Yussre ElBardicy

Columbia Business School

“Determined, curious, and passionate about healthcare, social change, and community-building.”

Hometown: I call Vienna, VA and Cairo, Egypt home

Fun fact about yourself: I was once charged in the wrong currency on a business trip in Beirut and ended up with an $18,500 charge for 3 coffees.

Undergraduate School and Degree: BS Mathematics, College of William & Mary

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Epic Systems, Implementation Consultant

Where did you intern during the summer of 2023? Healthie (Product Management Intern) and Rock Health (Market Research Fellow)

Where will you be working after graduation? Undecided

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• Co-Chair, Student Leadership and Ethics Board
• Chair, Cluster G 2024
• President, Muslims in Business
• VP Careers, Healthcare Industry Association
• Peer Advisor Cluster D Lead for Class of 2025
• Columbia Fellow
• Forte Fellow
• Second Year Fellow

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? The Muslim community at CBS is small. I’m proud that, through my board leadership, we were able to strengthen our ties through additional programming, including starting a tradition of holding an annual Iftar during Ramadan to bring students, alumni, and faculty together. When I joined the Muslims in Business Club board in my first year, we were a scrappy team trying to increase membership and build a club that had not sustained itself through the pandemic. In my second year, I stepped into the role of president, planned more events for people to get to know each other, and advocated for my community through meetings with CBS administration in ways where our small group could be heard and seen on campus. Although a religious identity is not one we typically lead with in a business setting, the values core to that identity – honesty, integrity, and justice – drive the type of leader I aspire to be.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? There was a saying at our company that the worst reason for doing something was because “That’s how we’ve always done it.” In that spirit and in response to certain status quo policies, I co-founded the Employees of Color resource group, where I

successfully advocated for a more inclusive change in company holiday policy. The creation of the group also helped foster a community of individuals from underrepresented identities throughout the 10,000+ person organization who may not have otherwise crossed paths.

Why did you choose this business school? I knew I wanted to be in New York, but more important than location was people. Everyone I spoke to from CBS talked about the collaborative culture and the strength of the network that CBS provides. I knew that by coming to CBS, I would be surrounded by peers who were not only impressively accomplished, but who were also invested in more than their own individual success.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Professor Sandra Navalli is an inspiring professor who embodies the values I hope to emulate as a business leader. I appreciated her ability to clearly help us understand the threads between business knowledge and social problems. She is someone who sees the big picture, helps her students understand the big picture, and has been a trusted mentor and resource during my time at CBS. During a car ride back from a correctional facility where we co-taught a class, I had a conversation with her about everything from prisons to family to the state of the world that will always be a core business school memory for me.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? REAP: Reforming Mass Incarceration and the Role of Business was a transformative class. It allowed me to build on my knowledge of mass incarceration in the United States and to understand the role business can play in both perpetuating the harms of the criminal legal system and in helping address them. As a student instructor in a prison, I helped teach cases on financial empowerment and entrepreneurship, with the goals of reducing recidivism and better understanding the talent and skills incarcerated persons have for future hiring decisions I might be in a position to make.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? We have a tradition called “CBS Matters,” where students have an opportunity to talk about what matters most to them – both their “CBS why” and their “why CBS?” It’s a uniquely valuable way to learn things about your peers that you might not otherwise get a chance to in the classroom or other conversations. In my own CBS Matters, I talked about how my community has supported me through some of my life’s greatest challenges and why it’s therefore so important to me to contribute to and cultivate a strong community wherever I go.

What is the biggest myth about your school? One myth about CBS is that it’s mostly for people interested in careers in finance. However, CBS actually has so much to offer beyond finance.  Through professional clubs, centers like the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise and the Lang Center for Entrepreneurship, and the network of peers, faculty, and alumni, there are a ton of resources for those interested in a myriad of different industries and career paths. And it didn’t feel like I was only surrounded by peers interested in finance at all – I was surrounded by folks interested in anything and everything including healthcare, climate, music, aviation, retail, media, and more.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? Opportunities are infinite in New York. The city offers something for every possible interest, and it’s filled with extremely ambitious, inspiring people. New York’s diversity is unmatched: being surrounded by people from so many different walks of life and pursuing careers in such a wide range of industries makes it an incredible place to live and grow.

What surprised you the most about business school? I knew that CBS boasted an internationally diverse class, but I was surprised by the range of life and work experiences that my classmates came in with. Being in a classroom with people who worked across various industries and countries was an incredible way to learn about the challenges, ethical dilemmas, and problem-solving techniques used in different work settings. This is particularly true when it came to discussing topics like responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? This is a difficult question because I could write about a lot of incredible people at CBS. The first person who came to mind is Elisa Martinez, who’s also a dual degree candidate with the School of International and Public Affairs. She is someone who knows who she is, knows what her values are, and is unshaken by external pressure when it comes to upholding her ethical standards. She’s also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met — Elisa not only learns quickly but also has a depth of understanding that allows her to share that learning with others. Throughout our core classes, Elisa made YouTube videos for our whole cluster to help us study for finals, explaining key concepts that she herself had just learned. In the classroom and in smaller conversations, her curiosity, insightful questions, and genuine interest in understanding people and the world, spark conversations that enrich everyone around her.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? I owe a lot to my mentors who have helped me along my educational and professional journey, so one of my top goals is to be in a position to pay it forward. To me, that looks like being a mentor for other women of color, and particularly Muslim and Arab women. I also hope to be able to create a scholarship for people who do not pursue higher education or post-graduate degrees because of financial constraints.

Another aspiration is to meaningfully contribute to reducing health disparities. I’ve had the privilege of working at both big and small healthcare companies working to solve the many issues in the industry and I have also seen firsthand how gaps and fragmentation in the US healthcare system lead to disastrous outcomes, particularly for women of color. I hope to be a changemaker in the field working to improve health outcomes for these women.

What made Yussre such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2024?

“Yussre ElBardicy has had a tremendous impact on Columbia Business School serving as her cluster chair and holding leadership positions across various student organizations, including the Health Care Industry Association, Middle East and North Africa Club, Muslims in Business, and serving both as a peer advisor and Co-chair for the Student Leadership and Ethic Board through the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics. In addition to these extracurricular experiences Yussre served as the Teaching Assistant for Bridging the American Divide, a course where students explore the different political and social ideologies that shape American industry. There is no aspect of community at Columbia Business School that Yussre has not been a part of and brought her deep standing commitment to ethical values, community building, growth, and empowerment.”

Samantha Shapses, Ed.D.
Associate Dean and Dean of Student Affairs 
Columbia Business School

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