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!