When the inaugural West Point All-Academies Asia Summit opens in Singapore on June 25, Ray Jefferson (MBA 2000) will celebrate a personal moment of triumph. For the Summit’s point man, this first-ever gathering in Asia for graduates of all of the US service academies—themed “Fellowship, Futures, Fortunes, and Fidelity”—will be a major demonstration of his commitment to service and leadership on a global stage. He calls the summit the ultimate business development, info-gathering, and networking opportunity for US service academy graduates interested in doing business in Asia, and he hopes it will become an annual event.

Jefferson, a 1988 West Point graduate and former captain in the Special Forces, planned to stay in the military as long as he was “serving with elite units and enjoying being in the Army.” A training accident brought that open-ended plan to a quick conclusion, forcing a course correction that took Jefferson to HBS, consulting, state and federal leadership positions, public speaking, and helping organizations around the world develop their leaders.

It has been 20 years since Jefferson was leading a Green Beret team in Asia training for a classified mission when he lost all five fingers on his left hand while trying to protect his men from a defective distraction grenade that exploded prematurely. Jefferson was hospitalized for months and then … well … for the first time in years, he didn’t know what would come next.

“It was an emotional roller coaster,” he says today. “Since high school, I’d been creating vision maps—sort of a forward-looking, diagrammatical approach to what I wanted my life to be about. I knew I wanted to contribute to the world through leadership in the international arena. After being in Special Operations, I envisioned attending an Ivy League graduate school and then working internationally in a senior leadership role.”

But as Jefferson lay in a bed at Tripler Medical Center in Hawaii, where he was flown for emergency surgery, those possibilities seemed very far away. His planned future hadn’t included the possibility of surprise events. What could he possibly accomplish with his life, he asked himself, when he couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces?

“On the worst day,” he says, “when I really hit bottom, I said a prayer asking for hope and direction. I know how this sounds, but when I looked out the window, there was a rainbow over the mountain and a white dove flying in a circle. That was the day I turned the corner.”

Jefferson would ultimately move forward with his vision and get his life back on track. First, however, he needed an inspiring combination of purpose and direction.

“I took a trip around the world by myself the day I left the hospital. While visiting my relatives in Egypt, my uncle, a medical professional, told me my accident was the ‘least worst’ thing that could have happened to me to force a change of direction in my life, but still allow me to do everything I want and need to do,” says Jefferson. “He reminded me that it wasn’t my dominant hand that was injured, and that I needed to focus on all that remained, not on what I had lost.”

So when the Army gave him a prosthesis, Jefferson chose not to use it, and instead guided himself through a tough but ultimately successful journey of adapting, accepting, and moving beyond his injury.

That approach of personal rebuilding led him to Harvard, where he entered the Kennedy School of Government’s MPA program, graduating in 1998 with a greater vision for his life and the distinction of the Littauer Award. And that was just the beginning.

“I wanted to prepare myself to be a leader in both public and private sector organizations,” Jefferson says, “so I felt it was important to learn about leadership from both sides of the Charles River.”

His next stop was HBS, and he calls his experience there “transformational.” Jefferson, who became the first student ever to graduate with both White House and Fulbright fellowships, also won the Dean’s Award for exceptional leadership and service, and built lifelong relationships with some of his professors—Dean Nitin Nohria, Michael Wheeler, James Cash, and Allen Grossman, among others—whom he visits for a mix of friendship and advice whenever he gets back to Boston.

Jefferson has put his unique mix of military and academic leadership training to work in a variety of positions. His career path demonstrates his instinct for connecting preliminary exposures with opportunities later on.

Hawaii, for example, became Jefferson’s adopted home following his surgery and recuperation. As a White House Fellow working in the Department of Commerce, he organized the historic first trip of the White House Fellows to Hawaii. Within two years of the Fellowship’s conclusion, he was deputy director for the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism. He also started a Harvard-Hawaii initiative that involved creating paid internships with nonprofits in Hawaii for HBS and Kennedy School students, as well as sharing resources and conducting admissions outreach there.

As a Fulbright Fellow, Jefferson was posted to Singapore to study how public sector leadership is exercised in that country’s multi-cultural environment. As part of that assignment, he interviewed some of Singapore’s senior leaders and also did volunteer work with nonprofits serving physically challenged adults and youth in Singapore’s “heartland.”

He returned to Singapore three years later as a leadership consultant with McKinsey & Company, creating and delivering leadership training and development programs throughout Asia Pacific that were extremely well received.

Following President Barack Obama’s election, Jefferson was offered the position of Assistant Secretary for the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training (VETS) program. He served for two years as the CEO of VETS, a national agency whose mission is to assist and prepare veterans and service members to obtain meaningful careers, maximize their employment opportunities, and protect their employment rights.

His belief in the effectiveness of public-private partnerships resulted in Hiring Our Heroes, a partnership with the US Chamber of Commerce and Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve that sponsors mega-hiring fairs across the country and resulted in more than 14,000 veterans and military spouses obtaining employment within the program’s first 18 months. He also led the revamping of the then-19-year-old Transition Assistance Program’s Employment Workshop, doing so with input from Tim Butler, director of HBS’s Career Development Programs.

Jefferson now lives back in Singapore, where he is busy building his leadership-development company, the Jefferson Group.

“The focus will be on organizational transformation, enhancing performance, and building winning teams,” he says. “It will be based in Singapore, working with organizations globally and especially in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Jefferson’s recipe for successful leadership includes a strong focus on building self-awareness.

“Before you can lead others, you need to learn to lead yourself,” he says, and he believes his life experiences give him a unique perspective on that exercise.

For now, however, he is consumed by final preparations for the inaugural West Point All-Academies Asia Summit. The speaking roster is a star-studded lineup of government, business, and military leaders. Jefferson feels the summit is a seminal event and is excited to see it come to fruition, as it combines all the now-familiar elements of a collaborative effort around an important, inspiring vision.

“We’re bringing people together in Asia so they can contribute to, and be part of, the future of this amazing region of the world,” he says. “The program will give the attendees usable knowledge and actionable insights, now and in the future.

“The networking aspect is also important. These are unique communities of proven leaders, and the service academies want their graduates to make a difference throughout their lives. The same thing occurs with HBS alumni—when you get them together, great things happen.”

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