Meet This Year’s ClimateCAP Fellows: 12 MBA Students In Pursuit Of Climate Solutions
2024 ClimateCAP Fellows. The 12-month fellowship
Each year, the ClimateCAP Initiative, a program led by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in partnership with 43 other business schools, selects a group of 12 highly gifted and driven MBAs for a 12-month ClimateCAP Fellowship. Now in its second year, the fellowship welcomed a new cohort at the start of 2024, with Fellows from top schools across the country — and, for the first time, two international Fellows from Cambridge Judge Business School.
Life for ClimateCAP Fellows is steeped in opportunities, including workshops and dialogues with industry leaders. A cornerstone of the experience lies in undertaking a hands-on, real-world climate action project of their own design, which for some will serve as a catalyst for a post-grad climate career.
Poets&Quants had the unique privilege to explore the stories behind the Fellows’s dedication and passion for climate solutions.
PIVOTAL MOMENTS THAT LED THEM TO STUDY CLIMATE
Some ClimateCAP Fellows’ interests in the environment are deep-rooted and began when they were young; for others, current events have spurred them to work toward healing the planet. Currently studying at Cambridge Judge, MBA Hugo Mkhize, from South Africa, has dreams to scale solutions that will help mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis.
ClimateCAP Fellows. Courtesy photo
“The announcement at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow of the monumental $8.5 billion South Africa deal to help the country end its reliance on coal has driven me to dedicate my career to understanding both the challenges and the opportunities that climate change will present,” Mkhize says.
Also from Cambridge Judge is MBA student and Fellow Peter Golding. Where he grew up in Australia, climate has had far-reaching impacts on his community. Golding had to creatively cope with heat waves, and his passion lies in finding ways to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy.
“Having grown up in South Australia, a place known as being the driest state on the world’s driest inhabited continent, climate is something that I have always been interested in,” Golding says.
‘A PERSONAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE CAN LOOK LIKE’
Like Golding, MIT Sloan School of Management MBA student and Fellow Jennifer Constanza is looking to mitigate the effects of heat. Constanza grew up in Houston, Texas, an area prone to environmental hazards. She’s looking forward to doing a deep dive on how heat officers — a new role that some cities have adopted as temperatures rise — can advance climate policy.
“One of my earliest and most vivid memories is evacuating the city and fleeing east to avoid an incoming hurricane,” she explains.
Also hailing from Houston and interested in extreme weather is Joe Garan, currently working toward his MBA at Washington Foster School of Business. Growing up, his fascination with storms grew as he experienced his fair share of unexpected extreme weather events.
Living through them, he says, he now has “an acute, personal understanding of what climate change can look like.” In the past, Garan has worked in the energy industry, analyzing global market strategies. “Now, I want to use that experience to help solve climate change issues practically,” he says.
Michigan Ross School of Business MBA student and Fellow Andrew Tineo-Paz grew up in Venezuela, a country with many diverse ecosystems, from mountains to coral reefs to the Amazon rainforest. “My parents exposed me to the outdoors and many of these communities at an early age and I became very interested in nature and all the important lessons it offers,” he says.
Tineo-Paz later moved to Wisconsin, where he saw the effects of climate change increasing poverty, displacement, and health issues. He says he wants to contribute to turning impactful ideas aimed at mitigating climate change’s effects or reversing its trajectory.
WHY THE FELLOWSHIP WAS RIGHT FOR THEM
Across the board, the most common reason the MBAs pursued a ClimateCAP Fellowship this year was to bring their projects to life and be a part of a network of like-minded individuals, like Fellow Kyla Harrison.
Harrison, pursuing her MBA at Chicago Booth School of Business, says that currently there is no other fellowship that offers the same level of opportunity to collaborate with climate-focused MBAs. “I think the value proposition in that regard is very powerful,” she says.
ClimateCAP Fellows. Courtesy photo
Ian Naccarella, an MBA student at Harvard Business School, applied to the fellowship to be a part of a great community and for the structure the fellowship offers.
“I’m hoping to use the ClimateCAP experience to jumpstart my leap into the world of entrepreneurship in climate and plan on using the learnings from my project (e.g., customer interviews, expert calls, etc.) to form the basis for an initial business plan,” he says.
WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE MOST AS FELLOWS
These soon-to-be MBAs are thrilled to be ClimateCAP Fellows for a wide variety of reasons. ClimateCAP Fellow Ruben Antonio Quesada grew up in Costa Rica and gained a deep appreciation for nature by observing his father’s work growing up. He has plans to start his own venture involving reducing the construction industry’s carbon footprint.
During his Fellowship, Quesada, studying his MBA at Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business, is most looking forward to working alongside other talented individuals because he finds them very energizing. “What excites me most is the chance to collaborate and learn from peers from other top programs around the country.”
With a deep-rooted interest in biodiversity and conservation, Duke Fuqua MEM/MBA Bryan Graybill hopes to learn more about how climate change is impacting the natural world, and to learn “how to value nature in such a way that incentivizes private investors to channel capital into conservation and restoration projects.”
While he was very excited to meet the cohort of Fellows with diverse interests and explore opportunities to collaborate with them, he is also very excited to meet leaders in the private sector who have his same interests — actively investing in natural capital and nature-based solutions. Graybill adds he is “hoping to learn what strategies practitioners are finding to be successful and where there are knowledge gaps.”
POST-GRAD CLIMATE ACTION ASPIRATIONS
Each of the Fellows has unique and varying goals post-grad. Some have a clear vision and others are keeping their options open — and of course naturally, all Fellows are focused on making a positive impact on the climate.
From Atlanta, Georgia, ClimateCAP Fellow Laura McComb is currently pursuing her MBA at Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. Through studying finance and accounting and learning more about sustainable accounting during the Fellowship, she says, “I aim to improve my role in ESG reporting to provide meaningful data that supports investor decision making around climate.”
ClimateCAP Fellows. Courtesy photo
From New York City, MBA/MS Jenna Weinstein is currently at Michigan Ross. Along with gaining a deeper understanding of project management and learning how to strengthen her stakeholder engagement skills, Weinstein is looking forward to gaining a “deeper understanding of key challenges and opportunities in implementing novel circular economy frameworks within large institutions.”
Post-grad, Weinstein hopes to become a strong advocate for circular business models, waste innovation, and sustainable procurement practices post- grad.
ADVOCATES FOR CLIMATE IN THE JOB MARKET
New Jersey native and Fellow Sam Haber is still in the process of determining how to best leverage his MBA experience post-grad.
A former nuclear-trained submarine officer, Haber, currently at Emory Goizueta Business School, reflects, “When I realized that I did not wish to pursue a lifetime career in the Navy, it occurred to me that I could continue my service in the private sector by helping businesses navigate the complex intersection of challenges that the energy transition poses.”
In terms of his future goals, he adds: “I am still exploring my options for how to best pair my experiences with working on energy-related solutions internally at oil and gas/utility firms or externally through consulting.”
DON’T MISS CLIMATECAP: PROVING THAT FOR THE TOP B-SCHOOLS, SUSTAINABILITY IS NOT JUST A BUZZWORD and MBA EDUCATORS HAVE A HUGE NEW TOOL IN THE FIGHT AGAINT CLIMATE CHANGE
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