This post was written by second year Duke MBA student Venki Narayanan in September 2013. Venki interned at the ReNEW Charter Management Organization in New Orleans, LA. Venki’s internship was made possible with the support of the Summer Internship Fund.
This summer I had the privilege of working as a Sustainability and Operations Growth Consultant with the ReNEW Charter Management Organization (CMO) in the Recovery School District of New Orleans, LA. This internship was part of the Education Pioneers Graduate Student Fellowship.
Education Pioneers (EP) is a nonprofit organization that recruits students from graduate schools and matches them with school districts, charter school networks, education nonprofits, and other education start-ups to do a 10-week summer project. This summer marked the inaugural year of EP’s summer operations in the city of New Orleans, with 11 summer fellows working collaboratively to help rebuild the Crescent City’s education system following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Throughout the summer, I worked with ReNEW Schools, a charter school network that has been expanding aggressively in the city’s Recovery School District.
ReNEW’s growth has seen the impressive acquisition of 4 different schools over the past 3 years. With the schools experiencing turnover within the operations manager roles along with a growing demand to scale the practices of the operations team, I was tasked with developing a system that would address the evolving needs of ReNEW’s management team as the network (and its challenges) continued to grow.
As I was constructing a plan, I knew that it was not only crucial to address the specific needs of the current school operations managers (SOMs), but to make sure that the system(s) I would devise were sustainable and that my client could build upon these tools to facilitate the onboarding of SOMs. My work included conducting interviews with operations managers and school leaders to assess the challenges they were facing, analyzing current practices that were being used and the leadership structure within the CMO, developing prototypes of a resource that could enhance collaboration among members of the management team, and launching the prototype to help scale these best practices. Most importantly, I was also able to establish a series of metrics to estimate the level of collaboration among the management team and to estimate the growth level of this online portal.
I am extremely proud to say that this resource has been scaled to include the best practices of the charter school network’s HR, IT, Grants, and Finance teams and is also now in the process of being scaled to include two other charter management organizations in the city of New Orleans.
I believe there are several reasons my summer in this incredible city that is second to none in its cultural richness was a successful one:
1.) Although our cohort size was small, it was rich with diversity in the educational and work backgrounds of our summer fellows. The discussions we had on any number of topics—from the evolution of the education landscape in New Orleans post-Katrina to areas of success and challenges with our respective projects – made me feel truly humble to be surrounded by these inspiring colleagues who are now close friends of mine.
2. Education Pioneers truly cares about the professional development of its summer fellows who are interested in launching careers in the education space. Coming into the summer, I was not sure about where my summer experience would lead me and whether I could carve out a niche in education consulting. The opportunity to serve as a growth strategy and operations consultant in education was an amazing opportunity and, along with the events EP coordinated to allow us to network with education professionals, I knew I could not have made a better choice about joining Education Pioneers and my summer placement in New Orleans.
3. Do not ever be afraid to ask questions. Although I came from the education world prior to Fuqua, there were still dozens of questions (and maybe even doubts) about the landscape I was entering and the function I was asked to do. But it was by asking the right questions that I was able to learn what I needed to know to effectively build my skillset as an education consultant. Setting aside my pride and asking my summer fellow peers to gather their feedback was the best move I could have made and I truly felt that I was part of an environment that allowed me to comfortably ask those questions. Just keep calm and laissez les bon temps rouler!
The Summer Internship Fund (SIF) enables first year Duke MBA-Daytime students to learn about the rewards and challenges of social sector management without making a significant financial sacrifice. In addition, the program enables organizations that otherwise could not afford to hire MBA student interns to benefit from students’ expertise. The SIF has supported more nearly 150 students, distributed approximately $430,000, and helped to further the mission of many nonprofit and government organizations. Funds are raised through student fundraising and from donors who believe in the mission of the program. If you would like to contribute, you can donate online.