Newsroom

• 14 Feb 2025
• Harvard Business School

Launching Leaders

James Bedford (MBA 2025) smiles as he recalls growing up on a boat off the southwest coast of England. "It was just me and my dad in the most beautiful spot in the world," he says. Looking back now, he recognizes it was poverty—but at the time, "it was just life." Arriving at Harvard Business School in 2023, Bedford encountered some of the same challenges he faced at Harvard College years earlier: finding community and comfort in an unfamiliar culture.