Here at Haas

H@H: AtB Ep 1 - Professor Maura O'Neill chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek to share her extensive expertise and knowledge in the Blockchain space, originating with her early work in mobile money payments as she served as Chief Innovation Officer under the Obama Administration. Listen as Professor O’Neill takes us on a journey through the web3 space, how geo-political events including the Russia-Ukraine escalation are impacting the future of blockchain.Maura’s 3 Big Trends in Blockchain:Supply Chain TransparencyCrypto: “Bitcoin is to crypto what the US dollar is to global financial markets.”NFTs: “NFTs are the answer to the question, ‘how do we create new intellectual property protection schemes?’”On why business school:“You know what I'd encourage people, listeners, is I just knew in my gut, I didn't know why, but I knew that's where it should be. And I'd say it's the best decision I've ever made in my life.”On being appointed by Obama as the first Chief Innovation Officer:“The idea is the more stable and prosperous and fair and free, we can help other countries to be, and really build that capability, the less likely that we'll have failed states.”On why the Fed is taking a strong look at Stablecoins:“And I know we're having unprecedented inflation, but we're not having 10,000% inflation as they were in Venezuela, when their currency became completely worthless”Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

Dr. Kurt Beyer, Haas lecturer specializing in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Navy veteran, and founder of the California Innovation Fund chats with host Paulina Lee on her last episode for Here@Haas (originally recorded in Spring 2022). Dr. Beyer shares his journey to Haas from flying planes to writing a book to his first start-up to teaching at Haas and everything in between. This episode is filled with great advice for business and life. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 77 – Newly elected EWMBA Association EVP for Communications, Marissa Maliwanag joins host, Adam Ward on this week’s episode of Here@Haas. Marissa shares why her passion for serving her community led her to run for the EWMBA Association Executive Board, why intersectionality is so important to her, and why her vacation reading material was a sign that she should embark on the MBA.Episode Quotes:Marissa shares one of the lightbulb moments pointing her to the MBA“I was on vacation with some friends and a girlfriend pointed out that I was reading HBR [Harvard Business Review] to relax and have fun. And she said, ‘That's not how you're supposed to read on vacation!’ And so for me, recognizing that at that moment, if I'm still on vacation, relaxing and still trying to grow, I really needed to be in an environment that would foster that.”Why serving her local community is so deeply rooted“My dad had this saying growing up that charity starts at home. What he meant by that was before you go and try and change the whole world, can you do something just for our family?Can you do something for our local community that would make a difference? And that stuck with me. One example he used regularly was: Can you just call your grandparents? Like they would be so happy to hear from you and that doesn't cost you anything. So just something as simple as that. I moved to Berkeley for my MBA and this is my new home and I wanted to serve.”Why diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice is so critical to her mission“I’m mixed, so I’m half Filipino and mostly Italian. I grew up in California and I'm close with both sides of my family and I never felt different in my own family. But then when I went on to study sciences, then maybe I was one of the few women in the room, and then in business that happens again. Maybe you're the only woman and the only person of color in the room.And I think that I didn't recognize that that was unique or that I was doing that at such a young age until it was pointed out to me. What I always think about is if I'm going to rise, how can I help bring up others around me?”Show Links:LinkedInSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H Ep. 76 - Bob Wang, EW MBA Student talks about his journey from the Czech Republic to Vancouver and explains how his problem-solving mindset has brought him this far. He recalls how his upbringing and seeing his entrepreneurial parents taught him about the freedom and limitations of being your own boss.Find out how he used these skills to start Legacy Advantage, a company he founded by identifying a problem and creating a solution that works twice as well. In this episode, Bob offers practical advice on how to use technology to streamline bookkeeping processes, hiring, salaries, and incentives. Discover how he is helping others find the Road to the C-Suite with his peer mentoring and accountability group!Episode Quotes:Why Bob Wang chose Haas for his MBA[00:03:21] I really enjoyed it, but I want to learn how to run a larger and larger business, a hundred-person business, a thousand-person business, a 10,000 person business. And there are different skill sets that I would need along the way, so, that's why I chose Haas.Starting Legacy Advantage by identifying a problem he wants to solve[00:04:37] So, what was weird is that the business owner actually had to pay for the bookkeeping to be done twice. One, somewhat accurately done by the bookkeeper, and then once again, by the accountants to fix it up. So, there are inefficiencies there. And with cloud technology, you can make this very manual in a way, high-volume business profitable. So, that's what I did. I created a services business, specialized in the bookkeeping aspect, that was able to employ high professionals and use technology to increase their efficiency. So, my team members were 1.5 to two times more productive than my competitors at the time.Entrepreneurship is about having control and managing risks[00:06:34] Entrepreneurship is not about taking on risks. It's about managing risk. Learning how to mitigate risk. There are a lot of risks. Sure. But it's not like you should go and seek it. The entrepreneurs, try their best to mitigate it as much as possible. And the way I view that is, within entrepreneurship, if you start a business, you really have control over everything.Show Links:LinkedIn ProfileSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 75 - MBA student and BD and partnership lead at Visa, Alex Holden, was first introduced to professional sports by his grandfather, who gave him a Steve Young jersey. Since then, Alex knew he wanted to pursue a career in sports. As a child, he became fascinated with how players are chosen, traded, and the work that goes beyond brand partnerships. Adam and Alex discuss Alex's love for professional sports, and how he has successfully carved out a successful career for himself in the field he enjoys. Listen in as they talk about competitive advantage, sports management, and how American sports reflect American culture. Episode quotes:Haas’ MBA program stays true to its commitment to diversity[00:05:25] I find that there is such a great diversity of thought. For me, all these MBA programs where they are sharing and talking up how much diversity they had, this and that, I look at this stuff and say, “All right, let's see really what it's like”. I was really so happily surprised that Haas really put their money where their mouth is. I'm surrounded by not just people from different backgrounds, and different countries, and different experiences. Well, look at the same problem in completely different ways. In class, we have 70 different opinions to solve the same problem.Professional sports bringing American communities together[00:09:10] I can tell you working in sports, being around professionals, that's just such a small percentage of what's going on. Sports is about family. Sports is about bringing people together, lifting people up. In this day and age, I mean, what other things can bring communities with absolutely nothing together, just wearing the same colors for, you know, one particular day? Being surrounded by a community of like-minded, ambitious individuals who will push you to be the best vision of yourself was very attractive to me.American Football reflects the American mindset about teams[00:11:00] Now, the interesting thing about football is, it was played in the late 18 hundreds, but it really rose in popularity closer to World War I. And when you think about the game itself, the lines, right? The offensive line defense alliance pushing against each other, unfortunately, was very similar to trench warfare. But the interesting thing about the game itself is that a lot of the ideals are American ideals. It's the team first. We can do this together, if we work harder, stronger, faster. We can have competitive advantages if we are more strategic than the other. Teams can have these competitive advantages.The media and entertainment is a growing and ever-evolving industry[00:34:09] For me in my journey, my immediate step is, I'm trying to round out that profile by perhaps getting a little more onto the media side of sports. Or getting onto more of the media side of entertainment, media technology side. So video gaming is an industry, of course, to think about. Think direct to consumer companies. Think audio. Absolutely. I mean, the podcast industry is growing like crazy. You know, here we are. So much growth and innovation in that space.Show Links:Alex Holden on LinkedInSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 74 - When you're facing too many challenges in a competitive career market, what can you do to stand out? For Kevin Truong, a first-generation college student who came from an immigrant family, it's having a persistent attitude towards career and life as a whole.Kevin has always lived an interesting life since he was diagnosed with dwarfism at 4, which stunted his physical development. His condition may have given him limitations and attracted very few friends, but it only made him grow stronger and tougher internally. Through his focus and determination in his goals, he has unknowingly inspired many people at school and work.Kevin has earned two associate degrees alongside his high school diploma and scholarship grant. He's in his final year as a Business Administration student at UC Berkeley Haas and is pursuing a career in investment banking at Credit Suisse. In this episode, Kevin opens up about his unique experiences and shares how he faced his greatest fear of getting employed after college.Episode quotes:On choosing Haas business program[00:9:14] What attracted me to Haas is the practical nature of what you learn. I want my education to be applicable to whatever I do in the future. And what I've learned at Haas has been pretty useful to my future job and career path. I got to experience firsthand beginning my freshman year the Haas community, which is very collaborative. There's a lot of people in Haas and UC Berkeley in general, doing very awesome things. Everyone here is very motivated, ambitious to pursue whatever they want to do. And being surrounded by a community of like-minded ambitious individuals who will push you to be the best vision of yourself was very attractive to me.On joining Capital Investments at Berkeley I honestly did not expect to get into the club at all. I definitely did not have a perfect interview by any means, but I was interviewed by the president and a guy who had become my mentor in the club at that time. And I think he, later on, told me that despite my lack of finance experience, they really took my background into account. They knew I was first-generation and did not have any family that worked in business or finance before. Despite not knowing that much, they were impressed by how much I knew. They could tell that I was hardworking and it would contribute positively to the club. I'm really grateful for them taking a chance on me.How CIB helped Kevin prepare for the finance industry[00:17:33] We have a very well-developed financial education curriculum. We do pitches and invest in our members' pitches. And it's these experiences that really helped me hone my technical finance skills. If I hadn't gotten into this club, I would've had to learn all of this on my own time, and that would've been much more difficult. But because I went through this program that the club provides, and I'm surrounded by people who have had internships, who know about all these things, it really helped. I'm really grateful for this club taking a chance on me, and I do my best to give back and pass on what I know and help out a lot of the younger members.On mentoring first-generation students through Matriculate[00:20:36] Matriculate provides free college advising and mentorship to low-income, high-achieving high school students all across the nation. I act as an advising fellow, basically meet with them weekly, and help them with their college list, making a testing plan, helping them write their essays, helping them apply to scholarships. It's like walking them through the entire process because most of these students are first-generation like me and don't have any idea how. And for me, I just love giving back and helping people, especially those from similar backgrounds as me. Show Links:Kevin Truong on LinkedInCapital Investments at Berkeley Matriculate Advising FellowSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 73 - Yannell Selman chats with host, Paulina Lee to share her journey from coast-to-coast and how her previous venture inspired her latest company, Cultiveit. Listen to the end to hear this female founder’s tips for preventing burnout! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

Meet your 4 hosts for Season 2 of Here@Haas:Paulina Lee, Ray Guan, Nick Gerwe, & Adam WardThe team chats about why they got involved, their favorite podcasts, and some of their favorite Haas memories!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 68 – Avni Kansara joins host, Adam Ward on this week’s episode of Here@Haas. As the Director of Student Experience for the EWMBA program, Avni is in charge of running key events in the program’s calendar, including WE Launch, Haas’ introductory weekend for new admits. Having worked at Berkeley Haas for seven years, Avni knows what goes into making a successful event for students. During this interview, she provides a behind-the-scenes look of WE Launch and the learnings she had from having to take the whole event virtual last year. As a murder mystery writer in her spare time, Avni drops a few clues about some of the surprises that will be happening in this year’s WE Launch event. Episode Quotes:How the Program Office has changed during her seven-year tenure: “When I first started, the advising structure was quite different - it was very transactional… there was not really any continuity in terms of the advising. And so we changed that structure to how it is now in the sense that we advise students by last name. So, you know, a student comes into the program and they know who their advisor is and who they can go to for any kind of questions or anything. And so that helps create the trust that is needed for a student when they're coming in.”What Avni loves about WE Launch: “What I absolutely love about the weekend is that when you arrive on Friday morning, you have check-in and there's about 275-285 new students that come in, and nobody knows each other. And then by Sunday they’re super close, like family basically. It's so wonderful to see that.”How her learnings from taking WeLaunch virtual will be infused into this year’s event:“Something that I had thought of after last year's event was that actually we could go with this hybrid model going forward, where students have the ability to participate in these [informational] Zoom sessions prior to the weekend. And that way, the weekend can be focused on cohort bonding.”Speaking about the murder mystery books she wrote:“The first book is called Redemption and it is a murder mystery that takes place in a made up city close to Monterey… The police force doesn't really deal with homicides very often because it's a relatively crime free area. And so when there is a homicide, these detectives have to bumble their way through and deal with the public perception issues because everyone thinks they can't do it.”Show Links:WE Launch 2021Redemption - Avni KansaraSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 67 - Steven Lee chats with host, Paulina Lee to share his journey from West Point to Haas and starting Gear2Go. This week’s episode is in partnership with two other clubs at Haas: Haas Venture Capital Club (HVCC) and Berkeley Entrepreneurship Association (BEA) who recently hosted a pitch night - of which Steven and Gear2Go won for best pitch! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 61 - Professor Gregory La Blanc chats with host, Paulina Lee on his journey to be a lecturer and distinguished teaching fellow at Haas. From attending Montessori school as boy to studying in multiple subject areas on his way to Haas, Professor La Blanc is a specialist in being a generalist. Hear about his life and teaching philosophies and how MBAs can help change the world. Listen to the end to hear La Blanc’s three mistakes that MBA students most often make! On staying curious:“I think that curiosity is a natural human instinct, which is almost exterminated as you get older...we forget how to learn. And as we get older, we become routinized and so forth. And I think I've just been fighting that specialization; fighting that, urge to rinse wash, repeat, for my entire life.”On MBAs as generalists:“I like of teaching MBAs. Cause what MBAs want is to be like generalists. They want to be the PhDs of common sense. They want to be the integrators. They want to be the people who have the experts working for them. So that they can translate that expertise into something useful and practical. And I think you have to have curiosity if you're going to be that type of person.”Sharing some life philosophy:“Are you living the way you want to live or are you kind of just living? You know, moment to moment without a plan. Are you making your decisions consciously or are you making them unconsciously? And how do you bring those decisions out into the surface and evaluate them in a responsible way.”Resource Links:La Blanc’s podcast: UnsiloedBeginners by Tom VanderbiltSensehacking by Charles SpenceGastrophysics by Charles SpenceAdaptive Space by Michael ArenaSoftware Engineering Education Company: QwasarSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 60 - Today’s episode is a significant call for action against the ongoing genocidal war declared on Tigray and its people. This war has left more than 70,000 civilians killed in over 150 massacres, an estimated 10,000 cases of rape and sexual violence committed by federal soldiers against girls as young as four, 2.3 million children needing assistance, 4.5 million people in need of emergency food, more than 60,000 refugees and 2.2 million people internally displaced. We speak with Almaz Ali, Sami Tamyalew, and Lula Desta. Their families have been directly affected, as they describe the horrors through the stories of victims and survivors—stories that have received very little news coverage. With humanitarian aid being blocked, we discuss the ways we can help. Episode Quotes: On the need to help: “Some stories are coming out and they're horrific. I think the worst part is this is just the tip of the iceberg. 80% of Tigray is inaccessible, so every story we hear, we know that there are thousands that we're not [...] I feel called to use these unearned privileges to go beyond myself—compassion is active and so it calls for us to alleviate the suffering of others. And that's kind of what I've been really holding on to because it helps me feel like I have a sense of agency.” – Almaz Ali On the ways to help: “There are a few ways to get involved. The first would be to just donate to organizations that are on the ground and doing good work and to find a vetted list of set organizations, you go to omnatigray.org. The second thing you do is just attend and amplify protests [...] The third would be to reach out to your elected officials and to just put pressure onto a national government. The fourth would be to stay informed and engage in individual outreach to raise awareness in the communities you occupy [...] And then the fifth would be to form solidarity teams and reach out to Tigray advocacy organizations like Omna and ask them how you can assist.” – Sami Tamyalew On the cry for help: “War and genocide have become so normalized when it happens in developing countries, specifically countries made up of black and brown bodies, that when it occurs, we don't get the same attention and sympathy we would expect if this would have happened here in the United States or in a place like England. And it's frustrating because U.N and aide agencies constantly say never again, but here we are—2021—and there's a genocide happening in Tigray and no one has intervened and no one has done anything to help the people.” – Lula Desta Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 59 - Claudia Natasia joins host, Sean Li in this week’s episode of Here@Haas. Growing up on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, her penchant for the unknown unknowns led her to Berkeley where she further explored her interest in behavioral economics, data science, and business. Now the Director of Research and Analytics at Fivestars and Co-president of Berkeley Female Founders Plus Funders (BFFF) while concurrently pursuing her MBA, Claudia shares her journey of finding a community of like-minded people as well as the challenges faced by female leaders and investors. Episode Quotes: On her passion for User Experience (UX) research: “That's the whole foundation of user experience research. You want to make sure that the people deciding on the products that humans will use aren’t just the people in the conference room. It's actually bringing these voices from the community into the conference room to make sure that we're designing products that actually matter, that actually help build communities.” On joining Berkeley Female Founders Plus Funders (BFFF): “The main purpose of Berkeley female founders plus funders is to be a platform that connects founders and funders in a way that is beneficial towards their growth. Being a female leader in tech, I realized that it can be an extremely lonely experience, let alone if you're a female founder or a female investor trying to look for an exciting startup with maybe not the same amount of resources at your disposal as someone else. I realized this need from my own experience in tech and I realized that I wanted to make a difference.” Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 58 - Manny Smith chats with host, Paulina Lee to share his journey from the US Air Force Academy to being called to be an entrepreneur at Haas, now as the CEO & Co-founder at EdVisorly Education. On becoming an entrepreneur: “There's a quote by Steve jobs, he said ‘as with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.’ My heart was calling me to do something a little bit different, not necessarily better, but different in the world....The truth of the matter is I believe that entrepreneurship has to be a sense of destiny. Where you can't not. And when I say that, a lot of people say, I don't have an idea and I have a lot of ideas, but which one's the right one, the right idea is the one you can't not do.” Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: Ep 52 – Zeenia Irani joins NEW H@H host, Adam Ward on his first episode of Here@Haas. Zeenia discusses how her heritage, culture, and upbringing have formulated her perspectives and passions of community and the overall importance of elevating and providing support for vulnerable communities. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: AtB Ep 7 – In this episode, Nate Pola, Director of Programming @ Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator and Defi Governance and Stakeholder Incentives Researcher talks to Paul Bryzek about his love for teaching, his interest in crypto, and how it culminated in him revamping the edX courses as the director of programming for Blockchain at Berkeley B@B. Nate and Paul further discuss all things blockchain from basics such as the unspent transaction output (UTXO) model, algorithmic stablecoins, and various macroeconomic principles which are used to design them to the recent Terra Luna collapse which shook the crypto ecosystem.Blockchain at BerkeleyB@B EdX Course: Blockchain Fundamentals UTXO model:Algorithmic stablecoins:Terra Luna:Notable Episode Quotes:Nate Pola on the UTXO transaction model:"It's just like making a piggy bank. And first it starts by creating smaller denominations of this Bitcoin. And so it transfers that half of Bitcoin to the intended recipient from there, it then takes the. Little piggy bank is the transaction fee." Nate Pola on Algorithmic Stablecoins: "Algorithm ones are the ones that don't have a direct one-to-one backing per se. And they instead are backed by computer science."Nate Pola on the Terra Luna Collapse: "Terra had a large reserve of Bitcoin in store. And so Terraform labs sold about 3 billion in Bitcoin just to buy Terra and try to prevent the stable coin from collapse. And so all this was done with the intention to pump the new Terra Luna ecosystem and provide more reserves and more liquidity and value in the protocol."Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: AtB Ep 6 – On this episode, Nick Helgeson, MBA 2022 and Johnny Antos, MBA 2022 a senior developer at Prysm Group (a consulting firm specializing in the economics of emerging technologies, particularly in the blockchain space), chat with Paul Bryzek. They share how they stumbled into the crypto ecosystem, the Web3 speaker series they created on the Haas campus, and what’s in store for the future of WEB3. This episode was recorded during the Terra Luna stablecoin collapse and Nick and Johnny provide their expert crypto perspectives. Tune into this conversation to learn more about exciting topics like token economics (tokenomics), stablecoins, and how to evaluate projects in the Defi space.This episode is particularly notable as it was recorded during the Terra Luna collapse on May 10th, 2022. During that day the price of Luna fell from $17.52 to $1.07 and was noticeably falling during the interview itself.WEB3 speaker series -Notion pageStablecoins - DefinitionTokenomics - DefinitionTerra Luna crashNotables Episode Quotes:Nick Helgeson on the motivation for starting the web3 speaker series:“I wanted to help contribute in my own way. And so, I set out to build and deliver what's now UC Berkeley's first-ever web three course. It’s housed in the MBA, program, and MBA students can propose teaching or facilitating a one-credit class “Johnny Antos On the difference between Web2 & Web3:“The classic one is web2 was read, write, and interact. And now web three brings in read, write, interact still, but now you have verifiable ownership on a blockchain, which, you know, doesn't sound that game-changing maybe, but that, that opens up doors for interoperability and people actually owning their assets and moving it from one platform or one protocol to another.”Nick Helgeson on Solana and the trilemma tradeoff:“What's called the scalability, trilemma, and you're effectively trading off between, three things, on transaction throughput, the other one is decentralization. and then the third one is security. And so, in choosing a proof of history, consensus protocol, the Solana development team made a pretty conscious choice in optimizing for speed.”Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: AtB Ep 5 – Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) and Senior Product manager from Blockchain @ Berkeley James Dai chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek and shares his blockchain expertise as a seasoned blockchain developer. His diverse experiences and collaboration with The Berkeley Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence (RDI), in collaboration with Professor Dawn Song, led him to identify the need for reliable content authenticity on the web, and has started his own project and is recruiting co-founders. If interested feel free to email James at jamesmdai@berkeley.eduFakeNet AI – Detects synthetic (fake) media to protect users against attacks.Automated Market Maker (AMM) – DefinitionWhat is DAI? Description of MakerDAO and its cryptocurrency DAI. On Automated Market Makers (AMMs)“That basically allows you to take a token and then convert it to different tokens. So, if I take an Ethereum, I can convert it to Dai or vice versa. This AMM is really just a way to decentralize what is existing today as a traditional market maker.” On the Problem with Misinformation today“And so, I think we can all agree, misinformation is an issue today. How we're currently trying to solve it as rather algorithmic. Facebook, AI, created this deep fake detection challenge. And the best state of the art models can only accurately classify 65% correctly.” On Transparency of Legal Contracts on a Blockchain“So, you could basically make it where all the contracts are put on the blockchain as well, along with all the transaction flow. And so, you can follow legal entities on a blockchain throughout. And then track all their transactions.”Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: AtB Ep 4 – Partner at NGC Ventures Andrea Chang chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek and shares her industry insights as a crypto VC. Andrea is a graduating full-time 2022 MBA originally from Taiwan who moved to California to attend Haas. She previously lived in Singapore and worked at Goldman Sachs doing equity research for a few years. Later she joined NGC Ventures, one of the largest institutional investors of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies and has been a key contributor to several leading blockchain projects.On NGC Ventures“NGC ventures we started in mid 2018. We were the early investor in multiple public blockchains, such as Solana, Avalanche, PolkaDot, to name a few. We are also active in many defi metaverse deals.” On identifying Red Flags for startups“Timeline, like seems focus too much on the token access strategy rather than product building. And second is that often times it needs to rely on the market secondary market condition, which is hard to predict for all of us.” On Berkeley entrepreneurs raising rounds“First is to be very clear about your product and solution and your vision as is the positioning of your product in the wider industry space. And I think second is that to make the best use of the Berkeley environment, especially the talents part. Because Berkeley has so many talents, in undergrads, graduates, and MBA.”Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

Taking the time to come to Haas and do an MBA can be an incredible opportunity for exploration and introspection, especially for those of us that are interested in sustainability and social impact. But the task of figuring out what you want to do next and how you want to make an impact can feel daunting at times. With that in mind, we’ll be delving into the question: “how might we chart our path and discover our purpose” in this episode. We are first accompanied by Professor Robert Strand, also known as “Mr. Nordic.” He is the Executive Director of the Nordic Center and the Center for Responsible Business at Haas and tells us about his career history, what motivated the major pivots in his journey, and finding inspiration in the Nordic region. We then hear from Jenelle Harris, a Haas alum from the class of 2017. Jenelle is a Consulting Manager at Bridgespan, where she leads engagements with social impact organizations, and she is also a career coach here at Berkeley Haas, where she works with mission-driven leaders. We talk with Jenelle about how we can find purpose and meaning in our career search. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations