Neither Jeff Surette (MBA 2010) nor Mike Peters (MBA 2017) expected to be drafted onto a team with Tom Brady after business school. However, the perspectives, experience, and skills they each brought to the table were exactly what Tom Brady was looking for as he and his team grew TB12, the health and wellness company dedicated to helping people do what they love – better and for longer. [...]

In his Leadership Fellows position with the Detroit's Office of the Mayor, Nikhil Patel (MBA 2019) has seen firsthand the impact of COVID-19 on city initiatives and priorities. Throughout it all, building community trust through effective communication and leadership has been crucial. [...]

When Apoorva Pasricha (MBA 2019) assumed her role with the City of San Jose’s Mayor’s Office of Technology & Innovation as an HBS Leadership Fellow in August 2019, her mandate was to implement San Jose’s ‘Smart City’ road map. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck, and suddenly Pasricha and her colleagues had to reorganize their functional priorities. [...]

Finding your career passion is a trial and error process. People say “follow your passion” but this can be vague. The actual process of discovering these passions is daunting. During my MBA, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what I wanted to do in my career. Since we spend a huge portion of our lives working, it’s important to find a job that’s fulfilling. Over time, I've found that what matters most to me is solving complex problems in logistics. I value building something physical from scratch and seeing the immediate results of my work. [...]

Seven years into co-founding his Fintech venture in emerging markets, DJ DiDonna (MBA 2010) took a sabbatical. Doing so gave him the freedom to explore some items on his bucket list, but more importantly it provided much-needed perspective on his increasingly unsustainable relationship with work. Soon afterwards, his company was acquired and he began talking with career-focused individuals who had also taken sabbaticals. Despite the diversity of their backgrounds and the experiences had while off work, the sabbatical-takers insisted: it was one of the best decisions of their lives. [...]