As we review your HBS application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program?
I grew up in NoName, New Hampshire, a semirural blue-collar town. NoName was once home to the state’s largest sawmill, and our annual county fair features a “redneck truck pull.” The locals affectionately, and dejectedly, refer to our region as “Nothing America.” I first understood the term after my dad lost his job at the shipyard when I was in middle school, and more deeply when my mom’s preschool job was cut a few years later. Nonetheless, I loved my “Nothing America” hometown.
Like most kids in NoName, I grew up playing sports; I was particularly active in swimming, and I dreamed of harnessing my local swimming “stardom” to help put NoName High School on the map. In my sophomore year, however, I lost several races, and I was tempted to quit the sport entirely. My coach talked me out of it: my role on the team was bigger than just myself, he explained. He convinced me to swim again the next season, and I helped our team win at the state championships, making NoName High School renowned in New Hampshire.
I was thrilled to be the first in my family to attend a four-year college when I was accepted to BigCity University. I was overwhelmed by the bright lights of city life, but I found my niche in my second semester through EduNGO, which works with students from disadvantaged communities in BigCity. During my junior year, I mentored Mary, a high school student from Ethiopia, who wanted to go to college for engineering but lacked a family support system. I fundraised for her SATs, gave her pep talks in our weekly meetings, and reviewed her college application essays. Attending her accepted students’ day together at CUNY Stony Brook was one of my proudest moments.
I returned home to NoName every summer to help support my family by working on a lobster boat. On the boat from sunrise to sunset, we baited the traps and moved them onto the deck. As we worked, I heard many eye-opening stories about the financial difficulties the people in these New England seacoast towns were facing. Most kids my age could not afford to go to college; working people rarely qualified for loans to expand their fishing operations. I began to feel a sense of obligation as someone who “made it out” to create more fairness in society.
This new perspective on “Nothing America” inspired me to change my college major to economics, so that I could better understand market forces and someday help create economic opportunities for others. After graduation from BigCity University, I accepted a job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Albany, which uses economic research to help growth and stability in communities. Albany has one of the highest poverty rates among U.S. cities, so this experience taught me a lot in a short time. However, I also learned that research papers can take years to publish due to the peer review process, whereas business solutions to societal issues can have a faster tangible impact.
From Albany, I moved to BigCity2 to work at ThinkTank Associates in the Financial Economics practice, which helps banks comply with fair lending regulations. Outside the workplace, my passion for community involvement combined with my passion for running when I joined My Aching Feet, an organization in which volunteers run side-by-side with homeless participants three mornings per week at 5:45. The running-based model helps restore confidence for the homeless participants, and after attending runs they qualify for employment and housing resources. When we weren’t running together, I worked with the passionate full-time staff to coordinate a resume review table at a job fair to help homeless job applicants prepare for interviews.
At ThinkTank Associates, I strive to help my peers grow into their roles. This was tough during the COVID-19 lockdown. Last year, ThinkTank’s head of training called me to discuss improving junior staff engagement and productivity, which has become an ongoing conversation. As a result, I started hosting daily virtual coffee breaks with the junior staff to help foster a sense of community in the virtual setting, and to provide advice about topics ranging from setting boundaries for work-life balance to managing conflicting project timelines.
From NoName, New Hampshire to Albany to BigCity, my passion for uplifting others has evolved. I discovered that what seemed a local issue in “Nothing America” is in fact a national issue, and my mission has grown into creating fairness in the workplace and in society. I grew up wanting to win track races, but I learned that the team is more important than the individual. Today, I see my career aspiration as building financial inclusion, so that disadvantaged communities like East BigCity and left-behind towns like NoName have equal access to opportunities.
Building on my career foundation in consumer finance, my long-term vision is to increase financial inclusion by improving access to bank accounts and investing services. As the leader of a social-impact oriented FinTech company, I hope to decrease the well-documented overpricing and disproportionate denials of consumer loans for financially vulnerable and minority borrowers. HBS Professor Fred Flintstone’s work regarding discrimination in online marketplaces illuminates the need to eliminate disparities based on race, gender, or age. Inequitable lending is one of the greatest crises facing America today, and I hope to join my HBS classmates in being part of the solution.