Noa Torok, MBA 2019, came to HBS with a blank slate. “I arrived with zero expectations,” she says. “I had no idea what I wanted to do.” Her prior experience had shown her the opposite – what she did not want to do. After studying both law and business management in her home country, Israel, Noa became a successful lawyer working for the Israeli Supreme Court. She had hoped she could combine law and business together, but, “I realized that being a lawyer meant working from the sidelines. And I want to call the shots myself.” [...]

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012, Chloe Ho (MBA 2019) began her post-undergrad career as many people do: in New York working for Morgan Stanley. While there, she served in a strategy and analytics role, working on projects for sales and trading management. However, after four years on the job, she realized that there was something missing—she knew that she needed more to give her career an edge. [...]

A few years ago, Kenya Hunt, HBS MBA 2019, was working full-time on an offshore oil rig – two weeks on, two weeks off – when she realized that “by eight months in, I knew this wasn’t for me.” Her role really did not fit her particular engineering skill set, and culturally, being one of only three women, and the only woman of color, on the rig, the social context proved difficult. She asked herself two questions: “how did I get here?” And more importantly, “where do I go next?” [...]

Birmingham, Alabama, native Kel Jackson describes himself as “the kid who would find things around the house to tinker and build with.” When he was 16, the young entrepreneur founded RCM RC Products—a business that designed, sourced, manufactured, and sold performance after-market parts for hobby-class radio-controlled cars. [...]

In 2015, Steve Kloeblen retired and thought he was done with the corporate world. A graduate of HBS Executive Education’s General Management Program, Kloeblen had more than 30 years of experience with IBM, culminating with his transition from CFO type roles to success as a General Manager and C-suite executive. [...]