CSE Fellows are committed, exceptional MBA and BSBA leaders who work collaboratively with each other and the CSE Team, to advance the Center’s strategic priorities:
- Education: Mainstream sustainability and integrate it throughout Kenan-Flagler programs.
- Practice: Build corporate and community partnerships to expand experiential learning.
- Knowledge: Expand CSE's knowledge base and make UNC Kenan-Flagler the go-to place for teaching tools and resources on sustainability.
- Strategy: Build partnerships and develop marketing strategy to advance the Center’s strategic priorities.
CSE Fellows play an important role in strengthening critical bonds between CSE, MBA and BSBA students. Fellows will work to incorporate MBA and BSBA interests into CSE programs and activities and will serve as representatives of the Center.
Read more about our current CSE Fellows below.
Blakely Blackford, MBA 2013
My first North Carolina degree was a BA in English from Davidson College. When I moved to New York to work for Bloomberg LP, I could never have imagined that my work at a business news corporation would spark a concern for the environment that would lead me back to North Carolina. As a photo editor and writer for Bloomberg Markets, I viewed environmental issues through a business lens. Whether hiring photographers to shoot the devastation of unregulated timber harvesting or reporting on an insurance firm that funded a WWF-endorsed arctic research expedition, I witnessed the powerful relationship between business and the environment. I also wrote about companies and individuals who recognized a commitment to sustainability wasn’t just good—it was good for business.
I returned to school to increase my knowledge of business and the environment and to take a more active role in the two. I am pursuing a joint degree in environmental management and business (MEM/MBA). While at the Nicholas School of the Environment last year, I attended the Careers in Sustainability Forum at UNC Kenan-Flagler. Hearing the stories of alumni and learning about the Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE), I recognized the school’s commitment to sustainability, as well as the potential for an MBA to develop my own career. My long term goal is to help develop comprehensive strategies and solutions for companies committed to environmental responsibility.
Georg Kell, director of the UN Global Compact, has asserted that “achieving the low-carbon economy of the future will not be possible without the active role of business.” Companies have not only a responsibility but a unique opportunity to act as environmental stewards. My interest in business and its potential to confront environmental issues will fuel my work as a CSE fellow.
Maura Farver, MBA 2013
My interest in sustainability started from a very young age, but not until I began studies at the Nicholas School of the Environment did I fully understand the power of the private sector to enact positive environmental change. This realization inspired me to apply for my MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler. Now as a dual-degree student, I believe I am perfectly positioned to leverage my scientific, communication, and leadership skills to provide strategies with both environmental and financial benefits.
After graduating from Duke University with a B.S in Environmental Science and a minor in Theatre Studies, I moved to New York City to pursue a career in directing. During my time in New York, I co-founded a nonprofit theater company to promote women in the arts and found my way back to science through the topics of the plays I directed: neuroscience, anthropology, and finally environmental science. In 2009, my company, Sweeter Theater Productions, began the Greener Theater Project in which we produced a play about an environmental issue (hydraulic fracturing) while also incorporating environmentally friendly production methods. My last production was especially meaningful to me because I saw that I was changing the opinions and behaviors of an audience that was not familiar with environmental issues. Similarly, I believe I can bring new ways of thinking to both businesses and consumers by working in the energy sector.
In particular, I am interested in energy efficiency through smart grid technology deployment and implementing behavioral strategy to change how consumers perceive and interact with “green” technology. To this end, I developed a team business proposal to address “the renter problem” in home energy efficiency implementation, which was a semi-finalist in the 2011 Duke Start Up Challenge. Additionally, I worked with the Environmental Defense Fund in their Climate Corps Public Sector program last summer. I partnered with a church in Asheville, North Carolina to identify, prioritize and quantify energy efficiency projects for their building. Working with their congregation to expand on their environmental stewardship goals was a very rewarding experience, especially because they are now implementing the full lighting upgrade from my recommendations.
Consumers and companies are only just beginning to realize the benefits of implementing new energy technology. By continuing to think creatively and strategically, I will use my combined business and science education to provide solutions for the next generation of energy needs.
Sid Padgaonkar, MBA 2013
Since graduating from college, I have always driven towards roles that would allow me to make a positive impact on my community. In 2007, I spent a year in Mississippi managing the FEMA Housing Grant Program that was designed to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It was a very gratifying experience and motivated me to move back to India in search of similar opportunities.
For the past 4 years I have worked in India where I started a housing finance startup, Micro Housing Finance Corporation (MHFC) that provides micro mortgages to India’s urban poor. At MHFC I developed micro mortgage products, raised capital through venture funds and managed its lending operations.
MHFC was an immensely rewarding experience; it allowed me to make a direct impact in the lives of those deemed “unbankable” by traditional banks, by helping them move out of their inhospitable environments into dignified housing alternatives. It was a truly gratifying experience that led me to believe that I have discovered my true calling in life.
I chose Kenan-Flagler as I was attracted to the strong sustainable enterprise program and the well-rounded academic base it provides me to become a successful social entrepreneur. Post MBA, I would like to use the knowledge and exposure gained, to achieve my goal of becoming a social entrepreneur.
Will Roberts, BSBA 2012
“The economic and social challenges the world will face in the 21st century present a new set of issues for business to adapt to. I hope to one day count myself among those who not only strategically anticipated and responded to these business drivers, but also contributed to society through my actions.”
As a freshman at UNC, one of the first classes I took was an introductory environmental studies class. Throughout the semester, we learned all about the serious, often interrelated, global trends that the world must confront in the 21st century. Climate change, overpopulation, water scarcity, deforestation, loss of biodiversity – the sheer magnitude and gravity of these threats are enough to make even the most optimistic among us feel helpless at times. However, where others saw disaster, I saw opportunity. What if a company could provide technology to help agricultural producers monitor and reduce water use? What if consumers could compare the environmental footprint of two products at the touch of a button? Indeed, the key to solving the world’s problems will be the power of business. All I knew at the time was that I wanted to be a part of it.
Since this realization as a freshman, my undergraduate experience has been shaped around the integration of sustainability and business. I have added a minor in sustainability to my major in business and assumed leadership roles within the Undergraduate Net Impact Club and the UNC Chapter of the US Green Building Council. This past summer, I worked as an intern at a consulting firm that specialized in sustainability strategy, AHC Group Inc. I worked on projects primarily in extractive and material-intensive industries, and was able to see first-hand how central sustainability has become to the strategy and success of firms in this space. Conversely, I also witnessed how corporate antibodies can derail and delay implementation of sustainable practices. Ultimately, although I am encouraged by the progress corporations have made in incorporating sustainability, it is clear that there is much further to go – and fast – before our economic system can truly be sustainable.
The ability to foresee shifts in the business environment and identify untapped opportunities is a critical competency of any successful business leader. The economic and social challenges the world will face in the 21st century present a new set of issues for business to adapt to. I hope to one day count myself among those who not only strategically anticipated and responded to these business drivers, but also contributed to society through my actions. Becoming a Center for Sustainable Enterprise fellow is another step in my development towards this goal, and I am honored to be given the opportunity to do so.
Mia Farber, MBA 2012
Sustainability has been a guiding principle in my life ever since living and studying on an organic farm during high school. After graduating from college, where I concentrated in environmental studies, I served as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Perú. My role was to support municipal authorities during the implementation of a waste treatment program for a city of 30,000 residents in the Central Andes. Working in environmental policy in an underdeveloped nation helped me to become globally aware of the distinct issues that affect different sectors of society.
Following my service in the Peace Corps, I worked for the non-profit Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture as Outreach Coordinator. My work aimed to close the loop between consumers and farm fresh foods by strengthening Pennsylvania’s food infrastructure network. During this time, I served on the Board of Directors for a cooperative triple bottom line grocery store and founded a social enterprise to help struggling farmer’s markets. These experiences demonstrated the possibilities of triple bottom line businesses to bring about real change, but hinted at the need for core business skills to advance important ideas, leading me to UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Business School represents the pivotal opportunity for me to learn how the efficiencies of business can create a more socially and environmentally just world. My professional goal of being a social entrepreneur in the realm of community and international development relies upon a holistic structural view of business, which UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School is able to provide with the support of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise. I am delighted to serve as a CSE Fellow and through this role aim to make sustainability part of the mainstream. I believe that further integrating sustainability into the MBA program sets a tone that highlights a sustainable perspective that has become essential to anyone pursing business today.
Adam Hart, MBA 2012
Having spent the last few years living in China, I look at business and sustainability through a global lens. Nothing drives the power of business home like seeing first-hand the opportunities created in one of the world’s most dynamic economies, but the experiences I had living and travelling in Asia also underscored the strain our economic system can put on our larger social and environmental systems. It is that dichotomy between the wealth and opportunity created and the downside to unadulterated growth that has sparked my passion for figuring out how business can be done better, so we can capture more of the up-side and less of the down-side.
My focus at UNC Kenan-Flagler will be on applying the sustainability lens through a consulting function. I want to eventually work with companies interested in developing strategies that focus on sustainability as a competitive advantage. By doing so, I hope to have access to both the best ideas in sustainable business and the right people to help make those changes. I chose Kenan-Flagler precisely because of the opportunity to learn about business and management while being intimately involved in the discussion around sustainability.
Future business leaders will have to be concerned with social and environmental impacts in order to sustain any competitive advantage in the marketplace, and UNC Kenan-Flagler is ahead of the curve in working on infusing that thinking into a business curriculum. Business will be a critical tool in solving social and environmental issues, and in ensuring equitable opportunities for people around the globe. I am honored to be chosen as a Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Enterprise, and look forward to being a part of making business better in order to serve precisely these goals.
Ginny Crothers, BSBA 2011
Since the beginning of my college career, I have had what I used to think were two distinct interests: environmental studies and business. When I discovered that sustainability had been added as an undergraduate minor, I was excited to find a way to merge my two fields of interest and engage with a network of like-minded individuals. Through my studies in the BSBA program at UNC Kenan-Flagler and with my sustainability minor coursework, I’ve been drawn to the ideas of sustainable enterprise at both ends of the scale, comparing sustainable models of both local entrepreneurs and multinational corporations.
Intrigued by the contrasting models of local and global businesses, my areas of emphasis for my undergraduate business degree are entrepreneurship and international business. Through the Center for Sustainable Enterprise, I was able to work with two local start-up sustainable businesses through the Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship (BASE). Following the journeys of these start-ups, I saw the challenges that entrepreneurs face when trying to integrate sustainability into their business model and the strategies for how it can be accomplished.
Last May, I was able to pursue my other interest in international business by traveling to Santiago, Chile, as part of a global immersion trip with the undergraduate business program. My time in South America strengthened my desire to pursue my international business degree and showed me that entrepreneurship and sustainability are becoming increasingly popular concepts abroad, as well as in the U.S. Ultimately, I would like to work either in the U.S. or abroad in the area of social entrepreneurship. I believe that a localized business model is the key to sustainable enterprise and I am anxious to pursue a business career where I can be part of the transformation that will inevitably integrate sustainability into the core of every business.
Jena Collier, BSBA 2012
It is my hope that at some point in my career, sustainable business will cease to exist. Instead, all businesses of all kinds will be inherently sustainable and environmental impact will no longer be a defining characteristic of a corporation. Until this happens, however, I have decided to become an active participant in the move toward a different paradigm of business in which sustainable practices benefit not only the world at large but also the bottom line.
As a child, I had an unusual fascination with the natural world. When others would watch Nickelodeon, I would watch the Discovery Channel, waiting for an African crocodile to pounce as an unsuspecting zebra crossed the river. I find a peace in nature that I would be dissatisfied to live without. As I began to study the issues which made profitability and environmental progress enemies instead of partners, I realized that the environmental movement was experiencing a significant branding issue. Renewable energy, water efficiency, wildlife conservation and other environmental initiatives were positioned in contrast to business, something for governments and “tree-huggers” to worry about while others made profits.
The problem rests in the fact that, as the predominant institution of the past century, business will be the driving force or the death of many environmental initiatives. As a junior Business Administration major and Sustainability minor, I hope to begin my career in consulting, helping businesses become truly sustainable both environmentally and economically. Paradoxically, if I do my job correctly and sustainable business simply becomes business-as-usual, I know I’ll have been successful if one day, hopefully, I’m out of a job.