Meet Notre Dame Mendoza’s MBA Class Of 2021

Elena Westbrook

University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business

“Some men just want to watch the world burn. Some women want to stop them.”

Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Fun Fact About Yourself: I skipped second grade.

Undergraduate School and Major: Northwestern University (c/o 2014), Social Policy major

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Accenture, Senior Consulting Analyst

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: While I was in consulting, I had the opportunity to help run a design thinking workshop for a nonprofit that taught high school students about entrepreneurship and running a business. A prominent family (that shall remain nameless) funded the nonprofit and shared office space with them. This family is ideologically quite divergent from my own personal political leanings. They’re regularly in the news and I was pretty anxious about advising anyone whose checks they signed. Despite our differences, I found it a privilege to work with the staff of their nonprofit. By the end of our time together, I was profoundly influenced by their method of serving the under-resourced.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? My classmates are genuine in everything that they do and kind even in disagreement. They look out for each other, they are humble, and they are inclusive. A recent MBA grad told me that the people here have “hearts of service” and that’s pretty much what I’ve seen.

Mendoza is known as a purpose-driven MBA program that asks students to “Ask More of Business.” What is your mission and how will Mendoza help you realize it?

Chicago is best understood as two cities – one glitters with skyscrapers, and the other with rhinestones glued to nails and phone cases. Both have immeasurable beauty. That truth calls me to reconcile the gap in their economic and educational opportunities. Over the course of my life, I want to catalyze economic development in maligned urban communities. In the short term, I hope to reinvest hope in Chicago through entrepreneurship.

As a third-generation Chicagoan with public service in my blood, my plan is to anchor innovative enterprises to underestimated neighborhoods. I’ve noticed that many of Chicago’s neighborhoods lack basic retail and commercial amenities despite the immense combined spending power of its residents. Through creating new products and services for underserved markets, I hope to slow the cash outflow from underdeveloped neighborhoods to wealthier areas and address the problem of disinvestment. Mendoza’s strong commitment to ethical business, and the opportunities available to entrepreneurs made it an obvious choice. I wanted to be a part of a program where making money not for its own sake, but for the benefit of others was taken seriously.

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? Mendoza walks the walk-in ethics and values. In an era of big tech, big pharma, and ‘bigly’, I wanted to be at a program that believed in doing the right thing for its own sake. Business doesn’t have to be loathsome or destructive, but that requires fearless leadership. It requires moral courage. It requires humility. Most of all for an educational institution, it requires challenging the status quo. Business as usual is not going to cut it in a globalized world fraught with inequality. The conversations that students, faculty, and staff have here are not happening elsewhere. Take, for example, a recent email about inclusivity on campus. “While an encouraging 85% of students who responded to the [inclusion] survey reported they feel a sense of belonging on campus, anything less than 100% means we must do better.”

Eighty-five percent is more than a passing grade and still it’s not good enough for Notre Dame. These are the standards I want an institution, public or private, to hold itself to. The change we all wish to see in the world starts from the inside out, and this school understands that.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school? I recently signed up for a seminar through the Center for Social Concerns that will lead to a service-learning trip to Appalachia. I am looking forward to the actual class as a break from quantitative classes and the opportunity to learn from people I may not have met otherwise.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? “Tell me about yourself” – it’s so common but very difficult. I am allergic to self-aggrandizement, and it took me a while to stop feeling uncomfortable discussing myself.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? I worked in exclusive and glamorous fields, but my inner problem-solver remained dissatisfied to solve big companies’ small conundrums. My goal in getting an MBA is to become a well-rounded public servant by learning more about business, which has a role in every healthy community.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? I would prefer not to say – they were all wonderful but I’ve had my eye on Mendoza for many years.

How did you determine your fit at various schools? A strong sense of ethics and community were both critical factors for my MBA experience. I visited the program twice, exchanged emails with current students, and consulted a few sources on the internet.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? During undergrad, I trained in social policy hoping to make an impact on the communities I loved. Law and economics classes helped me process and discuss the inequities endemic to my family and hometown. My education confirmed what I had long suspected: municipal governments across the nation, but especially in Chicago, curtailed equality and integration decades ago. My collegiate work within the public sector revealed the limits of reliance on government or nonprofit reform.

My time in private industry helped me identify a silver lining. We now face a once-in-a-century opportunity for the private sector to create social and financial value through redress of its historical ills. I will forever laud critical direct service and advocacy work, but commerce is perhaps the most underutilized tool to restore community.

Where do you see yourself in ten years? In Chicago mentoring young men and women, and helping reshape the narrative around some of the neighborhoods and people there.

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.