Alterrell Mills (MBA ’16) reflects on the commitments and lessons learned in HBS’ Racial Equity Plan. We have all witnessed, or had ourselves been subjected to, the dreaded cold call of a classmate that refused to acknowledge their lack of preparation, drawing out their monologue and digging a deeper hole with hubris-laden attempts to avoid…
Adam Palay (MBA ’21) raises questions about our collective responsibilities during a pandemic. Not long before school started, at my desk in my home office, I took a deep breath and clicked a button. I had just opted out of coming in-person to the hybrid courses I would take this term. It might seem like…
Meet Your New Topic Editors! I am constantly amazed by how fast our time at HBS goes by. This month marks my first anniversary with the Harbus and true to form, we are excited to welcome the new crop of Topic Editors who will add investigative, thought-provoking, and well-rounded stories to our pages in the…
Emily Vocke shares her experience representing HBS families at the Student Association as the Vice-President of Families and leading the Crimson Parents club. Tell us a bit about yourself. I grew up in the New Orleans area and met my husband, Patrick Vocke (MBA ’21, Old Section E), when we were just beginning our senior…
Five women in the class of 2022 share with us their stories of leadership. There are so many different ways to welcome the class of 2022 and introduce them to the HBS community. We could talk about challenges, uncertainty, connectedness or innovation, but in the end, it all comes down to leadership. Sheryl Sandberg (MBA…
Miguel Fernandez and Przemek Gotfryd (MBAs ’21) share how their startup, Capchase, helps SaaS companies avoid painful dilution and extend their runway. Tell us more about your background and what inspired you to be an entrepreneur. Miguel Fernandez (MBA ’21): I am originally from Madrid, Spain. Even though I have an engineering background (industrial and…
Saswat Panda (MBA ’22) shares the story of LiveLike, a company creating technology to make live sports streaming more social and immersive. Tell us more about your background and what inspired you to be an entrepreneur. I have always loved building things. I attended Cornell to be an aerospace engineer, but quickly fell in love…
Felipe Núñez (MBA ’22) shares his atypical pre-MBA experience at MRC Entertainment. Felipe Núñez (MBA ’22) worked in MRC Entertainment for four years. MRC is an LA-based studio—co-founded by two HBS alumni—that focuses on film, television, media, and data. Núñez started out as an Assistant and worked his way up to become a Manager, working…
Israt Tarin (MBA ’22) reports on how the first ever virtual RC Olympics was organized and discusses the historic levels of participation by the RCs. An important component of section learning is to quickly break the ice and create a sense of camaraderie. It is no small feat in a normal year, and this year…
Rebecca Braun (MBA ’21) reports on the concerted efforts by the HBS Community to improve civic engagement and voter turnout in the upcoming presidential election. U.S. voter participation is low by both international and historical standards, and the youth of today are less likely to vote than both the Boomers we mock and our peers…
It is still possible to enjoy the warm summer breeze through a face mask. To defer or not to defer? Did I already read Quarantine policy #34? Was my camera on when I screamed at my dog for peeing on the rug? Should I talk now or will I, very precisely, interrupt the host? Can…
What is the view from RC, as the class of 2022 looks to embrace the uncertain future? With a week before the official start of the term, a cocktail of eagerness, delirium, and mortal dread pervades the incoming RC camp. Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on the lives and travel plans of the incoming students, exacerbating…
There was a time that airplanes soared through the air Their combustion engines and fiery rocket flare. They disgorged frenzied passengers By the millions with their wares To sell to vacant consumers Egged on by Capitalist prayers. Then suddenly, the terrible awful noise died down At a time when the leaves green were turning…
In his inaugural column for the Harbus, Professor Trevor Fetter shares his thoughts on how HBS students can learn crisis leadership by observation in 2020. I first knew Kevin Sharer as the legendary Chief Executive Officer of one of the world’s most important companies. Many of our MBA students first knew him as Professor Kevin…
Joe Bao (MBA ’20) writes on how western businesses became caught in the latest political crossfire in Hong Kong and how being an authentic leader might end up costing you your whole business. For many years, Milton Friedman’s “shareholder value” theory, that the first social responsibility of a company is to maximize shareholder profits, has…
John Geagea (MBA ’21) takes a look at Lebanon’s past, present, and path forward. It is difficult to put into words how it feels to be Lebanese today. My head keeps coming back to this startling reality: somehow Covid-19 might have become the third most pressing issue that the country now faces. On August 4,…
Shelly Xu (MBA ’21) and her team are on a mission to make beautiful, accessible, and 100% zero-waste fashion designs. Now with the pandemic, this mission has taken on a new meaning. At the beginning of 2020, my Shelly Xu Design (SXD) team was busy preparing for our New York Fashion Week debut. Having just…
Mike Kelly (MBA ’22) talks with Dan Katz (MBA ’22), a member of Thrive Global’s founding team, about mental resilience, why New Year’s resolutions fail, and the art of prioritization. When the 2016 Chicago Cubs won the World Series after a 107-year drought, millions of long-suffering fans flocked to the streets to join the victory…
James Williams (MBA ’21) introduces us to MasterGlass, a new platform to connect customers with wineries and tasting experts. Tell us more about your background and what inspired you to be an entrepreneur. I have always loved the idea of building a business from the ground up. Our first-year TEM course inspired me and gave…
Raseem Farook (MBA ’21) reports on the first (and hopefully only) edition of Virtual RC START. My favorite event from RC START last year was the Reciprocity Ring. As noted by Gabriel Ellsworth (MBA ‘20) in his article, “RCs Learn to Give and Take,” Harbus, September 2019, this guided collaboration exercise teaches its participants to…
Project Lead Cray V. Noah (MD/MBA ’22) details the rallying effort that turned a grassroots response to the need for granular Covid-19 policy data into a nationwide endeavor and a federally endorsed research tool. When Covid-19 cases in the U.S. began to spike in March, the question “What is being done to stop the spread…
Carpe Diem: Here Is Our Chance to Make the Most Out of the Year Like so many of you, I was not sure how the start of the Fall semester would look like. Would the hybrid model live up to its expectations? Would we find some much-needed sense of normalcy on campus and in the…
An EC partner shares her experience representing the partner community at the Student Association. Tell us a bit about yourself. I went to Clemson University for my undergraduate and studied industrial engineering. That is where I also met my husband, Robert Stallard (MBA ’21, Old Section E). I actually met him right before we went…
What is it that Dean Nohria will do with his one wild and precious life? Last November, Dean Nitin Nohria announced that he would be passing the torch and stepping down from his role at the helm of HBS. While that led most of us to reflect on his many accomplishments at the school (including…
Reggie Smith (MBA ’20) tells us what to expect this month. Transitions are sometimes difficult. As we move through life, we are constantly ending one chapter and starting another. While we eagerly anticipate what lies ahead, we sometimes mourn the loss of what we had. Class of 2020, we are flipping the page and entering…
To celebrate the Mental Health Awareness Month, Ariam Tesfai (MBA ’20) reflects on the value of prompting vulnerability with tact. Oprah-style “aha” moments have colored my time at HBS. More recently, I have been working to collect and dissect my first- and second-year revelations. Some insights are clearer than others. One, however, is of crystal…
Theodore Seem (MBA ’20) introduces the idea behind Outsiders Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on identifying opportunities where technology will disrupt traditional, incumbent industries. The world of start-ups is complex. It is hard to organize and harder to analyze. But one simple way to look at the world is to sort companies into…
Our generation will be called to lead a great American renewal. On January 26, 1986, addressing the United States in the wake of the deaths of seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, President Ronald Reagan reminded the country, “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.” Today, as we face…
Umang Sota (MBA ’21) shares the innovation journey of Checkout.com, an online payments platform. In my previous article, “Retail Apocalypse: Is This It?” (Harbus, February 2020), I wrote about how the global e-commerce players are bringing us the joy of shopping for stuff from all around the world while sitting on our comfy couch. The…
In a virtual visit, the World Series Champion manager reflects on baseball, art in the game, the Respect 90 foundation, and more. When the planning began in January, the Harvard Business School Student Association and Respect 90 could hardly imagine the circumstances under which the virtual visit would take place. Months later, it would turn…