Sustainability Leadership Capstone - UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

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Shaping Leaders, Driving Results

Sustainability Leadership Capstone

Course Description

Designed for a select group of second-year MBA students, the Sustainability Leadership Capstone (formerly the Sustainability Immersion) challenges participants to integrate the entire MBA experience through a sustainability lens. By getting out of the classroom and into real-world engagements with depth and extended reflection, students are immersed in strategies for how to use business as an engine for global social and environmental change.

Quick Facts

  • Mod IV, second-year MBA students
  • 6 credit hours, no other courses taken
  • Competitive application process
  • $2500 course fee, student loan eligible
  • 3 days in Eastern North Carolina
  • 2 weeks in Eastern Africa
  • Real world; real problems; real impact

Sample Engagements

  • Carolina for Kibera – Design of an employment and financial inclusion project for youth in Nairobi, Kenya
  • Cherokee Gives Back – Analysis of community development earned income strategy in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia
  • Yehu Microfinance – Development of essential entrepreneurship training modules in Mombasa, Kenya
  • Analysis of the impact of expanding health care to include dental services in Eastern North Carolina

Leadership Team

Lisa Jones Christensen, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Nicholas Didow, Associate Professor of Marketing
Christopher Wedding, Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Jessica Thomas, Managing Director, CSE
Tracy Triggs-Matthews, Assistant Director, CSE

Learn More

In the UNC Kenan-Flagler Sustainability Blog, read an interview with Professor Lisa Jones Christensen about the creation of the course and student reflections on the 2012 Sustainability Leadership Capstone :

For questions contact Tracy Triggs-Matthews
or 919.962.1499

Sustainability Leadership Capstone - Center for Sustainable Enterprise

Kevin Seals (MBA ’12)

"The Sustainability Leadership Capstone was the ideal course with which to finish off the MBA. The real-world projects are the perfect bridge from MBA to post-MBA professional life."

Sustainability Leadership Capstone - Center for Sustainable Enterprise

Kellan Dickens (MBA ’12)

"The course challenged me to not only think deeply about important global issues (poverty, equality, environmental) but to actually have a hand in solving them...Our class had a real, measurable, valuable impact on our local community (Durham), our state (Eastern North Carolina) and the world (Kenya & Ethiopia). How can you beat that?"

Sustainability Leadership Capstone - Center for Sustainable Enterprise

Nimit Arora (MBA ’12)

"It was an excellent course and one of the best things that I have done in business school."

Sustainability in Practice - Center for Sustainable Enterprise

Applying classroom knowledge to real-world business

"UNC Kenan-Flagler provided me with an experience that was beyond my expectation. I had the opportunity to work with companies that ranged from local to multinational, which gave me a broader, more practical perspective about sustainability.

Real-world business projects provided a platform to apply the business knowledge I gained in the classroom and helped me to understand more about the business tools that can be used to address sustainability challenges. I don’t think I could have found such experiences at any other program."

- Sumeth Suwanpusaporn (MBA ’10), Supply Chain Consultant, Accenture Thailand

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