Current Position:
Assistant Director of Disruptive Strategy at HBX
Current Location:
Boston, MA
Tell us what you're up to these days.
I currently serve as the Assistant Director of Disruptive Strategy at HBX, Harvard Business School's online learning platform. The course is modeled after BSSE (Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise), which incidentally, is a course that I never actually got to take while I studied here. So, it's fortunate now that I have this unique opportunity to work directly with the course content and with Professor Christensen, with the goal of making the course widely available to others outside HBS who would benefit most.
During my EC year, HBX was only just launching. In fact, Youngme Moon made the announcement during a class I was attending. I immediately thought the idea was really exciting and a bold move by the school to set the tone for the next wave of learning. That said, I never expected I'd get the opportunity to help build it.
Personally, I'm very happy to be back on campus and living in Cambridge. It's great to see a new batch of students go through the HBS experience. Plus, I love getting out and running along the Charles.
How has having an MBA impacted your career?
Aside from providing me with a world class foundation of business knowledge, and connecting me with some of the smartest and most accomplished people I've ever met, gaining an MBA really helped me become fearless in my career. Previously, I probably would have been a little daunted by the challenge of transitioning into an entirely new industry, such as higher education, or taking on such a demanding role at a startup that's filled with a variety of different pressures, deadlines, and uncertain challenges. With the training that I received at HBS, I not only developed a higher comfort threshold for dealing with uncertainty, but also, I gained a greater flexibility to adapt to a variety of situations, which has given me a certain confidence for dealing with new situations, which I didn't have before.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Where will the next chapter take you?
Through my experience at HBX, I've found that I really love working on projects that have a significant impact on people's lives. For the next 5 years, my hope is to both continue working on these types of projects, as well as continue to dive deep into the world of innovation and disruption, and specifically, how these concepts can help businesses and industries grow and evolve.
Looking back at where I was when I started at HBS, just three years ago, versus where I am today, I never would have predicted that I'd still be here on campus, getting the chance to work with such an amazing group of people; so, if I have learned anything in my time here, it's that the next 5 years will continue to bring me unexpected opportunities and take me to unexpected places, and that's what excites me most.
