Impact Stories

Growing up in Nepal at a time when the country was going through immense political turmoil, I wondered how the momentous events I was living through fit in with the broader arc of history. My urge to make progress on economic and political issues plaguing my country led me to pursue a joint degree studying Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Business Administration at Harvard Business School. During my time at HBS, I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to take Professor Geoff Jones’s Entrepreneurship and Global Capitalism class as I continued on my quest. The course meets the criteria of success since I leave with more questions than answers, and three broad lessons that I would like to share. The first is that as much as history is shaped by political figures and pivotal events, it is also shaped by businesses and their leaders who through acts both big and small have shaped the world we inhabit today.The second is that we need to be mindful consumers. There is a need to educate ourselves on the products and business we buy from and, as potential future employees of such corporations, a need to reconcile and grapple with the dark parts of its history, instead of hiding it. The third lesson is that the success of a business person cannot be viewed through the narrow lens of financial wealth, but through a broader moral lens to examine the impact their actions have had on the ways business is conducted generations hence. The massive influence businesses have is both an empowering and daunting realization.