No More "Lost Einsteins" - From the Editors' Desk, p.3

THE~HARBUS Spring Semester, 2018 Bringing news to Harvard Business School since 193 7 March Edition

CAMPUS NEWS

HBS Elects New SA Co-Presidents

Sana Mohammed (HBS '19) and Triston Francis (HBS '19) have been elected as the Harvard Business School Student

Association Co-Presidents for 2018-2019. The co-presidency, elected at the end of February lry the RC

year, will begin after spring break.

Pria Bakhshi, Editor-in-Chief

Sana Mohammed (MBA '19) and Triston Francis (MBA '19) have been elected as the Harvard Business School Student Association Co•Presidents for 2018-2019. The co-presidency, elected at the end of February by the RC year, will begin after spring break.

Sana and T riston campaigned under an overarching mission to '"foster a more collaborative environment that enables classmates to develop lifelong friendships and fulfilling careers." Their campaign rested on three key pillars: stronger relationships amongst the student body, better career resources, and greater personal support from academics to mental health.

In their first commwiication to the HBS community as SA Co-Presidents, Triston and Sana detailed the beginnings of concrete plans for their leadership. Writing exclusively for The Harbus, they describe initiatives 'from Bond by Giving Back to HBS TED Talks' that they believe will help to achieve their campaign mission. They also highlight that they hope to gather input from their

classmates while establishing their plan for the next year, to ensure they 'address the varying needs of the student body as a whole' .

The team also plan to use their new platform to scale initiatives which each have already been running organically since starting at HBS. Along with his roommate, Triston spent his first semester hosting cross-sectional meetups at his home, where students read their personal statements to their fellow classmates to better get to know one another. In fact, this is where he and Sana first met, though it would be a few more months before decided to run for the co­presidency together.

Sana was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and studied at the University of Houston, majoring in Accounting and Marketing. After graduating, she worked as a Marketing Advisor to BP in Houston. Triston grew up in Jamaica, Queens, and is a first-generation college student. After majoring in Finance, Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the University orPennsylvania, Triston worked in Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley in New York. According to the team's campaign video, while in NYC prior to HBS, Triston organized motivational events where eventually over fifty of his future classmates spoke to

underserved college students to provide life advice.

Running against Tristan and Sana were Sijun Yang (MBA ' 19) and Kel Jackson (MBA '19). Sijun and Kel also ran on a three-pillar platform, focusing on student life, career & academics, and community & inclusion. They hoped to increase partner­friendly and inter-section events, such as Field Day II and an HBS 5k. The team also argued for an improvement in the HBS dialogue around sexual assault and harassment. Regarding the evergreen career question, one initiative proposed by Sijun and Kel was to improve coordination of CPD and Academic calendars to minimise scheduling conflicts.

The new leadership will take over from Angelica Castellanos (MBA '18) and Kevin Ferguson (MBA ' I 8), SA Co-Presidents 2017-2018.

Pria Bakhshi (I-IBS 'I 9) is originally from lndi.a via LJJndon, England (awng wiJ/, aflw olh,r pfuces) and graduated from the London &lwol of Economics and Politi.cal &ience in 2011. Pria is an RC, Sectum G, and is a Stwknt Advisor w the HES Business & Environment Initiative. Prior W HBS, she spent six years in saks and trading al Goldman Sachs in London.

Leadership at Harvard, through Change and

through Storm As Drew Faust prepares t:o pass

the torch of the Harvard University Presidency t:o Lawrence Bacow, Editor­inrChief Sumit Malik (HBS '19) reflects

on her leadership and her leg<U:)I.

Sumit Malik, Editor-in-Chief

When Drew Faust announced her intention to step down as Harvard University's 28th President at the end of this academic year, she invoked "Fair Harvard " the university's alma mater, in reflecting upon the resilience of an institution that has found purpose and progress "through change and through storm." Faust concludes her 11 years at the helm of Harvard with a legacy of intellectual progress,

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educational leadership, and forward-thinking. As she prepares to hand over the reins to Lawrence Bacow, the former President of Tufts University and a recipient of three Harvard graduate degrees, she leaves the university more innovative, diverse, and impactful than when she started. She also leaves an example of

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WesTrek: Behind the Scenes of HBS's Largest Professional Trek

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Celebrating

LOVE atHBS

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PAGE FOUR THE HARBUS NEWS MARCH 2018

OPINION AND COMMENT

Leadership at Harvard, through Change and

through Storm

Cunlinued fa,m front caver

principled leadership with both the tenacity to address challenges and the versatility to harness them as catalysts for forward progress.

I remember Faust referencing rising "through change and through storm" once before, several years ago when I was entering Harvard College as a freshman in 2009, in her opening remarks for the academic year. At the time, she was two years into her tenure as President of Harvard and grappling with painful consequences of the financial downturn. The university's endowment had declined by uearly 30 percent year-over-year, from just shy of $37 billion to $26 billion, driven by investment losses in a tumultuous market environment. Acknowledging the economic reality and its implications, Faust shared a vision for a nimbler, more efficient institution that could be realized without compromising principles of collaboration, intellectual honesty, and excellence. Adversity, she said, makes us stronger.

At Harvard Business School, we learn that managing organizations through periods of change is among the most

critical responsibilities of a leader, but also among the most formidable. Empirically, a considerable majority of change initiatives are unsuccessful, a deficiency that persists despite extensive literature on the topic. Those that do succeed are characterized by clarity in the need for and nature of evolution, purpose-driven planning and implementation of proposed policies, ability to improvise in an uncertain environment, and committnent to continuous improvement.

Under Faust's leadership, the university has become stronger. Notable among her numerous initiatives, her unprecedented financial aid policies, reflecting her conviction to push the frontiers of academic excellence irrespective of socioeconomic constraints, dramatically increased the affordability of Harvard College for middle class families . In addition to keeping college free for familiesearningunder$60,000, the policy capped costs at I 0 percent of income for families earning under $180,000. In a manifestation of the influence of her position in the higher education landscape, other major universities thereafter

followed suit with programs to defray the cost of college education for the middle class. By striving to increase accessibility of high-quality education beyond the bounds of privilege, these policies pave a path toward greater aptitude, inclusivity, and diversity in the student body.

Faust's ardent belief in equal opportunity is evident in her everyday demeanor. When asked by a journalist about the experience of being Harvard's first woman President, she famously responded, "I am not the woman President of Harvard. I'm the President of Harvard." As Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow William Lee observed in a letter to the Harvard community, Faust's widely praised response is not only a tally in the colunm of feminism, but also a rejection of superficial labels, stereotypes, and preconceptions. The significance is that at Harvard, intellectual leadership is strengthened by diversity of thought, solidarity and strength can be found in differences, and individuality should be the norm.

In the spirit of harnessing a breadth of perspectives, Faust is credited with fueling

interdisciplinary discourse, building bridges between Harvard's historically decentralized academic programs in support of "One Harvard." This emphasis has played out in many dimensions: rising cross­registration across Harvard's schools; University-wide collaboration on programs like the South Asia Institute, the Center for the Environment, and the Data Science Initiative; and the introduction of dual degree programs like the joint Master's degree program between the Harvard John A. Paulson School ofEngineering and Applied Sciences and Harvard Business School. The University has furthermore taken steps beyond its walls to educate its students, for example through Field Immersion Experiences in Leadership Development (FIELD) at the Business School, and to broadly support education in massive open online courses through edX and HarvardX.

As a student with the privilege of calling Harvard home for three degrees since Faust began her term, I am acutely aware and immensely appreciative of how far the university has come. After over a decade of service in

academia's most high-profile post, the impression that she has left on Harvard and the broader academic community sets a high standard for leaders who follow. In her installation address upon her appointment as Harvard's President, Faust defined the essence of a university as "learning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage of millennia; learning that shapes the future. " At Harvard Business School, where-in pursuit of the school's mission-we strive to emulate "leaders who make a difference in the world," we can decidedly look to Faust and her legacy.

Sumit Malik (HBS '19) is an investo; writer, and enlreprenew: Prefessionally, his background is in venlure capiJal and pri:vate equi9' at Warburg Pincus, strategy as a board member ef Santander Asset Management Chile, and investmmt banking at Goldman Sachs. Personally, he writes

far academic and popular publicati.ons and performs music and poi (light- or

f11'e-spinning). He prcvious/y received an A.B., summa cum laud~ jiom Harvard Coll.ege and an S.Mjiom the Harvard Grruiuate School ef Arts l1'ud Sciences.