On July 9, Fuqua alumni who share an interest in sustainability met up for a joint networking event in San Francisco with other MBAs from Stanford, Michigan, Yale, MIT, and Cornell. The event, which was a collaboration between the six schools, was designed to facilitate more connections between Bay Area professionals who are working in careers at the intersection of business and environmental and social impact. It included both MBA alumni and alumni of dual-degree business-and-environment programs, like Duke’s MEM/MBA program. Current MBA students from the six partner schools who are interning in the Bay Area this summer were also invited.
To facilitate intermingling, the event included several rounds of “speed networking” organized around four thematic areas: Sustainable Cities & the Future of Energy; Food, Agriculture & Ecosystems; Impact Investing, B Corps & Social Entrepreneurship; and Global Supply Chains & Corporate Sustainability.
Participants came from organizations as varied as Chevron, Facebook, Levi Strauss, SunEdison, New Island Capital, and The Nature Conservancy, among others. Opower hosted the event in their new San Francisco office.
“We hope this is the first of many collaborative networking events between our six schools,” said Katie Kross, managing director of EDGE. “These professionals have so much in common, and it was a wonderful opportunity to connect them with others who share their interests in business leadership and sustainability.”