Briefly state your short and long term career objectives. How have your professional, academic and personal experiences influenced your career plans?

Briefly state your short and long term career objectives. How have your professional, academic and personal experiences influenced your career plans? Specifically, how will your participation in Georgetown's MBA Full-Time Program contribute to your career objectives?

Upon graduating from college, I continued to pursue my professional interests in the financial markets and personal interests in volunteer work and the games of golf and squash. To integrate these interests with my desire to give back to the greater New York City community, I began volunteering with two non-profit organizations called The First Tee (a Bronx-based mentoring program that is focused around the game of golf) and Street Squash (“A Harlem-based urban youth enrichment program that combines academic tutoring, squash instruction, college preparation and community service.”). My activity with these organizations allowed me to satisfy my personal interests, but there remained a gap between my personal and professional lives. Further, I was beginning to feel less and less satisfaction in managing money for wealthy individuals, while my desire to increase my involvement with non-profits was growing. With this desire came the thought that a background in the financial markets, combined with the well-rounded skill set I will take away from an MBA program, would present an excellent opportunity for me to bring value to a non-profit and add greater purpose to my professional and personal lives. Through this idea emerged a very clear and well-defined set of short-term and long-term career goals.

After completing my MBA degree, I will look to transition careers from a more traditional role within a financial services firm to a related role within a non-profit organization. More specifically, I will serve in multiple financial/managerial capacities for a smaller non-profit such as Street Squash. Fundamentally, I hope to step into a role where I am responsible for the financial operations of a non-profit but am given the opportunity to expand the financial capabilities of the organization. To secure an organization’s financial standing is to build a strong base, but to explore the potential of pursuing donations, generating college scholarships and obtaining grants is to really add value. Street Squash currently lacks a person with a background in the financial markets and a broad network of contacts–someone who may be able to expand their donor list, while keeping abreast of external factors that may affect people’s willingness to give.

In the long term, I will develop into the Chief Financial Officer for a non-profit. Ideally, the non-profit I align myself with will focus on the physical fitness, health, and well-being of middle and high school aged students who come from low income families. Further, my purpose will be rooted not only in impacting the organization I am affiliated with, but also the community we serve. This goal will be achieved by building a career with an existing organization such as Street Squash or The First Tee, but might also be satisfied through the creation of another independent or non-profit organization.

Given my directed past experience, the Georgetown MBA Full-Time Program will give me the opportunity to diversify my skill set, thus equipping me to bring value to the organization I join. While I feel that the work I do now on a volunteer level is significant, I see enormous opportunity to add value on a deeper level.

In the classroom, courses such as Social Responsibilities of Business, Non-Profit Consulting, and Managing Organizational Change will give me the rounded skill set necessary to bring value to a non-profit organization. While the skills drawn from a curriculum and environment such as McDonough’s are valuable in any application, they are even more vital when working to positively influence the futures of less privileged members of the community. Further, the benefits I will take away from McDonough’s classroom experience will be enhanced by the school’s broad array of club-related and volunteer opportunities.

Specifically, The MBA Volunteers’ group is rooted in a number of the endeavors I currently pursue, and the support that exists through the Non-Profit Internship Fund will allow me to pursue an internship that I am passionate about, as opposed to one that simply pays well. Lastly, given McDonough’s location, I will continue my involvement with urban-based, athletic programs since Washington, DC boasts a strong non-profit called Metro Squash - one that is closely associated with Street Squash and serves a similar purpose.

McDonough offers exactly the type of MBA program I seek. The opportunity to integrate the McDonough curriculum, the Georgetown community and a non-profit such as Metro Squash into my MBA experience is one that would put me on track toward achieving my short and long-term career goals in the non-profit sector.