Nanako Yano grew up in Tokyo, Japan and attended Pomona College in California. After graduating, she worked with Oliver Wyman in New York City and then moved to Swaziland to work with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) until two years later she was admitted into the HBS/HKS Joint Degree Program. We caught up with Nanako to learn more about her experience with the HBS/HKS joint degree program and her plans to make an impact on the world. [...]

How do you balance between being a mission-driven organization and a financially profitable company? That was the central question we posed to participants and speakers of this year’s Social Enterprise Conference (SECON). [...]

Sesame Workshop (SW) is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street and much more. SW’s mission is to help kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen firsthand how that mission suffuses everyone’s work – I’ve never worked in an organization where every employee is truly united and motivated by a singular goal. SW combines fun media with enriching, meticulously crafted curriculum to address children’s critical developmental needs in the U.S. and across the world. My role for the Fellowship year is Director of Strategy – I sit on the strategic planning and venture capital team. [...]

It was on that afternoon I decided that I wanted to help others complete their own journeys to citizenship in any way that I could, which set me off on a pathway of discovery that ultimately led me to the young professionals network of the International Rescue Committee, dubbed “GenR”. I joined the community on a whim, but as I learned more about the work that the IRC did, including visiting their field station in Cote D’Ivoire, I grew more excited. In January, when President Trump issued his executive order to halt refugee resettlement, I knew that there was no more valuable way for me to spend my time than supporting those who are most vulnerable, which is why I immediately started searching for roles at the IRC. [...]

I’ve known for a while that I want to be a community developer, and I want to start that work in my hometown of Detroit. I desire to create beautiful spaces and experiences for people that enhance the fabric of a neighborhood, community, and city. [...]