Individual Profile – Social Impact Yodas

Yoda#10: From Corporate Law to Business and Human Rights

Today our featured social impact yoda is Conniel Malek, Executive Director of True Costs Initiative. Prior to this role, Conniel practiced corporate law for ten years at a multinational corporation where she advised on commercial transactions, compliance and foundation matters, and represented the company on several continents including Africa and South America. She is a daughter of the Caribbean, from the island of Jamaica where she observed firsthand the juxtaposition of corporate investment and the affected environmental and social landscape. She is particularly passionate about the issues of climate justice in the Caribbean and broadening of the definition of what constitutes scientific and other technical expertise in the business and human rights space and this has deeply informed the work she has prioritized and guided at TCI. She received her law degree from The University of Virginia School of Law and her B.A., cum laude, in Government, with a concentration in International Relations, from Cornell University.

Above Conniel Malek, Executive Director, True Costs Initiative (TCI) is photographed with two TCI partners who are experts and advocates from Honduras: Gerene Grant, Bay Islands Development Organization (BIDO) and Inclusion and Preservation of the Afro English Speaking People (IPABESP); and Laura Palmese Hernandez, environmental lawyer & partner, Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide. You can also learn more about their work in this video produced by TCI. (Photo credit: Firefly Imageworks)

Here is our interview with Conniel, who shares about her journey into social impact, her work at TCI, and career advice for others.

Q: How did you get connected to the True Costs Initiative?

I worked for Alcoa Inc. as a corporate attorney for ten years. I led several M&A transactions and negotiations globally, and also managed foundation matters for Alcoa Foundation and legal matters related to capital projects, procurement and technology & research teams. While I found the work compelling from a practitioner perspective, I found myself feeling as though I wanted to work for a bigger purpose. I knew that corporate law was not where I wanted to land long term. So it required quite a bit of visioning to determine where I wanted to go next. I knew the color and texture, but not the shape of where I wanted to land. I had to be honest with myself about what brings me joy and excitement. For example, I realized that when I negotiated contracts in Global South countries, I deeply valued the time I spent outside and around the negotiating room. I learned so much from meeting with the folks on the other side of the negotiation table about their culture, country and their priorities.

As part of my process, which was approximately a year and a half, I conducted 10-12 informational interviews, while I was working full-time. I would take short trips from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC and New York, to talk to individuals who worked with unions, international development banks, government agencies, etc. It’s not that I thought any of those organizations would be a good fit for me, per se, but I wanted to hear about what brought these individuals joy in their work.

It occurred to me that philanthropy could be a career option for me, but I had no connections. As luck would have it, someone from the philanthropic community reached out to me regarding the True Costs Initiative because they felt the Executive Director role would be a good fit for me.

What I learned from this experience: Be patient with yourself. Develop a plan and be intentional, while making the space for feeling things out and putting what you want out to the universe. Sometimes things come to you because you’re prepared for the luck that comes to you.

Photo credit: Rachel Rogers

Q: Please share about True Costs Initiative.

Our starting point is that the true cost of corporate profit is borne on the backs of people and the environment in Global South. To address this and bolstered by grant recommendations, True Costs Initiative builds strategic partnerships and collaborations to advance two main focus areas:

Strong legal systems in the Global South
Corporate accountability, which is absolutely not the same thing as corporate social responsibility (CSR)

Quite a few organizations focus on corporate accountability in some way, but if you focus on corporate accountability without the strong building block of a legal system where people believe that their laws are fair, just and created to advance their interests is like building a cement house on sand. Through our work we draw the link between corporate accountability to just and equitable legal systems. Very few organizations in this space focus on both of these areas and so we have a bit of a niche.

In hiring me, my employers saw the opportunity to bring on an Executive Director who could really consolidate and clarify vision and mission centered on corporate accountability and have someone with legal expertise and a mix of skills and background that would be uniquely additive to the business and human rights space. They did not just look to predictably hire someone with a philanthropic background or prior years of grantmaking experience. Their bet has paid off.

Q: What do you find fulfilling about your work?

I’m energized and I’m deeply inspired because of the work that our partners are doing on the ground. At some points, the stories related to the challenging issues they are working on can be disheartening, but I am constantly inspired and hopeful because of the incredible work TCI partners do every single day to protect people and the environment. My work fulfills me because it’s about learning about the world and finding ways to make it better. I find effective and impactful organizations and connect them to mechanisms and resources to do even more.

Other aspects of my work that I enjoy are communicating and engaging in thought leadership, including talking to funders, potential partners, and other stakeholders and also writing articles and for the TCI blog. This role is a great fit for me because it fits well with both my personal ethos, my personality and my broad skill set. That’s the dream.

Q: Do you miss anything about working in the private sector?

I do not miss the private sector, but I am extremely grateful for how my private sector experience, especially challenging moments, prepared me to do this job. I have no regrets about working in the private sector, and I appreciate what I learned about power dynamics in the world and about corporate/ legal culture.

Q: What are some challenges of your work?

What’s hard is that because there’s finite funding available, inevitably I have to say “no” to a lot of people. That’s hard. I strive to deliver that message with care and compassion. I also think creatively about whether there are introductions, interactions or other ways (other than recommending a grant) where TCI can support or expand an organization’s work. In many ways, these can be more important than grant recommendations because those interactions build lasting relationships of trust, help these organizations feel valued, and expose them to new networks and collaborators.

Q: What do you wish you knew before you started working at True Costs Initiative?

Two things:
I was very nervous about my profile as a previous corporate lawyer and how that would come off in the human / environmental rights space. Many women, including women of color, second guess what they have to offer and worry about perception. They want to fit in perfectly – they ask themselves, how can I make myself more appealing? I wasted some time worrying about what people would think of me. If I could, I would have advised myself four years ago to not worry about that. I’d tell myself, “You know your own intentions and people can only judge you for what you do and how you show up in spaces. Just bring your true self.” I brought my true self into spaces, I believed in the depth and breadth of what I had to offer to the space and people saw that and embraced my expertise.
Don’t worry too much about not knowing everything about philanthropy (or any field) going into the job. Learn on the job, you will learn what you need to but most importantly feel free to do it your way as well.

Q: Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like to share about careers?

Trust yourself and that you have something unique to offer. It really is true. Trust that feeling of yours that what you have to offer to the world is valid. What would prevent you from making your dream job a reality? Trust that you have the capacity to change the world and take the steps, however small, to make it happen.

If you enjoyed this blog post, please join the Social Impact Yodas LinkedIn Group to receive notifications about new posts as well as job opportunities related to social impact.

Yoda#9: Adventures in Social Impact with Data and Research

We interviewed Anjana Sundaram, who is currently a graduate intern at Kaiser Permanente on their community health team and a recent graduate from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. Anjana learned the essentials of the social impact space from her 7 years at the Gates Foundation and a multitude of volunteer projects at nonprofits. She found her way into the world of philanthropy through a longstanding interest in applying research and data-driven approaches to problem solving.

Thanks for including me in the Social Impact Yodas community – although these days, I look and feel more like Chewbacca! 😊 I hope my advice can be of help to others who are interested in breaking into the social impact sector.

Q: Please share about your organization and your current role.

I work at Kaiser Permanente on the Community Health team, which is broadly focused on addressing the systemic drivers of health outcomes, such as housing, food, and economic insecurity. The team I work on specifically focuses on improving economic well-being for individuals, small businesses, and their surrounding communities through partnerships with community organizations. As a graduate intern, It’s been great to learn so much from my peers and provide operational and research support for the different portfolios on the team. I’m really inspired by Kaiser Permanente’s commitment to equity and inclusiveness, and I am proud to have been here when the organization recently announced a $60M joint investment with LISC and a $40M commitment to support businesses led by Black and other underrepresented groups.

Q: Please briefly share your professional background with us.

I’ve been fortunate to have had a long career working across many industries. The common thread for me has been an interest in applying a data and research-driven approach to problems. I started out in banking at UBS, working as an analyst in portfolio management for ~2 years, later transitioning into journalism as a freelance reporter for a few years. I then switched my focus to philanthropy, spending 7 years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focused on education research.

My time at the Gates Foundation was incredibly fulfilling, and I drew great inspiration from both the mission and the people. As a Data Officer, I provided data analysis and research insights to support the development of new investments and performance management of program strategies. While I worked on U.S. based programs, I was also always in awe of the Foundation’s global impact and was continually learning about the incredible work across various divisions.

I recently completed my MBA from Berkeley, where I did a few internships to gain additional perspectives across the corporate finance, social enterprise, and healthcare sectors. Finding the right balance between data work and social impact is something I am constantly evaluating. I believe that the work to become a social impact professional is never done and I am constantly learning and improving my existing skill sets.

Q: What are the most important skills to succeed in your job?

A sense of curiosity, a growth mindset, a collaborative approach, effective communication, a determination to clear out roadblocks in projects, a strong point of view, and taking action to drive work forward.

I’ve always deeply admired leaders who’ve been able to demonstrate values-based leadership, and I aspire to grow that competency.

Q: How do you balance your work/life? Or, do you balance work/life?

I’ve answered this differently at different phases of my life. Ideally, you’re giving yourself enough breaks to allow yourself to rejuvenate and feel excited to do the work – and if you’re lucky enough, it doesn’t actually feel like work. I think there’s a tendency particularly in social impact work to burn out, because it’s not just a job – it’s a mission to which you are committed.

But, the truth is there are times in which finding a balance was difficult. When I was a part-time MBA student with a full-time job, I had to accept there would be a few years of imbalance. But I wanted to push myself, so I accepted that discomfort.

I think this pandemic has made me reevaluate this question and prioritize self-care more intentionally.

Q: What advice would you give to others who are looking to work in social impact careers?

I was recently introduced to the 3P Framework for Social Innovators which resonated with me. It’s a flexible framework that introduces some questions that help frame how an individual may contribute to social impact, and hopefully narrow down which types of organizations and roles to target:

(Source: http://sici.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/3Ps-Framework_SICI-Note-004.pdf)

I’m paraphrasing and adding my own interpretation to this framework, but answering these set of questions may be useful for someone thinking of going down this path:

Problem: What is the nature of the problem you’d like to be involved with? What are the key stakeholders’ perspectives on the issue?
Person: What are your personal motivations? What are your skill sets? How and in what function would you like to contribute? How ‘close’ to the end recipient do you want to be? What are the sources of power that contribute to this issue?
Pathway: What are the potential vehicles for change? What are existing solutions in this space? What models are being used and what stage of development do you want to participate in (for instance, early stage/exploratory, incubation/development, or scaling tested interventions)?

Q: What other advice do you have for those aspiring to a career in social impact?

You’d think nonprofits would be countercyclical with the economy, but my observation has been the opposite. There are always outsized community needs and funding shortages. Brace yourself for that environment, whether you choose to work on the nonprofit or funder side.
Don’t feel pigeonholed into one area of social impact: There are so many different ways to get involved in this space and you’ll be richer from getting exposure to different facets of the field (nonprofit direct service provider, corporate social responsibility, impact investing and donor-advised funds, traditional funders like private foundations and community foundations, social enterprise, MLE evaluation, government, etc.)
Every organization has its grounding philosophy – some have a grassroots social justice angle with an emphasis on capacity building and responsiveness to immediate needs, some are more focused on system-level change across specific issue-areas. Both are incredibly important perspectives.
Working on large ambitious problems can often devolve into feeling that these are intractable issues. It can be particularly difficult when you’re not seeing interim progress. Developing patience in those moments where you feel totally stuck will help you work through the demoralizing moments. I’ve also tried to develop a creative outlet outside of work to lean on when I’m feeling work isn’t going well. There are times where your motivation comes from work, but other times when you lean on family life or creative pursuits to give you that energy back.
There are many rewards of engaging in social impact work, but monetary compensation isn’t often one of them. There are very few (if any) roles in the philanthropic sector that pay equivalently to other sectors like tech or finance. These effects are of course amplified for women of color. You have to be really honest with yourself about what lifestyle tradeoffs you’re willing to make.

Q: Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like to share about careers? Is there anything you would have done differently?

I’ve followed the path of a generalist, and these suggestions are very much informed by that choice:

Careers are marathons, not sprints, and building emotional resilience is really important to keep you going. This is particularly true in the social impact space where there aren’t clear playbooks for career progression. The pros of this are that there isn’t one defined path, but the cons are that you can always feel like you’re struggling to figure out what the next step is.
At the beginning of your career, focus on building a variety of concrete skills in as many ways as possible. That will maximize your chances of:

a) figuring out what you’re good at

b) figuring out what you like doing (and people tend to like doing what they are good at)

c) being able to contribute in a variety of ways and keep options on the table

Ideally, it’s best to find yourself part of a growing team at a growing company. You’re bound to be part of exciting opportunities and be able to shape that growth. This advice, of course, may vary based on your own risk tolerance but overall your learning will accelerate in this environment.
You can always take career risks, but it only gets harder with time as you add in other life elements. Studying for standardized tests becomes harder the further you are out of school – if you’re in a position to do so, try to finish academic training or experiment with the risky startup when you can unilaterally focus on that goal and have the energy to do so.
It’s generally easier to transition from the for-profit world to the nonprofit than the other way around. Most people who have made the transition from nonprofit to for-profit have used graduate school to make the transition.
People matter just as much (if not more) as the work itself. Your team members and your boss all have material impacts on your ability to get your work done, feel valued as part of a community, and grow professionally. You also pick up your work habits from the people around you. Having good role models and a support system at work is important for your career progression, and you should be screening for that just as much as you are for the actual role and company.
Two books I am currently reading and recommend: The New Job Security by Pam Lassiter and Principles by Ray Dalio.

Yoda#8: Philanthropy as a Career – My Professional Pathway

Guest contributor Hilary McConnaughey shares about her career path in the field of philanthropy, where she has worked for a decade advising foundations, corporations, and high net-worth individuals on their charitable endeavors.

Our guest Yoda today is Hilary McConnaughey, who has spent nearly a decade of her career in philanthropy, advising foundations, corporations, and high net-worth individuals on their charitable endeavors. At the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy, she consults with high-capacity philanthropists, conducts research, and develops resources to advance the sector and individual giving. Previously, she worked at a biotech startup in San Francisco where she led community partnerships and its corporate social responsibility efforts. At Arabella Advisors, a philanthropic consulting firm, she managed charitable and social welfare projects on behalf of her clients. She also worked at the grant-making nonprofit Tipping Point Community, where she engaged in human-centered design to pilot social service programs impacting people in poverty and determine whether these concepts can be scaled. McConnaughey received her Master of Public Policy from Brown University and BA with honors from Colgate University.

Hilary also recently co-authored a report through the Milken Institute, “Stepping off the Sidelines: The Unrealized Potential of Strategic Ultra-High-Net-Worth Philanthropy.”

Choosing a career is never easy, especially if you are moved to make a difference in countless distinct ways. During grade school and my undergrad years, nearly every news story would compel me to dedicate my life to a new cause; one day it would be prison reform, another would be campaign finance, another, income inequality. I never doubted that I would end up in the nonprofit sector, but the career paths – and issue areas – seemed limitless.

Torn between pursuing a masters in criminal justice or public policy, I chose the latter, reasoning it would provide more professional versatility. With a stroke of luck, I wound up in a class about philanthropy during my first semester of grad school, and suddenly – serendipitously – my trajectory became clear.

At its best, philanthropy promotes social change at the macro level and can go beyond the support of direct services within a single nonprofit. Institutional funders and even astute individuals can harness their assets to address complex problems, taking a comprehensive long view to tackle root causes. Philanthropists have more than financial resources to contribute; they can also play a crucial role in convening stakeholders and facilitating collaborations and other connections. The strategic deployment of philanthropic assets has the potential to disrupt current systems and generate meaningful progress.

For nearly ten years, I have spent my career in the philanthropic sector, largely advising foundations and individuals on their charitable giving, and also building out corporate social responsibility initiatives. As a generalist, I support philanthropists and their varied causes of interest, which takes the form of developing strategic plans, social impact programs, funder collaboratives, impact frameworks, legacy plans, and more. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have landed in a profession where I can think about the big picture and help shape and advance social change as effectively as possible.

Of course, the very concept of philanthropy highlights the distinction between the fortunate and those who are less so. There is no denying the power imbalance that ensues when one segment of society elects to donate resources to another. Part of my job is to acknowledge and help minimize the one-way transactionality that philanthropy is historically known for. Philanthropists tend to be one step (if not more) removed from executing social change work, so they have much to learn from nonprofit staff and those with lived experience of the issue at hand. After all, those closest to the problem are those closest to its solution, and so both donor and recipient have important roles to play in this dynamic. Thus, the most productive philanthropists foster transparent relationships and continually seek feedback from – and even collaborate with – the community. Facilitating this engagement is the most rewarding work of all.

Ultimately, my career path can be distilled into one very simple lesson: if you don’t know where to start, start at the beginning. In pursuit of an impactful, issue-agnostic vocation, I discovered philanthropy as the beginning of the social impact supply chain in that the distribution of philanthropic resources serves as the lifeblood of the nonprofit sector, sustaining the programming and critical operating support that ultimately engenders transformative progress. I opted to direct my energy upstream, enabling philanthropy to be more strategic, effective, and inclusive. I have no regrets.

Yoda#7: Empowering Survivors to End Sexual Violence

With programs in Kenya and Zambia, Freely in Hope equips survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence. Freely in Hope has a three-tiered program of holistic education (through scholarships), leadership development, and storytelling platforms.

We recently interviewed Nikole Lim, the International Director and founder of nonprofit Freely in Hope. With programs in Kenya and Zambia, Freely in Hope equips survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence. Freely in Hope has a three-tiered program of holistic education (through scholarships), leadership development, and storytelling platforms. Nikole founded Freely in Hope at age 20, and as its International Director, she leads the organization’s staff development, fundraising, and implementation of new program initiatives.

Nikole is releasing her first book, Liberation Is Here: Women Uncovering Hope in a Broken World, on September 22nd, available for pre-order here.

Q: What inspired you to start Freely in Hope?

As a documentary filmmaker, I traveled in and out of countries to meet people briefly to collect stories for my short-term assignments. I befriended women who were survivors of sexual violence (SV) in Kenya, where I filmed my thesis film (I was in a college program for film production), and observed these women fighting against cultural and familial oppression simply for being born a girl, in order to go to school. All these women desired was to use their education to ensure other girls vulnerable to SV wouldn’t endure the same pain. I began to observe a correlation between SV and the lack of access to education.

As I edited my thesis documentary film, I felt God asking me, what are you going to do about it? The film I was making would build awareness of SV through storytelling, but simply telling their stories was not enough. I was so inspired by the beauty, compassion and community orientation of their dreams, that I wanted to contribute tangibly to helping achieve them. I started to think about founding a nonprofit for this purpose, but I didn’t know how to start one from scratch. I had to Google it. And this was the beginning of Freely in Hope.

Q: How has Freely in Hope evolved over time?

We began by providing scholarships for a couple of girls to attend high school and university. After receiving their first scholarships, these girls rose to the top of their class. We soon began supporting other survivors. The girls shared that, now that they were in school, they realized the power of their voices and they wanted to educate their communities about SV prevention. They wanted to become leaders in the fight for justice. We built out our programs into the three tiers that we have now, based on their guidance, feedback, and dreams. We pride ourselves as being an organization for survivors, led by survivors, designed by survivors. All of our program staff are survivors of SV. We hope to build a strong support system for young women who believe that they can transform systems of oppression into places of freedom and liberation for all women.

Q: What do you find fulfilling about your work?

Our survivors, both scholars and staff, recognize the power of their voice. These are huge milestones when they lead a meeting for the first time, tell their story for the first time, or recognize for the first time how a trigger was connected to a past trauma. It is incredibly fulfilling to observe how these moments lead towards transformation.

When they first join our program, many survivors can’t even say their own names because there’s so much shame and trauma attached to their identities due to rape, incest, and violence. They lost a sense of who they were. Through Freely in Hope, they go through a process to reclaim their identities, to the point that they can say their names publicly and tell their stories in front of others.

Q: What challenges have you encountered in your work?

The biggest turning point in my leadership was when I burned out in my third year with Freely in Hope. I felt it was personally up to me to pursue this mission of ending sexual violence, and that I had to control all our organizational outcomes in order to succeed. I ended up hospitalized in Zambia due to the stress: I was physically ill, unable to sleep, and had migraines.

In the hospital I came to terms with my lack of control. I wasn’t God. I also realized that I was suffering from secondary PTSD and through my recovery, I began to recognize that the community already knows the solutions they need and my role is to leverage the community’s knowledge and support system, and not to control and dictate.

Nikole Lim

Q: What do you wish you had known before you started Freely in Hope?

I wish I had known how hard it would have been. Actually, I retract that. If I had known, I would have not done it and missed out on all the gifts of this work. Where there is pain, suffering and darkness, there’s an abundance of light, hope and healing. You can’t properly experience light without experiencing the darkness.

More practically, I wish I had more academic knowledge about nonprofit management and creation. But as a result, I’ve had to rely more on the wisdom of survivors which is what makes our programs incredible—beyond any theories I could apply.

Q: How do you measure your success?

My measurement of how we’re doing is based on our survivors’ experiences and our staff perspectives on how we’re impacting our community, and not as much focused on what our donors think or what activities have the most fundraising potential. Ultimately we gauge our success on being attentive to the survivors’ needs and implementing their ideas.

Q: How do you elicit honest feedback from the survivors?

It’s taken us a long time to build a culture of trust. We have two retreats a year to bring all girls together with our staff. Our scholars fill out program assessments and have opportunities to share feedback with staff members. We also have an anonymous feedback system.

Q: What are you doing to take care of yourself during this time of COVID? What gives you joy?

In the first week of sheltering in place, there were constant calls because everything was blowing up. I burnt out. So now I only schedule 3-4 calls per day. I start the day with a morning meditation and I take a mid-day yoga break. At the end of my work day, I do some cardio kickboxing as my workout, which gives me joy and energy. I then cook dinner for my family, which is a replenishing therapeutic act of service and gets me away from my computer. I take the night off and try to maintain work / life separation.

Joy is about experiencing the gifts of the day – as mundane as they may be. At night, I sit in silence and solitude to pray the Daily Examen, an Ignatian spiritual exercise. Through the Examen, I observe my gratitudes for the day and write them down. I also observe the desolations I felt during the day and bring them to God in prayer.

Q: Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like to share about careers?

Put people first. Lead with compassion and empathy. Learn to listen to the voices of your community to inform your leadership. Move into this space with an open heart. What you learn in academia and articles can supplement your work, but the people you’re serving know best. Come up with a community-oriented solution – this is what justice looks like. Share power, ideas and resources.
Understand how culture and family systems and trauma can impede change. Holistically serve staff and beneficiaries so that the change can evolve from the community. As a leader in social impact the change doesn’t come from you. The “social” in “social impact” at its core implies the ownership and involvement of the community.

Yoda#6: From Engineering to Public Policy to Philanthropy

I feel a little funny calling myself a Social Impact Yoda, but I was recently featured on the PCDN Social Change Careers Podcast, and here’s the summary from their page. [They are also a great resource for social impact careers — please do check them out!] Please listen to the podcast here.

The heart wants what the heart wants. Even if you graduate from MIT as an electrical engineer. Nancy Chan found her way into the mission-driven field of social good.
In Episode 11 of Season 6, Nancy shares her interesting career trajectory. From working for a while in the tech world to ultimately discovering her passion for good and starting a super comprehensive a search for her graduate degree to graduating with a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University [McCourt School of Public Policy].
Post graduation, Chan applied her analytical skills with her passion and excelled in the worlds of nonprofits, philanthropy, ultimately working for tech companies for social good.
She currently works in Strategy and Evaluation at the Justice & Opportunity Initiative of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

At the great glass pumpkin patch!

Yoda#5: Leadership and Career Coach, and Former Social Impact Consultant

Our yoda and guest contributor, Julia Wuench, MBA is a leadership and career coach, corporate trainer and keynote speaker with a mission to enhance human connection and fulfillment at work and in life. Using positive psychology and her blueprint The Authenticity Guide, Julia provides critical “soft-skills” training to individuals, corporate and university teams. As a graduate of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Julia focuses on the 3 C’s of culture: connection, communication and collaboration. She is a regular contributor to Business Insider and some of her clients include Marriott, Lenovo, Cisco, Women Business Owners Network, Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and more. Julia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (magna cum laude) from Brandeis University, and a Masters of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and is credentialed as a strengths coach from The Marcus Buckingham Company through Cisco.

No two people’s social impact journeys are alike, but there are certain archetypes or patterns I’ve seen over the years. I believe I fit one very specific archetype: and that is of the person who moved away from social impact as a paid career, and leaned into social impact as community engagement. I’m going to tell you about my journey and I’ll share some things I learned along the way.

Low-stakes trial and error

I went to college at Brandeis University, a small liberal arts university in Waltham, Massachusetts. I planted my activist roots at Brandeis. The student body comprised so many smart, studious, curious, liberal, open-minded people and it opened up my world.

I studied Economics and Gender Studies and spent four years trying different activities, internships and jobs to see what I liked. (A smattering of said roles were: intern at the university’s office of investment management, economic empowerment intern for South Asian survivors of domestic violence, advocate for custodial workers’ rights, writing for a microfinance publication, a weird internship at major bank, making PowerPoints for a boutique public relations firm… you get the idea.) At the time I remember having the sense that I was aimlessly meandering, indecisive and lost. I felt passionless and professionally behind my peers. In hindsight — I was doing exactly the right thing. Trial and error is often the best way to find out what we’re passionate about and good at. And, these low-stakes trial and error gigs can be a great way to find out if you hate something too (a data point just as valuable as loving something).

I graduated from Brandeis in 2011, and the job market wasn’t exactly burgeoning at that time. Inspired by a class I took my senior year of college, I wanted to work for a foundation or philanthropy. In said class, we (a group of 10 students) received a $25,000 grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation (Doris Buffet’s foundation). Our charge was to spend a semester acting like a family foundation and ultimately give the money away in its entirety to a nonprofit in the Boston area. Giving someone else’s money away to a good cause was, well, awesome — why wouldn’t I want to pursue that as a career? The other thing I loved about philanthropy was that I didn’t necessarily have to pick a cause I cared most about. Many philanthropies gave towards lots of different issue areas.

But, as it turned out, there were 0 jobs in philanthropy for new college graduates at that time. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who wanted to work in philanthropy. So I made the decision to leverage my economics degree and took a job as a financial analyst in corporate finance at a large healthcare organization. I did that for two years and learned a lot, but admittedly it wasn’t a fit. I learned that I can be a “quant,” and I can do data analysis and I can nail Excel but it didn’t bring me any joy or satisfaction. I started paying attention to the activities that drained me versus ones that energized me. By the end of those two years, waking up in the morning was the worst part of my day. When my alarm went off, I would check my phone and pray for a “snow day” like an elementary school kid. I would pray for snow days in August. I was existing, not thriving.

I ended up switching jobs within the company. My new job was in outpatient ambulatory operations working for the chief operating officer. I had a great six months in that role, and then the other 18 months were pretty miserable. I was working for really toxic men who were just given more and more power by other men in the company. By the end, I felt cast aside by leadership: I wasn’t given important work and I was bored. I knew I needed a break from New York and the healthcare industry: I needed a reset.

The funny thing about those years post college: there’s no roadmap. For me and for my circle of friends, it was a given that we’d do well in high school, go on to good colleges where we’d get good grades, and then get good jobs. But, after that? No instructions.

Since I didn’t know what my next steps should be I embarked on what I would call an informational networking extravaganza. I essentially cold emailed CEOs of cool companies, executive directors of nonprofits I liked, family, friends, and anyone who I respected professionally. What I wanted to gain from these conversations was an understanding of how to pivot from healthcare into the social impact space. My goal was to collect diverse perspectives and data points, and then make a decision on what to do next.

Get a master’s degree

Interestingly, most of the advice that I got was to go to graduate school. When I applied to jobs in the impact sector around this time (and got turned down for every single one), I asked for feedback. The response most of the time? Get a master’s degree. I received mixed advice on what kind of graduate school was the right decision, though. Some people said an MPA was great for the nonprofit sector. Some people said I should double down on healthcare and get an MPH. Others said MBA. I had a particularly pivotal conversation with Deborah Brooks, co-founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. (I couldn’t believe she agreed to talk to me; she was amazing.) Brooks went to Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and she was sufficiently compelling about how an MBA is crucial for careers in the impact space — enough so that I was signing up to take the GMAT the following week.

Fast forward about a year, and I was moving to North Carolina to attend Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. (As a New York Jew, you better believe I never saw myself ending up south of the Mason-Dixon line… but read on for some fun twists.) I ended up being attracted to business school because of a belief that business is a critical lens through which social change should occur. I was interested to learn more about how businesses were contributing to bettering people and the planet. I also felt like I could easily leverage an MBA to work in the public or private sector. And, in the unlikely event of going back into healthcare, I could use an MBA there too. I was impressed by Fuqua largely because of The Center for Advancement in Social Entrepreneurship, founded by the late Greg Dees. Also, the students were genuinely down to earth, unlike some other top business schools that will remain unnamed.

I got my MBA (full-time program) from Duke with a concentration in social entrepreneurship. I did my summer internship at a well-known nonprofit in Boston working on social impact bond deals related to healthcare, particularly in the pediatric asthma space. I thought the work was interesting but it still didn’t feel like a fit. I had the same feeling of dread every morning about going to work. During my second year at Fuqua, I threw myself even further into the social impact world. I intentionally pursued roles wherein I could mentor first-year students who were interested in the social impact space. (I loved and was good at mentoring and coaching, a fact I conveniently ignored for a few years — this will come into play later.) I was the Careers Co-Chair for the Net Impact Club and I loved that role more than anything I had done at b-school.

Social impact consulting

After graduation my husband and I decided to stay in North Carolina, to the chagrin of our family and friends back in New York. (We could do things in NC like buy a house and open a restaurant, things we wouldn’t dream of doing in New York.) I went to work for a social impact consulting firm. The firm was based in New York and I was charged with heading up the North Carolina office. As director of the North Carolina market, I had ten consultants working for me on projects ranging from portfolio analysis for impact investing firms, to developing metrics and measurement for nonprofits, and lots of projects in between.

I enjoyed the work more than any job I’d held previously, but again was confronted with the idea that I loved mentoring and coaching my team far more than I enjoyed the consulting project work itself. As these feelings were becoming more of a reality for me, the CEO of my company cut my salary because of a lack of funding to the organization. I took this as a sign: I needed to hit pause, resign (the first time I ever quit a job without a Plan “B”) and figure out what I wanted to do next. It feels crucial to mention I would not have been able to take that time off if I didn’t have a partner with an income who was supportive of my choice.

The “feel good tax”

And perhaps this is also a good moment to mention what I call the “feel good tax:” the idea that the social impact sector pays less than other sectors because of the feel-goodness of the work, or lack of funding, or some combination of the two. For me, this wasn’t talked about enough in business school. Professors and mentors never told me point blank: “You will make ⅓ of what your business school peers make post-graduation. Start thinking about that now.” So, I’m telling you now! You’re essentially paying a premium to help the world — in the form of your salary cut. Yes, the work felt good, but getting paid so below the market rate for my value felt like absolute crap. It wears on you over time. Anyone who says that money doesn’t matter is either lying or is independently wealthy (I’ve learned this from experience).

“What do you really want from your life?”

During the one month I took off, I did a lot of deep thought work. I embarked on a second informational networking extravaganza. I challenged myself with the question, “What do you really want from your life? NOT, “What do you think would be impressive to other people?” It turns out they were two totally different answers, and that was profound for me. Chasing the latter brought me misery, chasing the former was the first time I felt authentic joy.

My coaching firm The Authenticity Guide (TAG) was born from this time of deep introspection. TAG works to enhance connectedness and fulfillment at work and in life. I have individual clients as well as corporate clients. My sweet spot is in empowering emerging female leaders to come into their potential. I do workshops, I speak at conferences, and I write for Business Insider. I’m my own boss and it’s the best.

You may be asking yourself, did she completely forget about social impact? Is that just not a part of her life anymore? And, something I think about often… what happened to that expensive business school degree with a concentration in social impact? My answer to you is simple. It took me years to learn that I will always be passionate about social impact and it will always be in my life in a meaningful way, but… wait for it… it does not have to be how I earn my income.

To say this realization was groundbreaking for me is an understatement. I am still very involved in social impact in my community: I am board chair of an organization called Helius that works to give free business classes to necessity-driven entrepreneurs and help them gain financial independence and earn a fair living wage. I do pro-bono coaching for low-income business owners. I shop locally when I can. My husband and I co-own a restaurant that gives away money to various charities and we pay ethical wages to our employees. I personally give a lot of money to charity. There’s lots of other ways that I have conceived of other than my 9-5 to have a significant impact on the world and on the community. And, I actually feel better about the impact I’m having when it’s divorced from a salary. I find that I’m less bitter and more enthusiastic about the impact I’m having.

What I get paid to do now (leadership and career coaching) — is far more fulfilling to me than tying my salary to social impact. That might not be true for everyone, but it was true for me. What I’m doing now is where my passion and zone of genius meet. And, while coaching is not “tried and true” social impact necessarily, I feel like I’m making significant differences in people’s lives. When I help people get more in touch with their passions and get closer to work that aligns with their values — to me, that’s impact. It might not be impact investing. It might not be case work for survivors of domestic violence. But for me it feels impactful at this time in my life.

Sometimes I wish I had known sooner that social impact could be in my life without being my job. But mostly, I’m just grateful for where my journey led me. I wouldn’t have learned this lesson without all the steps I took along the way. And, I’m even more grateful that I get to guide others on their unique journeys. Boy does that feel good!

Interested in coaching? Reach out to me at wuench.julia@gmail.com. Not ready to invest in coaching but want to learn more? Check out my online course, Maximizing Your Potential at Work and in Life. Want to simply stay in touch with what I’m up to? Join my mailing list by going to my website: www.juliawuench.com. Thanks for reading my story!

Yoda#4 Perspective: Your Job Already Has Social Impact!

Our yoda today and guest contributor Mo-Yun Lei Fong is currently Sr. Director, Google Technical Solutions, Assistant and Search; she was previously Google’s Director, Computer Science Education, Catalyst for Equity in Education, and Chief Compliance Officer for Google Payments. After graduating with her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford, she began her career as a school teacher and then was promoted to assistant principal at Monta Vista High School. She then went on to Harvard Business School and became the founding executive director of the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, prior to joining Google.

Every job has an impact on society – it’s a matter of mindset and how large a scale and direct an impact you want to have.

Coming out of undergrad, I decided to defer a career in chemical engineering because I had a strong desire to teach and give pay forward what my teachers had poured into me. The idea was to teach for a couple of years, go back to engineering, and maybe retire as a school teacher. Two years turned into three as I wanted to see my sophomores graduate, but in that third year, I was already starting to get the itch to do more. If only I could start a school and not just impact 180 students a year, but an entire student body of thousands? I got that wish, as I became an assistant principal at the school, the same year I applied to business schools with the intention of opening up my own girls school focused on STEM. I chose to attend Harvard Business School, which has a lofty mission to “educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” At the time, I translated this to literally make a difference in the entire world, setting expectations high and the pressure was on to figure out how to do just that.

Upon graduation, I thought, “If only I could help restructure the entire school system, I would really start to make a difference in the world.” When I was offered the role as the first executive director of the Stanford Educational Leadership Initiative, I was convinced “this is it!” Combining the amazing resources and thought leadership from Stanford Graduate School of Education and Stanford Graduate School of Business, we set out to transform the complex US school system to better serve students. Working with the largest school districts, we developed executive education courses and research to help school leaders bring back best practices that could potentially impact hundreds of thousands of students. For me, though, something was still missing. If only I had more direct business experience, I could be even more credible in this intersection of business and education and have even more impact.

My pivot to the corporate sector was fortuitous. I was responsible for the “acceptable use policy” for the allowable goods and services sold using a payment platform. This drew from my experiences not only working with policymakers but setting up the enforcement operations. Although far removed from the world of education, my mindset was on protecting the public from physical harm, fraud, and risk. Users at the time were in the millions and my responsibilities continued to grow. With each career move, it pulled me further and further away from direct social impact. I was no longer in the classroom helping the individual students with their math problem or writing college recommendation letters, but the policies that were set had economic implications on small and medium business owners. Similarly at Google, my role as the Chief Compliance Officer was protecting a global user base from money laundering and terrorist financing after 9/11. It was then that it dawned on me that every job has an impact on society – it’s a matter of mindset and how large a scale and how direct an impact you want to have.

I knew that my work was playing an important role in society, but it didn’t stop the desire to get back into education. I remember my original purpose in wanting business experience which was to help more students attain the education they deserved and need to be successful in the 21st century. I started asking everyone I knew both at work and in my social circles if they knew any organizations that could use some help. Again, the stars aligned and I for the next four years, I led a team to bring the importance of computer science education to the national stage and helped spark the imaginations and learning for millions of students globally. And now in my current role working on Google Assistant and Search, I have the privilege of providing information and technology to sectors beyond education and to billions of users. This is an opportunity that would not have been possible, if I hadn’t started talking to people about my dreams to change the world for the better.

Having held jobs that had direct impact at a small scale, to jobs that have indirect impact but at a much larger scale, I sometimes wonder if I’ve made the right tradeoffs in my career. But as I sat down for lunch across from Jennifer, a former student of mine who now works at Google launching devices that will be used by millions of customers, I realized that those early years of teaching had just as much meaning and social impact as my current day job. Every life we touch makes a difference, so at the end of the day, there is very little tradeoff. Even HBS recognizes that though they can “ touch only a few thousand directly each year, we can indirectly influence many more.”

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Mo. Reactions? Please comment below!

Featured Yoda#3: CEO of Social Enterprise Providing Assistive Products for People with Disabilities

Our third featured social impact yoda is Keoke King, who is co-founder and CEO of Participant Assistive Products, a social enterprise which designs and produces wheel chairs, strollers, and other assistive products for people with disabilities globally. They are also currently running a WeFunder campaign to provide wheel chairs for kids around the world, if you’d like to support their work!

Keoke, thanks so much for being willing to share about your career path with us. Please start by telling us about your current role working in social impact at your organization, Participant Assistive Products.

I am co-founder and CEO of Participant Assistive Products. We have been bootstrapping for 2 years and have completed 9 iterations of our prototype, a wheelchair for children in lower income countries. My day-to-day involves a lot of Q&A with investors, coordinating our R&D team, and marketing. We have letters of intent for ~4,000 units and have raised about $400k. It looks like we will have production in May and then my role will shift towards sales and building the team.

We chose to start Participant now because this is a pivotal time in the global story of people with disabilities. Because of aging and chronic disease, the population is doubling. At the same time, many nations are adding assistive technology to their national healthcare systems, so there is a viable market opportunity. And, new technologies are opening affordable solutions. All this put a sparkle in my entrepreneurial eye and we set out to democratize assistive products so that none are left behind.

Please briefly share your career path prior to Participant.

I’ve been working in the disability field since I finished my MBA 10 years ago. My work has taken me to many corners of the world, and I have had the opportunity to work with many passionate and highly skilled people. I’ve worked on bigger projects in Indonesia, Nicaragua, and Georgia. I’ve always worked in small companies with less than 50 employees and in dynamic market environments. I’m familiar with a startup environment where decisions are made quickly, and staying in my specialty isn’t practical because there are many different needful things. I really enjoy the marketing and sales aspects of being an entrepreneur, especially where they overlap with product development and teasing out user needs.

What do you find fulfilling about your work? Why did you start Participant?

People with disabilities are the largest minority group on the planet and often the most overlooked. At the same time, working in this space is exhilarating because there are exceptional outcomes available with very little input. One of my favorite moments was following along on a motorcycle behind a guy named Purnomo. He lives uphill on a volcano in Indonesia and rides his wheelchair down to his artist studio. With that income, he has bought his family home, and his kids are on track for lives filled with opportunities in rapidly growing economy. This is a very different story line than that of the 70 million people who need a wheelchair and don’t have one. It is next to impossible for them to be productive. And in otherwise challenging situations, their families often don’t fare well versus the average. I’m delighted to see people achieve so much after becoming mobile and going where they want. With our new for-profit company, we expect the added delight of disrupting our little part of the American medical device industrial complex. It is bent towards extracting dollars from the government, not serving users. Our work abroad, where Medicare doesn’t exist, gives us an advantage in reimagining a lean supply chain that delivers high value to users.

What are the most important skills to succeed in your job? And in your career in general?

Is grit a skill? This work is exceptionally challenging, especially for someone with a preference for social enterprise versus traditional charity-oriented solutions. That’s because disability, even in ‘developed’ countries like ours, is either a charity or government-funded area. Up until recently, few lower-income country governments were buying assistive products for their people. The lack of local government leadership, lack of trained professional clinicians, and lack of funding has made solving problems more challenging. At times the little funding and government leadership available has been unstable, and we’ve seen years of work collapse. But, most things worth doing are not easy.

After grit, I’d say networking skills, speaking and writing, and a human centered design approach to product development.

What advice would you give to others who are looking to work in social impact careers? Should they go to graduate school to make the transition?

No. Please don’t. If you do, go somewhere cheap. Seriously.

Whoever it is that you want to help, my advice is, go over there, move in, and listen. You can get reading lists from wherever, buy the texts for $5 each on hpb.com, and start a book club. Also, follow the real trend. In economies that are really growing, people learn things on Youtube as much as universities. Get a volunteer job at a company that seems to be making a difference, and eventually, if you’re any good, they’ll hire you. If you are no good, then do something different. You’ll be good at something. The great news is you can switch because your diploma isn’t anchoring you to a soul killing job that is necessary for loan payments.

I’d like to see a study that surveys 5,000 Public Administration and International Development grad school candidates 10 years after graduation. I’ll bet 90% would not be in those fields and the reasons would be: #1 pay was too low or unstable (especially when covering a student loan), #2 the office culture was toxic and off mission, and #3 the work was too demanding.

If you don’t have loans then #1 is less of a problem and you can be the firebrand driving hard at #2, with less fear of getting fired. Re: #3, see below.

How do you balance your work/life?

Work-life balance helps is great for selling books and this-season’s-version of Kick Boxing classes. It is a myth and often impractical.

If you want to accomplish a lot, you’ll need to work a lot. And, if there are less resources available – the culture offers less money for progress on that problem – then to make progress, you’ll probably need to work even more. Oh, and you’re doing something hard – not selling a new flavor of booze, a fresh caffeine delivery mechanism, or a sneakier way to monetize privacy.

Good news, you will feel better about the dent in the world that you are making. Meaning is more indicative of happiness than leisure time.

If you’re reading this, then it is likely that your privilege allows you to decide what to spend your life accomplishing. This is one of the most precious choices.

Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like to share about careers?

If you can’t switch, you are not free. So, become awesome at something marketable.

Be loyal if you find a mission and a solution that has real potential.

Don’t be afraid to call foul on toxic, abusive, egoist, or wasteful team situations. The people you are trying to serve deserve the team’s best efforts and you can help move towards that.

Knowing that you don’t understand is the beginning of understanding.

Get up early.

Laugh more.

Featured Yoda#2: Economic Growth Director for International NGO

Our next featured Q&A is with Karla Yoder, Technical Director of Economic Growth for Global Communities, an international development organization. She shares about her journey to working in international development, as well as advice she has gleaned along the way.

Q: Karla, please share about your current role working in social impact and your organization.

A. I work in international economic development for Global Communities, a non-profit or non-governmental organization (NGO). As a technical adviser, I support programs in youth employment, livelihoods, enterprise development, access to finance and inclusive markets in developing countries to apply best practices from these fields as well as documenting and disseminating lessons they are learning. This means developing internal tools such as implementation standards, program models and guidelines, and contributing to the broader knowledge base of the field through writing briefs and articles and presenting at conferences. I also do a lot of new business development work which includes leading the technical design for funding proposals and building relationships with funders and partners.

Q: Please share a little bit about your career path prior to joining Global Communities.

A: I spent my senior year of college interning for international development organizations, since I grew up in Southern Africa and knew that that was the field I wanted to work in. I took a few early detours, such as becoming a community organizer in Washington, DC (also based on my concern about equality for low-income people), and then started at the bottom as a program associate for an international development project. Along my career path, I managed publications, and then switched to U.S.-based workforce development issues given the opportunities to do more research, writing, and technical advising.

When I wanted more on-the-ground experience in Africa, I took a fellowship for which I needed to raise my own funding, and that gave me the opportunity to design and manage an economic empowerment program. Upon my return to the U.S., I wanted more program design work and took a business development role in an international development NGO that would allow me conduct field assessment trips and lead program design efforts for USAID and foundation proposals.

Q: What do you find fulfilling about your work? Why did you join Global Communities?

A: I’m passionate about addressing inequality and poverty globally, and wanted to join a mission-driven organization that allowed me to support this work. I love knowing that the things I do, even if not directly part of a field program, are contributing to that.

Q: What are the most important skills to succeed in your job? And in your career in general?

A: Being a fast learner, having an analytical mindset, strong writing and facilitation skills, and an ability to be effective in cross-cultural situations. Strong organizational skills have also been important.

Q: How did you end up working for Global Communities?

A: I’m in my fourth role at Global Communities. I started ten years ago as a business development officer, and eventually transferred into a technical role. When I joined Global Communities, I had already developed some subject matter knowledge in youth employment through 5 years of work in that field, and had returned to the U.S. from a one-year fellowship in Zambia, where I designed and established an economic empowerment program for a human rights organization. I took a fairly junior position at Global Communities because I wanted to gain skills in federal proposal development, and I believed that program development for proposals was the Washington-based job closest to the on-the-ground design work I had been doing and loved.

I found the job “cold” (not via personal referral): I had previously applied for another position there, and so I was in their HR system (but I hadn’t heard back from them at the time of application). They later contacted me about the position I was hired for.

Q: What advice would you give to others who are looking to work in social impact careers, especially in terms of international development? Should they go to graduate school to make the transition?

A: Choose the types of organizations that you are interested in working for and then pursue jobs there, even if not your ideal. Jobs in these fields are limited and in high demand and getting inside an organization is often the biggest hurdle. I have navigated completely different roles than where I originally started, in two different organizations.

Once you are inside, be curious, make your interests known, and volunteer for things. Be prepared to prove yourself. My first role after grad school at one international development organization was managing the publishing for a project that supported research on health and basic education in Africa, which was admittedly not the most exciting role. I got to know the basic education specialist on the project and talked about my past experience in that field and mentioned my interest in doing more. When she wanted assistance in doing a literature review of community schools in Africa, I volunteered and spent a few weeks of evenings and weekends working on it, since it wasn’t part of my required responsibilities. Moving internally to a role that you really want is easier once you are known and have proven your value.

I do think that graduate school is important for the more interesting and technical roles in the international development field. There are a number of degrees in international development which are more generalist and also options that have a subject matter focus–public health, public policy, business and trade. An MBA is also useful for working in economic development specifically.

Q: How do you balance your work/life?

A: Prioritizing exercise is key for mental health and energy– years ago I switched to getting up at 5:30 am during the week to exercise, to ensure that it didn’t get left out due to evening distractions. I run outside year round, and walk for part of my commute to ensure outdoor time during the work week. My commute is on a quieter section of the subway line where I always get a seat; I don’t read work emails and instead try to meditate. I resist pressure to work late or on weekends if not absolutely necessary. I work additional hours when needed and try to hold myself to leaving at 5:30 pm every other day. You need to accept that you will never feel caught up or as though you’ve done enough. I also take long vacations–2 weeks at a time when I can, going to interesting places and switching off from work completely.

Q: Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like to share about careers?

A: I have found that the people whom you work with and the opportunity to learn new things regularly are what make a job satisfying. Don’t focus too narrowly on a particular position. Secondly, your network is your biggest source of career advancement so use any opportunity to build it. Be curious about and interested in those you meet as authentic relationships are a true asset. You want people in your corner who will cheer you on!

Thanks for sharing about your journey with us, Karla!

Featured Yoda#1: Director of Social Impact for Fintech Startup

This is a Q&A with Maureen Klovers, the Director of Social Impact for MPOWER Financing. Among other experiences, she previously taught the urban poor in Ecuador, worked in US Intelligence, was a Presidential Management Fellow for the US Department of Commerce, and helped launch the US Department of Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative.

This profile is in three sections: Maureen’s current role, her professional background, and her career advice.

Current Role

Q: Maureen, thanks so much for volunteering to share about your social impact journey. To start, please share about your social enterprise and your current role.

A: I’m the Director of Social Impact for MPOWER Financing, a fintech startup based in Washington, D.C. that was named the best lender for international students by U.S. News and World Report. We’ve also been named by American Banker as one of the best fintechs to work for three years in a row!

I oversee our scholarship programs and our Path2Success Program, which provides resources on immigration/work authorization, career preparation and financial literacy for our borrowers and other international students. I also serve as a liaison to current or prospective impact investors, and recently my role has expanded to include customer engagement— newsletters, video contests and case competitions, and the like!

We like to say that “when our borrowers succeed, we succeed,” so a lot of my role is just that: ensuring our borrowers succeed!

Q: Why did you join MPOWER? What do you find fulfilling about your work?

A: As I’ve matured, I’ve realized that most of my job satisfaction comes from working with great people to accomplish something meaningful. Intellectual stimulation is also important to me.

During my job interview, I felt like I “clicked” with my potential boss and the team. Plus, I was drawn to MPOWER’s mission and its fast pace. (I didn’t enjoy the slower pace of the government, although there were many other things I did like.)

I constantly try new things and the attitude is “if something doesn’t work, that’s okay—just be sure you learn from it.” That appeals to me a lot, too.

Plus, I think I have one of the best jobs in the company! I give money away to needy, high-potential students and help them achieve their dreams. I also develop cool webinar series, meet lots of interesting people, and do lots of writing.

Q: What are the most important skills to succeed in your job?

A: Our HR team looks for a fit with our mission first, as well as whether you have a strong understanding of our business model. Then they look at whether you have the skills necessary to succeed in your job. In my case, they probed whether I could effectively measure and communicate our social impact, support our fundraising efforts, and grow our scholarship programs.

Professional Background

Q: I’d love to hear more about your background before working at MPOWER.

A: I have an eclectic background, which probably isn’t surprising given that social impact wasn’t even a “thing” when I graduated from college. There was Ben & Jerry’s and that was about it! No one made a career in social impact. So I graduated with a degree in International Relations, and I worked at the first organization which offered me a job, which ended up being in U.S. intelligence! So I worked as an intelligence analyst for several years, before deciding I wasn’t cut out for that life.

I planned to go to grad school, but I wanted to get more “life experience” first, particularly in Latin America. So I moved into a convent with two nuns, a Jesuit priest, and 20+ volunteers in Quito, Ecuador. I taught the urban poor from Quito’s shantytowns. Talk about an education! This experience made such an impact on me that I even wrote a book, In the Shadow of the Volcano: One Ex-Intelligence Official’s Journey through Slums, Prisons, and Leper Colonies to the Heart of Latin America.

From there, I went on to get my MBA and Master of Public Policy from Georgetown. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the dual degree program was a good mix of the business and policy work that I’d later be doing in my social impact work. At the time, though, there seemed to be an unbridgeable divide between those two worlds. I couldn’t imagine two more different sets of classmates!

After Georgetown, I was a Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of Commerce, where I was thrust into managing our troubled $850 million Revolving Loan Fund Program. That was my introduction to both grants and lending. From there, I took a job as the second employee of Treasury’s brand-new $1.5 billion State Small Business Credit Initiative.

Starting a brand-new government program whetted my appetite for entrepreneurship, so once everything was humming along, I quit my job to start my own consulting business, working with universities and state and federal agencies to become more efficient, effective, and outcomes-driven.

And then I had a baby and decided that I wanted to go back to a more “normal” job. When I saw MPOWER’s LinkedIn job posting, it spoke to me, because the role combines my entrepreneurial streak with my experience in lending, grants, education, and outcomes measurement, plus my passion for exploring other cultures and crossing cultural divides.

As a side gig, to keep my creative juices flowing, I moonlight as a mystery writer!

Career Advice

Q: How did you find your current position?

A: LinkedIn! I know everyone always says that you have to network to get a job, but that’s not always true. If you see a job that appeals to you, apply! Also, don’t limit yourself. I only met two-thirds of their “must-have” criteria…and I still got the job. Studies show that men typically apply for a job if they meet half the criteria, while women won’t apply unless they meet all the criteria.

How to Transition into a Social Impact Career

Q: What advice to you have for those aspiring to a career in social impact?

A: Hone in one what industry you want to work for and what functional skills you can bring to the table. There’s no one way to do social impact. Most roles focus on measuring and driving impact, but typically you’re expected to also support the bottom line, whether it be by launching initiatives that drive social impact and brand recognition/sales volume (e.g., our scholarship program helps students while also serves as an effective marketing channel and means of garnering good will from the universities we support) or by supporting fundraising efforts (e.g., by cultivating relationships with grant-making organizations or impact-focused equity or debt investors). Know what YOUR value proposition is and then be able to communicate it.

So if you’re already a marketing or communications professional, emphasize that. If you have a finance background, figure out how to parlay that into a social impact role.

What if you don’t have much relevant professional experience? Then try to join a nonprofit board, or volunteer to write grant applications for a nonprofit. Or, if you’re still in school, join NetImpact and enter social impact-focused case competitions. Winning a competition or having a leadership role in NetImpact is a great way to showcase your talent.

Finally, prep for informational interviews and job interviews like a pro. Be sure you can connect the dots on your résumé and showcase both your passion for the organization’s mission and how you can accelerate their double bottom line impact.

Is Grad School Necessary?

Q: Should an individual go to graduate school to make the transition into social impact?

A: That depends. If you love school and someone else is paying for it, or you are getting a full scholarship, or you’re independently wealthy, then definitely! If not, though, you want to think about whether the cost is justified.

Very few social impact jobs really require you to have a specialized degree in a social impact-related degree program, and such programs are few and far between anyway. If you were going to get a degree, I’d suggest a Master’s of Business Administration at a school that has a very strong social impact focus; then, once you being the program, get a leadership position in NetImpact, compete in social impact case competitions, take social impact-focused coursework, and do internships and consulting work for social impact firms.

But for most people, you’re probably better off spending a portion of the time and money you would have spent on another degree to (a) do a year-long volunteer assignment at a social enterprise abroad, or (b) accept a lower salary to work in a job that will leverage your current experience while getting you exposure to the field of social impact. Either of these options will give you more practical experience than a degree at a fraction of the cost.

Work-Life Balance

Q: How do you balance your work/life, especially with having a young child and working full-time?

A: I’m very fortunate that my company actively discourages working nights and weekends. Being a parent is tough on any career, but social impact jobs are generally more family-friendly. However, in some social impact jobs (particularly those focused on micro-enterprise in the developing world, or those that are investor-facing), there could be significant travel, so be sure to ask about that.

Other Relevant Life Lessons

A: First of all, don’t sacrifice your personal life for work.

Second, the “following your passion” advice is terrible: it leads too many young people to pursue passions that don’t allow them to earn a decent living and/or to agonize about finding the perfect, most fulfilling career. Instead, figure out what you’re good at, that people will actually pay you a decent salary to do. Then narrow it further based on the lifestyle you want (if you are a homebody, being a McKinsey consultant won’t work; if you’re a city girl, don’t work in forestry) and your personality type (do you want to manage people, or are you more of a lone wolf?). That will help narrow down your job function and maybe your industry. Then research organizations which would allow you to do those jobs while fitting with your values. Then narrow further by figuring out which organizations have a work culture you’d like.

Third, a lot of people think about switching careers when they just need to switch jobs. Being miserable in your job may not mean you need a new career – you may need a new organization or a new boss.

Fourth, when you interview, it’s not just about you being chosen, but it’s also about you choosing them. Approach an interview almost like a date; put your best foot forward and make sure you’re not only answering questions, but asking them. Try to get a feel for your potential co-workers and whether you’re truly a good fit. Ask yourself: is this the right boss for me? Do our work styles mesh well? Will I learn something from this person? Can we communicate well?

Finally, cut yourself some slack. Remember that no one really has everything figured out. Lots of people in their 30s and 40s (myself included) are still trying to decide “what they want to be when they grow up”…and that’s probably a good thing. The world of work is changing so fast that the last job you have before retirement is probably one that hasn’t even been invented yet. So being willing to leap to a new field is a sign that you’re curious and committed to lifelong learning.