA 2021) was drawn to challenges and motivated to get a degree in an industry that would bring financial and job security. An aptitude for math and science led to an engineering scholarship to Penn State, a major in electrical engineering, and a position at a multinational oil and gas corporation after graduation. She moved to Louisiana with her mother and dug into her engineering role. At the back of her mind, though, was a nagging sense that engineering might not be right for her. Was she good at it? Yes. Did it offer a path for advancement, challenges, and secure income? All a resounding yes. But she wasn’t happy, despite achieving the markers of success for which she had worked so diligently. “Even though I enjoyed the company and people, I began to realize that it wasn’t a good fit for me. I had ambitions to explore a variety of industries and technologies. I also wanted to approach innovative challenges that created another layer of problem-solving depth,” said Jackson. [...]
As an organizational behavior scholar, diversity and identity expert, and an assistant professor of management at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Dr. Stephanie Creary has become a recognized thought leader in navigating the complexities of race and diversity in organizations. She also holds some key Harvard Business School specialized knowledge: Nearly 15 years ago, Creary was an HBS research associate, writing cases for Professor David Thomas (now president of Morehouse College) and working with other faculty around the school. Never did she imagine that one day she would return to the HBS campus to guide faculty on discussing race in their cases and classrooms. [...]
In the fall of 2019, Holly Fetter (MBA 2020) and Alexxis Isaac (MBA 2020) looked ahead to their imminent graduation and considered how they could make a difference towards increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at HBS. Socioeconomic inclusion (SEI) was a frequently-mentioned topic among classmates, so in short order they set up a task force to examine how MBA students experience the role of class. We asked Holly and Alexxis about the task force and their hopes for how it will affect the future of the MBA student experience. [...]
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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.