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Center for Sustainable Business | Sustainability and Human Rights Summer Fellowship

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Career Development

MBA Sustainability and Human Rights Summer Fellowship

The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business offer first-year MBA students a paid opportunity to work at a company on sustainability and human rights issues during their summer. Students will participate in a pre-internship training and become deeply immersed in sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and human rights issues faced by their company through their summer internship.

Applications are now open for the 2023 Cohort and will close on February 5, 2023. Host companies include Eventide, Gore Mutual, K02 Consulting, Nespresso, Tory Burch, and Williams Sonoma.
 


Summer 2022 Fellowship Recipients

Kirsten Abel's Headshot

Kirsten Abel (MBA '23) – Kyndryl

Kirsten will lead two high visibility projects in our Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Practice. In the first, she will leverage materiality assessment results to drive impact and inform ESG strategy and in the second, she will conduct research to develop innovative ESG offerings to support impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and business growth.

Read about Kirsten's experience
Isa Ballard Headshot

Isa Ballard (MBA '23) – Williams-Sonoma, Inc

Isa will work with Williams-Sonoma, Inc. on projects related to supply chain innovation, sustainability, circular economy, worker education and empowerment, and ESG reporting. The post will involve research, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and strategy development.

Read about Isa's experience
Abbey Chase Headshot

Abbey Chase (MBA '23) – New Balance

Abbey will support New Balance on their fair compensation work and supply chain responsible leadership program.

Read about Abbey's experience
Yurany Hernandez Headshot

Yurany Hernandez (MBA '23) – Gore Mutual Insurance

Yurany will work on two projects with Gore Mutual: one focusing on CSB's Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) methodology and the other to support with developing a framework for the launch of their ESG program.

Read about Yurany's experience
Puja Kenia Headshot

Puja Kenia (MBA '23) – Natoora

Puja will chart a course that is both sustainable and impactful at a global scale. She will work with stakeholders of Sourcing, Operations, Business Intelligence, Tech, Service Delivery and Education, matching everyday business as usual requirements with ambitious targets for carbon neutrality.

Read about Puja's experience
Sophie Kennedy Headshot

Sophie Kennedy (MBA '23) – Nespresso

Sophie will support Nespresso's social and environmental impact. Some deliverables will include the development of social impact strategy, including BCorp principles, of competitors and other certified BCorp companies of similar size and/or industry, conduct research of end-of-life capsules for selected key markets, help drive the environmental strategy/plan, and support waste audits at our head office and/or local boutique locations

Read about Sophie's experience

Summer 2021 Fellowship Recipients

Marta Alvarez Pascual (MBA '22) – BBMG

Marta supported the BBMG team in creating content for brand and innovation projects, support project management directly with clients, and research and synthesize brand landscapes and consumer reports.
Read about Marta's experience

Madeline Cleland (MBA '22) – Applegate

Maddie assisted Applegate with its Meat Solutions Index (MSI) tool while making the connection back to the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) model. The MSI tool contemplates a range of factors that can impact the Human Health, Environmental Footprint and Animal Welfare associated with various innovation platforms and potential improvements that can be resourced and advanced to improve the meat system.
Read about Maddie's experience

Taylor Donegan (MBA '22) – MarketAxess

Taylor worked across Sales, Marketing, Research, and Finance teams to investigate and identify areas for growth in sustainability and will examine the company’s carbon footprint, monetize sustainability efforts and goals, and help to develop a concrete ESG strategy that can be implemented across departments at all levels.
Read about Taylor's experience

Lucie Holliday (MBA '22) – King Arthur Baking Company

Lucie assisted King Arthur Baking Company on projects to operationalize the company’s ambitious sustainability goals and embed their purpose further upstream in the supply chain
Read about Lucie's experience

Pedro Gasparian Calil Jardim (MBA '22) – Microsoft

Pedro will be responsible for supporting priority human rights due diligence of sales and business activities; helping to draft Microsoft’s annual human rights transparency report, and helping to prepare the Human Rights Team’s participation at the UN General Assembly.
Read about Pedro's experience

Nadia Huffer (MBA '22) – Microsoft

Nadia will be responsible for supporting priority human rights due diligence of sales and business activities; helping to draft Microsoft’s annual human rights transparency report, and helping to prepare the Human Rights Team’s participation at the UN General Assembly.

Saumya Wali (MBA '22) – Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

Saumya worked with Williams-Sonoma, Inc. on projects related to supply chain innovation, sustainability, circular economy, worker education and empowerment, and ESG reporting. The post will involve research, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and strategy development.
Read about Saumya's experience

Summer 2020 Fellowship Recipients

Ross Jaffe (MBA '21) - National Grid

Joss applied the ROSI framework to two National Grid investments in energy efficiency and net-zero buildings. This project represents an early attempt by National Grid to monetize its sustainability efforts and, more importantly, a commitment to the energy transition that we need.
Read about Ross's experience

Elizabeth John (MBA '21) - Williams Sonoma, Inc

Liz examined William Sonoma Inc’s supply chain, learning how they onboard vendors and track vendor data across their 8 brands, including creating and implementing a baseline survey for West Elm LOCAL vendors to inform their commitments to the 15% Pledge.
Read about Liz's experience

Rebecca Meyer (MBA '21) - Calvert

Rebecca's central project was to assess corporate responses to COVID-19 across the Packaged Food & Meats industry, the Restaurant industry, and the Financial Services sector to help build the firm’s understanding of how corporate resilience is connected to overall ESG performance
Read about Rebecca's experience

Leora Rosenberg (MBA '21) - Nespresso

Leora analyzed how communications highlighting sustainability could enhance Nespresso’s brand identity and support its consumer and sales channel marketing goals.
Read more about Leora's experience

Lily Warnke (MBA '21) - Microsoft

Lily's work included a series of memoranda on how to best ground emergency responses to COVID-19 in human rights principles. In light of evidence that nations around the world have derogated their human rights commitments in order to enact necessary emergency measures, Lily researched ways to protect civilians’ privacy and rights.
Read about Lily's experience

Summer 2019 Fellowship Recipients

Jamison A. Friedland (MBA '20) - Rainforest Alliance

Jamison produced an investment plan for financing smallholder tree crop farmers throughout the world, with a specific focus on cocoa farmers in West Africa.
Read about Jamison's experience

Tara McHugh (MBA '20) - West Elm

Tara evaluated the Social Consciousness & Innovation team's marketing communication efforts by mapping their strategy across channels. She also analyzed West Elm’s reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), focusing specifically on social compliance disclosures.
Read about Tara's experience

Leah Naidorf (MBA '20) - Nespresso

Leah relaunched Nespresso's B2B recycling program, which allows their B2B clients to return their used aluminum coffee capsules to one of Nespresso's partner recycling facilities.
Read about Leah's experience

Sam Wallace (MBA '20) - Microsoft

Sam worked on a research project for the human rights team at Microsoft focused on AI in the military. He conducted due diligence into the potential for Microsoft to be linked to human rights harms from future sales in this area, and to recommend areas for further focus.
Read about Sam's experience

Additional Summer 2019 Fellows

Kyu Sung Kim (MBA '20) - IFC
Junyi Wang (MBA '20) - IFC


Summer 2018 Fellowship Recipients

Stephanie Chen (MBA '19) - International Finance Corporation

Stephanie researched and developed sector-specific metrics to monitor and assess IFC’s climate-related investments. Specifically, she prepared the Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) guidance for Investment Officers on the definition and potentials of CSA and the different metrics used to determine the climate-related impacts of the CSA investments.
Read about Stephanie's experience

Yen Chiang (MBA '19) - West Elm 

Yen's work focused on the LOCAL program, in which West Elm stores curate selections of locally-made products and host events with creative small businesses. With her team, she surveyed LOCAL makers to learn more about their experiences as creative small business owners and how LOCAL helps (or could help) them reach their business objectives.
Read about Yen's experience

Julianne DeMarco (MBA '19) - Bloomberg

Julianne assisted with the preparation for Bloomberg's annual internal conference, where the relevant contacts in the businesses get together to share what they’ve been working on and their plans for the upcoming year. She also researched the corporate governance of specific companies and executive compensation.
Read about Julianne's experience

Interested in hosting a fellow or applying for a position?

Contact Us

sustainablebusiness@stern.nyu.edu