Choose the moment that best resonates with you and tell us why.

This Booth moment resonates with me because Booth’s Social Enterprise Initiative is what draws me to the program. It reflects the intersection of my passion for charitable work and my aspiration to launch a private equity fund.

My desire to improve my community began as a child when I got involved in Boy Scouts. Over the course of my six years in scouting, I completed more than 200 hours of community service, held most of the top leadership positions in the troop, and advanced all the way to Eagle Scout. My scouting experience culminated with a final community service project that I organized at the local retirement center, during which my volunteers logged nearly 300 hours of community service and ran errands for over 100 senior citizens.

My commitment to giving back continued into my high school years when I started XXX, a charitable organization created to benefit underprivileged children in Michigan via lemonade stands run by families across the country. I arranged a partnership with Head Start of Michigan to funnel all donations to a single cause while also keeping track of XXX’s total impact.

At college, I coached players on the soccer team (many of whom had limited experience) for all four years and served as captain for my last three semesters. Today, I volunteer regularly as a tutor to underserved students from Detroit’s public schools and am a part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. As a Big Brother to YYY, I helped him become more active by venturing out into parts of the suburbs he has never seen and arranging activities to help him gain confidence and not be fearful of new experiences. In the future, I want to make an impact on a grander scale, and I will develop the tools to do so at Booth.

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Children often dream big, hoping to become the next Michael Jordan, Sally Ride, Bon Jovi—or some combination of all three. Growing up, I also had lofty goals: get into the family business with my dad. At first, I didn’t fully understand what he did for a living, but he might as well have been an NBA athlete, astronaut or rock star, because it sounded incredible. I distinctly remember asking him about his job after my elementary school hosted a parent career day. In simple enough terms for a six year old to romanticize, my dad told me about his job. He described the unique people he got to meet, the jobs he helped create, and the incredible companies he worked with. He was describing private equity. (Deleted picture of applicant when he was younger and his dad.)

Having now worked in private equity for the better part of two years, I’ve validated that I did not make a mistake by pursuing the industry. However, there are additional skills I need to acquire in order to reach my ultimate goal of starting my own investment firm focused on creating social impact and beating market returns. Launching a fund is about much more to me than the financial potential it offers. It’s about fulfilling a lifelong goal while bettering the world around me. In addition to helping a company accelerate its growth and create jobs, private equity firms—especially those with the explicit goal of social impact—can improve the lives of those who need it most, which is exactly the type of influence I’d like to have during my career.

To realize my goal, I need to learn how to create a culture of success and trustworthiness, improve my understanding of impact investing, and grow my network of other investment professionals interested in driving change. That’s why I’m excited to take Leadership Effectiveness and Development while at Booth; I want to become a more confident leader in order to build an effective team at my future firm. I’m also looking forward to joining the Hyde Park Associate Program or the Innovation Fund Associate Program—both of which would provide further exposure to venture capital and seed investing. Additionally, I’m hoping for training specific to social-benefit capitalism, which I can gain from Impact Investing and by learning more about Social Entrepreneur in Residence David Friedman’s experience with AutonomyWorks. In a similar vein, I want to partake in the MBA Impact Investing Networking and Training (MIINT) to further my understanding of the impact investing arena. Furthermore, I intend to connect with Alumni Person (’04), founder of the impact-investing fund X Capital, to understand the potential challenges or opportunities I might encounter when launching my own fund. Similarly, I’m hoping to attend the Impact Capital Summit, a conference hosted annually in Chicago geared toward investment managers focused on maximizing financial returns and social impact.

Like the students in the Booth moment, I’m still hoping to improve my community now, before I’m able to start a fund. For that reason, I’m eager to join the Giving Something Back club to help make an impact in the local community. And I intend to continue my work with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization by volunteering with its local Chicago chapter.

Years ago, when I made my plan to get into private equity, I never anticipated that I would willingly leave the industry, even to go back to school. A little wiser now, I know that I still have things to learn that can’t be gained through experience in business diligence or closing transactions. By surrounding myself with many of the brightest people on earth at Booth, I’m confident that I’ll develop skills that will benefit me (and my investors) for the rest of my career. If I’m able to execute on my plan, my success should yield significant positive change, which is exactly what the students in the Booth moment above are striving for