James Bedford Wins Dean's Award for Service to the School and Society
|
BOSTON—James Bedford, from the Harvard Business School’s (HBS) MBA Class of 2025, has been named the recipient of the Dean’s Award. This prestigious award celebrates the extraordinary achievements of a graduating student who during their two years of study has made a positive impact on Harvard, Harvard Business School, and/or broader communities through exceptional acts of leadership. Nominations come from across the HBS community and Dean Srikant Datar makes the final selection. Bedford will be formally recognized during the week of Commencement.  Photo courtesy Evgenia Eliseeva.
“James Bedford truly embodies the spirit of the Dean’s Award. His commitment to socioeconomic inclusion has meaningfully improved the experience of many dozens of students in the MBA Program. His efforts reflect the heart of our mission—not simply to lead, but to do so in ways that create real and enduring change on the HBS campus and in the world,” said Dean Datar. James Bedford is happiest when he is uncomfortable—when his experiences and beliefs are challenged. He attended Harvard College intending to focus on stem cell biology but added education and data science into the mix before working in management consulting. As a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University, he wrote his master’s thesis on Chinese-US urban design and planning philosophies. While at HBS, his summer internships spanned educational grantmaking for students in STEM, socioeconomic inclusion at HBS, and programming for mayors and city leaders. “It’s about disproving everything I thought I knew and testing a different world view,” said Bedford. “What if there's another way to view the entirety of existence, another way to view how society should be, what culture should mean to people?” If there’s been one throughline, it’s Bedford’s dedication to improving socioeconomic inclusion. From a British childhood below the poverty line to Harvard College, a consulting firm, Tsinghua, and now at HBS, he’s worked with peers and administrators to institute programming, policies, and dialogue aimed at ensuring that people from all backgrounds can flourish.
As the Student Association’s vice president of socioeconomic diversity, he spent his first year at HBS running focus groups and collecting data on lower-income students’ experiences, while collaborating with section leaders, faculty, and staff to better understand their day-to-day reality. That spring, he proposed an initiative to build community and support for incoming students through mentorship, social gatherings, and a pre-orientation program. The Ascend Leadership Program launched this past fall with 125 students. This year, Bedford helped to institutionalize and expand that programming, collected more data on student outcomes, and created additional opportunities to support and destigmatize low income and first-generation experiences. “I've yet to meet a person who doesn't agree with expanding economic mobility. Who doesn't believe that no matter where you're from, you should be able to pursue your dreams?” he said. “At HBS, we fundamentally agree that the case method and education only work with a diversity of perspectives—you learn from having the person most opposite from you respond to a cold call in class. I think it's a duty, and fulfilling the dream of HBS, to be closer to a place where people from all socioeconomic backgrounds feel excited to be here and that they can bring their perspective and experiences into the classroom to help others learn.” Next up, James is taking his drive for contrast and passion for social impact to the global health arena as an HBS Leadership Fellow with Evidence Action, applying AI to issues such as lack of safe water, neglected tropical diseases, and nutrition and vitamin scarcity in India and sub-Saharan Africa. Before that he’ll experience the grantmaking side of global health as a strategy intern for a foundation aiming to maximize the impact of philanthropy. Not one to focus on a single endeavor, he’ll also continue his former internship role as a project manager, allocating last-mile grants to students at risk of dropping out of their STEM-based undergraduate education. As he reflects on his time at HBS, Bedford says he’s spent a lot of time thinking about 80-year-old James. “When I’m Grandpa James, looking back with my grandkids, what is this one life that I care about? I have some moral imperative, given the education that I've had; the incredible luck that I've had to be on this beautiful journey. I feel like global health is the place that I should be—the most pressing and most in need, and the place that is going to give me another complete questioning of my reality of what it means to best serve communities.”
|
Mark Cautela
mcautela+hbs.edu
617-495-5143
About Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School, located on a 40-acre campus in Boston, was founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University. It is among the world's most trusted sources of management education and thought leadership. For more than a century, the School's faculty has combined a passion for teaching with rigorous research conducted alongside practitioners at world-leading organizations to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. Through a dynamic ecosystem of research, learning, and entrepreneurship that includes MBA, Doctoral, Executive Education, and Online programs, as well as numerous initiatives, centers, institutes, and labs, Harvard Business School fosters bold new ideas and collaborative learning networks that shape the future of business.