Lia Parker-Belfer was adopted from Changsha, China and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts (USA). Her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) stems from her lived experience. Lia is particularly focused on creating community and fostering cultures of belonging. In the fall of 2020, she founded a podcast called If You Knew Me to help students develop meaningful relationships during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lia studied Government and Chinese at Hamilton College and worked in management consulting at Deloitte after graduation. As she looks to the future, she hopes to combine her interests in DEI, technology, and education to help solve social inequities. Lia is currently pursuing her dual MPA/MBA degree with HKS and Tuck and was named a Poets&Quants Best & Brightest Business MBA of 2022.

Marc Alain Boucicault is a Haitian tech ecosystem builder and founder of Banj, Haiti’s largest coworking space and tech startup accelerator partner of Google, Stellar and Meta. Banj is helping connect communities and promoting innovation in Haiti and the Caribbean. Marc Alain is currently a Mason Fellow pursuing a Master in Public Administration at Harvard Kennedy School. Before Harvard, he worked a decade in international development in Washington, DC and Port-au-Prince at the World Bank, and with the Inter-American Development Bank then became a social entrepreneur supporting changemakers globally. With over 15 years of parallel experience creating, leading, and collaborating with organizations focused on youth empowerment, Marc Alain is passionate about leveraging the power of education, tech, and communication to reshape socioeconomic dynamics. He is a Fulbright scholar, a One Young World ambassador and a Podcast host with­­­­­­­ a M.A in Financial Economic Policy and a B.A in Applied Quantitative Economics.

Nora Jendoubi was born and raised in a multicultural household, which shaped her narrative moving forward. Growing up, she saw the contrast between affluence and poverty as the daughter of a Tunisian father and a French-born Italian mother. Nora’s background provided the basis for her understanding of inequality and the impact zip codes have on socioeconomic mobility and educational opportunities. As a way to disrupt systemic inequity, Nora channeled her efforts towards schools and their surrounding ecosystems. She studied International Relations and Economics at Stanford University, with a focus on the intersection between economic development, design and innovation. She is a Bay Area Teach for America alumna and Coro Fellow and is currently pursuing her dual MPA/MBA degree with HKS and the Wharton School of Business.

Shivika Bhasin grew up in Mumbai (India), home to Asia’s richest man and its largest slum, meant that inequality was omnipresent. This early realization that she had won the birth lottery drew her to explore comprehensive business solutions to pressing global issues and creating a positive impact on all stakeholders. She is especially passionate about upward social mobility through Education. She is currently an MBA candidate at HBS and completed her Master’s in International and Development Economics from Yale University. She has worked in management consulting at Bain, governance consulting & large-scale project management in Education for an Indian state government and international relations advisory at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

I’m a first year Master’s in Public Administration student at the Kennedy School. Prior to Harvard, I was a management consultant at Bain in London for 3.5 years, mainly focusing on public sector and charities’ strategies over the last 18 months – including a 6 month secondment at the UN World Food Programme in Rome. I grew up near Newcastle in the North of England, and come from a Pakistani family of doctors in the UK National Health Service. In my spare time, I follow a lot of sports – especially soccer, cricket, NBA, F1, and tennis, and enjoy playing sports (though not to a high level…). I previously studied a BSc in Economics at the London School of Economics and an MPhil in Finance and Economics at the University of Cambridge.

I am a French citizen with experience studying and living in the US and in Germany. My interest in understanding the world through multiple lenses led me to study business and political science. After working as a strategy consultant, I decided to shift my career’s purpose toward a social purpose and joined one of the largest NGOs in France, Apprentis d’Auteuil. It supports children and families through foster care, schooling, professional training and other services. I am a first-year Masters in Public Administration student at the Kennedy School of Government.

Audrey Atencio is a first-year MBA student at Harvard Business School. Audrey’s career has focused on improving the efficiency, equity, and resilience of food systems. She worked for 7 years at One Acre Fund in Zambia and Rwanda, leading teams to improve financial and logistical services for smallholder farmers. She also served a fellowship with the United Nations World Food Programme in Uganda. Audrey has a Bachelor’s in International Politics from Georgetown University.

Kevin is a first year MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to HKS, Kevin worked as a consultant with Deloitte’s Climate & Sustainability practice and a coordination consultant at the United Nations in China. He co-founded the US China Climate Forum, a global community for thoughtful engagement on US-China relations and climate collaboration, and GreenClub, a 501(c) non-profit that delivered 1,000+ tons of emission offsets through energy efficiency and reforestation projects. Kevin has also served brief stints as secretariat manager to Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation, climate financing consultant to the Government of Tonga, and research assistant to Cornell Institute for China Economic Research. Kevin graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. He was born and raised in Shanghai, China.

Catalina Piccato is a first-year Harvard Business School student, focused on the intersection of business, government & the international economy. Prior to Harvard, she was a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, where she worked primarily with public sector and industrial goods clients. She was a Binational Business Fulbright in Mexico and graduated from Columbia University with a dual degree in Economics and History. She is interested in post-MBA experiences related to infrastructure and Latin American economic development.

Valeria Tiberi is a first-year student at Harvard Business School. Born and raised in Italy, she had the chance to study and travel in several countries, including Australia and Brazil. These experiences allowed her to develop a passion for nature and better understand the risks related to climate change. Valeria is also the co-founder of Officine Italia, a nonprofit aimed at increasing young people exposure to jobs in the public sector and training trisector entrepreneurs in Italy. Before HBS, she spent 3 years working at Bain & Company mainly on Energy projects, where she witnessed firsthand the challenges companies face to advance the Energy Transition and integrate ESG strategy in their daily operations. After school, she is looking forward to fostering public-private partnerships to catalyze change and financing inclusive solutions against climate change.

Ragini Bhattacharya is a dual degree MPA / MBA student at Harvard Kennedy and MIT Sloan. Her passion lies in designing innovative technologies, business models, strategies, policies, and public-private partnerships in global health. Ragini received her BS in Bioengineering and with roles at Amgen, a biotechnology company, and Nike, has experience in healthcare, corporate innovation, and technology strategy. Currently interning in innovation at UNDP and in nonprofit partnerships at Philips, a medical devices company, she hopes to expand her impact to underserved communities globally.

I am a strategist, problem solver, social business enthusiast, and diversity and inclusion advocator. I have 15+ years of business consulting experience working in cities, water, sanitation, and waste through program design, delivery, system efficiency, and partnership lens. I worked to solve social problems in collaboration with governments, markets, development organizations and citizens.

Shulin is a second-year MPA student from China at Harvard Kennedy School. Before Harvard, she worked for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for five years on a women’s health survey project across 11 countries in Africa and South Asia, specializing in data operations, program management, and organizational learning. In five years, Shulin hopes to lead a social enterprise to serve and empower underprivileged social groups. For fun, she teaches Chinese calligraphy at Harvard, attracting students from over 25 countries.

Kamya is a joint degree student at HKS and HBS. She most recently served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow, working with the U.S. Department of Transportation on its smart city strategies. Prior to that, she worked at various technology including Facebook and Lime, in data science and product growth roles. She graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Science in environmental engineering.

Aishwarya is currently a first-year MBA at Harvard Business School. She currently serves on the SECON Finance team, as Section DEI representative, and volunteers with the Consulting for Impact Club. Previously, she worked as a Hardware Product Manager at Harry’s, a Direct-to-Consumer startup where she led cross-functional teams in bringing razors, packaging, and accessories from designs to tangible products. She also worked as an Associate at the Boston Consulting Group, where she worked on cases in a variety of industries, including CPG, Healthcare, Industrial Goods, Education, and Retail. Outside of work, she volunteered as Programming Lead and later led the Sponsorship team for the Out for Undergrad Business conference from 2020 to 2022. Aishwarya graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a major in Mechanical Engineering and minors in Public Policy and Economics. In her spare time she enjoys reading fiction, writing, and singing classical music.

I am Dual Masters in Urban Planning and Design Studies at the Graduate School of Design graduating May 2023. I have always had a passion for storytelling and am actively able to convey personal narratives through my design work within both architecture and urban planning. In my spare time, I love to watercolor, sketch buildings, go for long runs, and get lost in nature.

A first-generation Asian American, Amy grew up in the rural Midwest. She studied business and music at the University of Pennsylvania, before working in predictive analytics consulting at APT/Mastercard and then strategy & analytics at Boston Public Schools. Amy also serves as president of HOBY SD, a youth leadership education nonprofit. She is passionate about youth empowerment and the intersection of business and social impact.

Carolyn is a dual MPP/MBA student who spent her time before HKS working across both private and public sectors. After working at Bain, she externed at the Gates Foundation, where she helped improve the delivery of health services in emerging markets. She then spent three years working in East Africa at One Acre Fund, a social enterprise that helps smallholder farmers improve harvests. She is interested in finding financially sustainable solutions to public problems and hopes to continue that work at HKS.

Laura Schiever is currently an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School, and is passionate about exploring innovative education-to-employment programs and funding models that can bring together governments & private sector players. Her past experience at the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), an independent global trust fund hosted by UNICEF, showed her the potential of scaling outcomes-based financing instruments to drive learning and employment outcomes. At EOF, she worked on the technical design and preparation for launch of outcomes funds in Tunisia and Ghana across the education and employment sectors. She started her career at McKinsey & Company in the Middle East focusing on real-estate, education and ESG topics.

Christine is a joint degree MPP & MBA candidate from the Harvard Kennedy School and Business School. Before grad school, Christine worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. While at BCG, her focus was on supporting non-profits and foundations in expanding access to medicines in low and middle income countries. At Harvard, she hopes to build on her strategic consulting skills and further explore key challenges in global health, economic development, and gender equity.

Andrew Wolff is a first year MBA student at Harvard Business School. Prior to attending HBS, Andrew worked on the Strategy Unit at the International Rescue Committee, an NGO that provides more than $1 Bn of aid to people affected by crisis and disaster around the world. Before working at the IRC, Andrew was a Strategy Consultant at McKinsey in their Dubai and New York offices. After the MBA program, Andrew hopes to continue to work in nonprofit leadership. Andrew attended Dartmouth College where he studied Political Science and Statistics and is an avid adventure traveler and hiker.

Karina works within the United Nations organization as an infrastructure finance specialist executing impact-oriented projects. Her experience spans the globe, with projects across Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia. She is majoring in climate policy and energy regulation at HKS. Her role as SECON Finance Lead is centered around developing the budget and managing the conference’s finances. Her professional interests include the energy transition, impact investing, and cleantech.

Ezgi Emiroglu is a dual MBA/MPA Candidate at MIT Sloan School of Management as a Dean’s Fellow and at Harvard Kennedy School as a John F. Kennedy Fellow. Aiming to pursue her interests in bringing early-stage start-ups to life through venture capital or venture studios, she is the Managing Director of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and is completing the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Track at MIT Sloan. Through her dual degree, she is exploring ways to bridge her interest in emerging tech with her experience in strategy and partnerships. Prior to school, she led strategy at TEALEAVES, a luxury food & beverage company, for eight years, where she built extensive experience in brand development, strategic vision, D2C expansion and B2B partnerships. Between 2016 and 2020, she built an award-winning in-house media company, where she executive-produced documentaries which premiered at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian, SXSW, and design festivals throughout the US. She also developed a social impact-focused strategy in partnership with United Nations Biodiversity, Microsoft Design, and Ellen MacArthur Foundation. In 2017, she was recognized as a Webby Awards Finalist for her consumer campaign in collaboration with Pantone and Nike. She has a BCom from the University of British Columbia, where she studied Finance and Marketing with a minor in Sociology, and has lived and worked in Turkey, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Philippines, China, and US.

Léa is passionate about humanitarian affairs. Before coming to HKS, Léa spent five years working in urgent humanitarian contexts within the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between field operations (in Lebanon) and headquarters functions (in Switzerland). Léa is well-versed in humanitarian financing and response management to complex global crises, having worked closely with national and international NGOs, other UN agencies, and donors. In Lebanon, she was directly involved in the assessment, capacitating, and funding of relief organizations delivering humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable groups. Later on in Geneva, Léa led the technical support of the UN’s 21 OCHA Country-based Pooled Funds across the world, providing them with data analysis and training. Léa graduated with a dual Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from the American University of Beirut.

Priyanka is passionate about creating innovative business solutions that drive social impact. After graduating from Northwestern University, she worked as a strategy consultant at EY-Parthenon, focusing on educational and non-profit consulting engagements, and most recently worked as an impact investor at Social Finance, leading investments that created economic opportunity for at-risk populations in the US. As a joint MBA & MPP student, Priyanka hopes to focus on the applications of impact investing and social entrepreneurship to solving social challenges in emerging markets.

I am second year student of Public Administration in International Development (MPAID) at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. I love planning and executing impactful and scalable strategies in international development especially at the intersection of public health, environment and economics. I enjoy outdoor sports like running (2 half marathons in India and Kenya) and hiking (India, USA, Kenya), apart from blogging and cultural exploration.

Neha Sanghera is first year Masters of Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to HKS, she was a Policy Analyst in the City Manager’s Office in the City of Hillsboro, Oregon. In this role, she facilitated delivery of City Council goals and led multi-department special projects such as Council Ward redistricting, the 2020 Census campaign, utility assistance program development, and equitable procurement policy. She has also worked in Hillsoro’s Water Department, where she supported source water protection, flow management, and water conservation programs. She is a board member of the International Network for Asian Pubic Administrators (I-NAPA), and was a former commissioner forOregon’s Commission on Asian Pacific Islander Affairs. Neha holds a B.S. in Hydrology from University of California, Santa Barbara.

Nikita is a second-year MBA student at Harvard Business School. She has spent time at McKinsey & Company, Teach for America, Education Pioneers, and Accenture but her favorite role was being Ms. Ramanujam at Think College Now Elementary School in Oakland, CA, where she taught 4th grade for four years. In addition to her MBA, Nikita holds degrees from Northwestern University and Loyola Marymount University. Nikita is a firm believer that everyone is entitled to a high-quality education that empowers them to live lives that are centered in purpose and agency. She is excited to continue building equitable systems that actualizes this vision.

Rea is a student at the Harvard Business School in the MBA program. Prior to business school, Rea was a management consultant in San Francisco. In the education space, Rea has experience working in product at a K-12 Ed-Tech startup, building expansion strategy at an Indian financial literacy education focused non-profit, and volunteering for several grassroots education initiatives locally and abroad. Rea hopes to use her professional experience and MBA to further gender equity in educational opportunity globally.

Jennifer is a McCloy Fellow and MPP Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School where she explores social entrepreneurship, storytelling and public policy as tools for change. She is the founder of the program “From Good Girl to Badass” which has reached young leaders in 15+ countries across five continents. Determined to address socioeconomic and gender inequalities, she has served as the German youth advisor to the G7 and G20. Her adventurous soul and curious mind inspired her to embark on a digital nomad journey during which she travelled the world for almost one and a half years while working in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion remotely.

Emma is a Boston-native in the MPP program at HKS. Her interest is in human cognition and behavior, which led her to study neuroscience in undergraduate. She has held roles in human-centered design and user experience (UX) within the healthcare industry. Now, she is focused on achieving health equity through improved care experience, access, and affordability. In pursuit of this goal, she hopes to implement behavioral science interventions that optimize organizational and individual decision-making. Ultimately, she seeks to influence policy and business in a way that eradicates ableism across all aspects of society so that disabled people can lead healthier and freer lives. Outside of this mission, she is an avid long-distance runner, a crafter, and a lover of board games. Emma is excited to be apart of the SECON team where she can apply the principles of UX to make SECON-23 the best experience yet for attendees and speakers.

Matt is a first-year at Harvard Business School passionate about the intersection of workforce equity, adult learning/upskilling, and tech-enabled solutions. Prior to HBS, he led impact investing initiatives at Social Finance and EdTech projects with the Fulbright Commission.

Kunal is a passionate individual, who has donned many hats during his personal and professional career. He has about 7.5 years of experience working in various industries such as Healthcare & Life Sciences, Infrastructure, and Government. Over these years, Kunal has worked as a Strategy/Management/Technology Consultant, Public Policy Specialist and Project Management Professional, with a wide-array of clients in the consulting, multilateral, NGO world. His domain expertise include Public Health, Economic Development, SDGs, Infrastructure and Governance. Apart from that, on the personal front, Kunal is an Argentine Tango dancer, Spanish Guitarist, Mixed Martial Artist, Triathlete, Trekker, Surfer and enjoys various other outdoor sports.

Sonia Thosar is a first-year MBA student at Harvard Business School. She most recently worked with the Biden Administration and the Prime Ministers of Japan, Australia, and India at Schmidt Futures, helping to build the inaugural “STEM for Social Good” Quad Fellowship. Previously, she worked at the Boston Consulting Group, partnering with state and local governments to drive programmatic and policy efforts on topics including COVID vaccine distribution, urban technology and housing infrastructure, and federal funds disbursement. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2018 with a degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering.