Harvard Business School awards Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships of $10,000 each to seven to ten incoming MBA students each year, with recipients serving in leadership roles in nonprofit and public sector organizations, and demonstrating a strong commitment to continued career paths in these areas. Since 1990, 209 incoming students have received the fellowship, established by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Richard L. Menschel (MBA 1959), a former director of the Foundation and a limited partner at Goldman Sachs.
In mid-October, the Social Enterprise Initiative led a discussion with the new 2019 recipients and former 2018 recipients, to exchange ideas and insights on their experience and goals while at HBS.
We followed up with the 2019 recipients, to ask “What are you hoping to get out of your HBS experience?” Here are a few of their responses.
“’HBS is a breeding-ground for ideas and self-discovery. If you wish to drive impact across organizations and lead social change, this ought to be your stop.’ These words from an alumnus still reverberate in my ears. After six years of public health, development consulting, and entrepreneurial experience, I decided to attend HBS to widen my perspectives on the relationship between the ‘benevolent’ social-sector and the ‘rational’ private sector. By nurturing me into an influential thought-leader, HBS will ultimately position me to achieve my life objectives: pollinating low-cost healthcare across underserved regions and empowering billions to lead healthier, happier lives.” – KSHITIJ CHAUDHARY (MBA 2021)
“For the last four years, I have navigated the education sector trying to answer one big question: How do we ensure that all young people have access to education that is high quality, affordable and scalable all at once? At HBS, I hope to learn and leverage the best practices from multiple industries to understand how we can achieve these three competing factors. More importantly, I hope to learn how to do this in a way that works both with and within local communities, balancing profit-making and growth with positive outcomes for as many people as possible.” – MICHI FERREOL (MBA 2021)
“I came to HBS to challenge my preexisting notions about social impact and business. As a former impact investor, my career existed in the intersection of very different, but not mutually exclusive worlds: public and private, social and financial, profit and impact. I am here to listen and hear my fellow classmates’ experiences and let their stories inspire me to revise and refine my view of how impact can be defined and measured. In return, I hope to contribute towards more meaningful discussions of how our class – as future leaders – can ‘do good business.’ And how can we challenge each other to do even better.” – LINDA LI (MBA 2021)
See HBS Press Release: Harvard Business School Announces 2019 Goldsmith Fellows
