Kavi Saxena

Yale School of Management

“Former teacher turned K-12 venture investor, trying to do well by doing good.”

Hometown: Lakeland, FL

Fun Fact About Yourself: I went to a performing arts high school!

Undergraduate School and Major: Vanderbilt University, Economics & History; Johns Hopkins, School of Education, MS Ed

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Manager, Structured Finance @ Charter School Growth Fund

The Yale School of Management is regarded as a purpose-driven program. What is your mission? How will your MBA at Yale SOM help you fulfill that mission? My mission is to close the gap in quality of K-12 public education, empowering students across the country to be successful in their own lives and help solve our world’s biggest challenges. The Yale SOM MBA will help me accomplish this by blending business acumen and societal impact through its academics, community, and culture.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Yale SOM’s MBA curriculum or programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The advertisement of Business & Society was what initially drew me to Yale SOM. Once I dug in and learned more about how these words are manifested in the curriculum, programming, and community, I knew it was the best place for me. These are not just words on a page but rather a mission we all actually believe in.

What course, club, or activity excites you the most at Yale SOM? The Hockey Club is one that I’m really excited to dive into. As a Floridian who has never been on ice, learning more about an activity I have no familiarity with while building bonds with classmates should be a great experience.

What is your unique quality that will enable you to make a big contribution to the Class of 2026? I like to think I can build community with classmates from various identities. I hope this ability will allow me to push our class to build strong personal and professional relationships.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Pivoting from in-person teaching to entirely virtual over one weekend in March 2020. No trainings or work-prep could have prepared me for that.

What do you hope to do after graduation? Continue to drive social impact through consulting for clients driving change in our world.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Yale SOM’s MBA program? Be your authentic self, the more I relayed my actual interests and personality, the stronger my application became.

DON’T MISS: MEET YALE SOM’S MBA CLASS OF 2026