Back at Berkeley

Understanding system dynamics means finding leverage points for making change.

Dr. Sara Beckman's Applied Innovation class at University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business was full of breakthroughs like this when I took it a year ago. And it was just as impactful last week when I returned (as an MBA!) to serve as Teaching Assistant for this year's class.

A year ago, I immediately took these lessons back to my work at San Francisco Opera. It's been thrilling to relive the experience through this year's brilliant cohort and the compelling projects they brought to class.

Together with professors David Riemer, Rachel Dzombak, and Vivek Rao, Dr. Beckman took us to Salesforce, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Autodesk, Google, Hopelab, NewDealDesign, IDEO, and American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco. We saw first hand the power of design thinking, system interventions, and storytelling. And we channeled that power into meaningful new solutions spanning healthcare, housing, software, sustainability, fashion, science, manufacturing, sports, gender equity, education, and security.

Haas MBA's are simply fantastic. So fun to reconnect with fellow alums like Christopher Larocca, Jason Atwater, Andrée Heller, Kate Mahon, Dhara Vaishnav, MBA and Meg Goeden. I'm so honored to be a part of this community, and I'm grateful to the EMBA Class of 2025 for welcoming me into their learning journey this semester!