Oxford MBA’s 2019 Pershing Square Scholars announced

Craig has spent his career at the intersection of digital technology, public policy and the built environment.

As an undergraduate, his research examined how virtual networks enabled new ways for architects to imagine space. After college, he worked at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, researching how city governments leverage advanced data analytics and scale public management best practices. In 2016, he joined the New York City Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics, ultimately serving as its Assistant Director for Policy & Operations. He supported initiatives to improve data stewardship in NYC’s large government bureaucracy, including policies addressing data transparency (open data) and the use of automated data processing in public decision-making.

Craig is interested in learning about the social implications of data processing and technology transfer through the MSc at the Oxford Internet Institute. After business school, he aims to improve how government and businesses put people at the centre of technology development, improving individuals’ power over their personal data and digital lives.

Craig commented: ‘The designs of Internet platforms configure how billions of individuals access public information, earn their livelihoods, and express themselves. Product decisions made by multinational tech companies amount to global public policy decisions. New forms of Internet governance are inevitable, and the 1+1 programme's combination of research rigor and management skills will provide an incomparable preparation to steer these imminent changes to digital and political economy.

I am very grateful to the Pershing Square Foundation and am excited to join such a bright, accomplished cohort of Scholars interested in using the MBA toolkit to improve public policy across the globe.’

Kerry is a specialist in financial inclusion with a strong background in private sector solutions and the development of financial products for ‘base of the pyramid’ consumers.

During her undergraduate career Kerry studied abroad at the American University of Beirut and witnessed the Arab Spring first-hand. After majoring in International Studies at John Hopkins University, Kerry worked in consulting, building a wealth of experience across multiple projects in the finance and technology sectors.

In 2018 she joined Kiva, a non-profit that provides financial support to entrepreneurs. As a Kiva Fellow, she optimised operational processes in some of the Middle East’s largest microfinance institutions.

She most recently served as the Inclusive Fintech Ambassador at MIX in India, where she was a contributing force in the standardisation of a taxonomy to assess and valuate inclusive fintechs, a much-needed mechanism for impact investors.

Kerry commented: ‘The Oxford 1+1 MBA will allow me to perfectly customise my higher education experience and align it with my long-term career goals by combining an MBA with an MPP.

Increasingly, financial technology is colliding with programming designed to catalyse economic empowerment at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. Policy makers will have to better coordinate with the private sector and sustainable business propositions in order to fully unlock the macroeconomic benefits of financial inclusion, which includes products like credit, savings and insurance. For these ambiguous industries, there is rarely a graduate course of study that adequately captures the complexities or cross-sectional nature of their operations.’

Natalia aspires to lead in Paraguay’s public sector by leveraging public-private models for inclusive growth and the reduction of inequality.

During her undergraduate studies, Natalia began working for the Inter-American Development Bank in Paraguay and upon graduation became the bank’s youngest Operations Analyst Consultant. She executed and supervised sovereign guaranteed loan projects and technical cooperation’s primarily in the area of financial markets. She later took a leading role in the Minister of Youth’s team, as Coordinator of Paraguay's Youth Public Policy 2030. She led meetings and discussed the policy draft with the public, private and academic sectors and travelled across the country to meet with students.

Natalia, who is beginning the MBA this year, hopes that her time in Oxford will equip her to lead in the creation of opportunities that will allow the world’s most vulnerable populations to succeed.

Natalia commented: ‘The Pershing Square Scholarship will give me the opportunity to combine my interests in public policy and the MBA, to work for the reduction of inequality and an increase in sustainable economic development in Latin America and especially in my country Paraguay. It will allow me to design inclusive growth policies through public-private interventions which are crucial for reducing the unequal growth rates between social development and economic growth.

I chose the Oxford 1+1 MBA because it will provide me with the analytical tools necessary to understand in greater depth how the public and private sectors work most effectively together to achieve greater inclusive growth. This year I look forward to applying my perspective of public policy in the MBA programme.’

Alexis hopes to address global problems associated with the current ‘take-make-dispose’ model of waste management and make plastic-free living more widespread and accessible.

Alexis spent three years at the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a secondee from the Gallifrey Foundation, a small philanthropic foundation. Alexis created Plastic Free Campus, a programme supporting schools to go single-use plastic free. Realising that there were not enough educational materials on plastic for children in low-income countries, she established partnerships with United Nations agencies to develop and publish two comic books on plastic pollution, which have since been translated into eight languages.

Alexis is the youngest member of the Plastic Pollution Emissions Working Group, a multinational research group. It assesses the effectiveness of plastic pollution policies by modelling them against measurable changes in plastic leakage to the oceans, to help ensure that policymakers have the necessary data to design effective solutions.

After Oxford, she hopes to work with the Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector to implement science-driven sustainability strategies that minimise waste footprints while still producing profits.

Alexis commented: ‘To me, this scholarship means a vote of confidence in future business leaders that come from non-traditional backgrounds. The 1+1 programme at Oxford will equip me with the skills I seek to hold the business world accountable for its impact on people and the planet. This opportunity facilitates my ability to change the rules of the game. It’s an enormous privilege and I am truly grateful to the Pershing Square Foundation and to Saïd Business School.’

Sophia seeks to reverse deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and is the founder and CEO of Forest Fund Co, which works directly with local landowners to address the dynamics of land use and degradation.

After growing up in Ecuador, Sophia moved to Brazil before completing secondary school and college in the United States. Research for her college thesis took her to Juína-MT, Brazil, to speak to ranchers living at the deforestation forefront. Upon leaving college, she founded Forest Fund Co.

Three main areas of focus have emerged: standing forest conservation, reforestation of hydrologically sensitive areas and tree crops. Pilot projects in all three areas have provided her with a foundation that she is eager to strengthen and broaden during her studies at Oxford.

During her time in Juína Sophia also co-founded an English school that now boasts over 150 students.

Sophia commented: ‘The Pershing Square Scholarship ensures my autonomy and freedom. This support and mentorship fuels my ambition to bring transformative change to the deforestation forefront of the Amazon Rainforest.

Solutions to environmental degradation require a strong foundation in both science and socio-economic incentives. The MSc in Environmental Change and Management and Oxford MBA will allow me to strengthen that foundation. I am most excited to learn and collaborate with people from all over the world at such a pivotal moment.’