Meet Yale SOM’s MBA Class Of 2021

Nomawethu Moyo

Yale School of Management

ā€œIā€™m committed to exploring, resilient, energetic, funny, and also a great dinner party host!ā€

Hometown: Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Fun Fact About Yourself: When I was 18, I spent three hours lost while exploring in Venice with a friend. I had won a trip to Italy ā€“ my first overseas experience ā€“ to participate in Summer School on Water in the Anthropocene after writing an essay about the impacts of climate change on water systems and human communities.

Undergraduate School and Major: Colby College, Environmental Studies

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Senior Research Analyst at Industrial Economics, Inc.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest accomplishment so far has been drafting a roadmap for Zimbabwe to become a middle-income economy by 2030, in collaboration with an innovative group of Pan-Africanists from the Development Reimagination Group (DRG), a think tank based in Zimbabwe.

Back story: In the summer of 2018, my curiosity was sparked by an article about solar startup M-KOPA electrifying low-income communities in Kenya. It outlined how entrepreneurs could similarly contribute to sustainable development. I approached two think tanks, Briter and DRG, which study the contributions of technology and entrepreneurship to social change and development, with my research questions. I completed two research projects on how decentralized energy solutions are closing the energy access gap in Sub-Saharan Africa and how African governmentsā€™ inadequate support for entrepreneurship retards development, which the think tanks published. Later I leveraged these projects into more work with both think tanks, including the roadmap for Zimbabwe to become a middle-income economy by 2030.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates youā€™ve met so far and why? My classmates are incredibly humble and intellectually curious and they donā€™t take themselves too seriously. Iā€™m inspired by the various journeys that have brought them to SOM.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? SOM is an impact-driven business school and this particularly appealed to me because I have a strong sense of social responsibility and I am committed to exploring ideas and opportunities that enable me to serve society while furthering my own career. SOM struck me as a place where I would get a lot of support for my ideas in sustainability and business.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school? Iā€™m most excited about Voices on Monday evenings, where SOM students gather to listen to three of our peers sharing a personal story, experience, or perspective. Voices is all about building community, empathy, and a sense of belonging.

The Yale School of Management is regarded as a purpose-driven program. What is your mission? How will your MBA at Yale help you fulfill that mission? I am enthusiastic about creating more circular economies. My ultimate goal is to help corporations in advanced economies decouple growth from environmental degradation through innovative business models and help emerging economies leapfrog into more sustainable development practices.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? How will you leave your mark at SOM?

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? I believe an MBA will help me leverage market insights and innovative business models innovation in expanding market-driven sustainable development efforts. In my previous job in environmental economics consulting, I learned that often, public policies take long to make a notable impact. I now want to pivot into working on more efficient private sector-led efforts.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? None. The joint three-year MBA/Master of Environmental Management program especially appealed to me as a way to combine my interests in the environment and business.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? My struggles in Zimbabwe and life-changing experience at a United World College (UWC) inspired my strong commitment to exhaustively explore all the opportunities available to me and identify the avenues that offer the most benefit to me, my family, and the community around me.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, I suffered first-hand the consequences of a collapsing economy and dysfunctional government. In 2008, circumstances were especially miserable, I had to drop out of my first year of high school in Bulawayo because teachers were constantly on strike, protesting paltry salaries eroded by galloping inflation. I then successfully applied to study at a UWC in Swaziland. Having spent the first 13 years of my academic career in a tracking education system in which I had no liberty to explore various subjects and develop my own interests, my world changed when I got to Swaziland in 2009. In UWC, I was encouraged to consider various disciplines and required to engage in at least 200 hours of creativity, sports, and community service. I enthusiastically immersed myself in diverse pursuits that broadened my perspective and the scope of my goals, and I graduated from UWC committed to exploring global opportunities that would dramatically improve my career prospects.

Where do you see yourself in ten years? I would love to be an executive in a cool company that has a sustainability-driven business model.

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