Indian American Nikita Ramanujam, Monami Chakraborty Named by Harvard Business School as Goldsmith Fellows
Nikita Ramanujam has been named among the 2021 Goldsmith Fellows by Harvard Business School. (hbs.edu photo)
India-West Staff Reporter
Harvard Business School Sept. 1 announced the 2021 recipients of its Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships, with Indian American student Nikita Ramanujam and Monami Chakraborty named among the 11 honorees.
Ramanujam spent four years as a fourth-grade teacher in the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, Calif. With a commitment to use public education as a vehicle for economic mobility, she built her school’s first data driven framework for allocating academic and mental health services, her bio said.
During Covid, she led plans across the district for digital learning for 15,000 students and safety plans for students to receive learning materials and food.
“My career aspirations leverage a multi-faceted approach across social systems, and HBS will allow me to benefit from the prowess, feedback, and support of current students and alumni,” Ramanujam said.
Chakraborty has spent the last four years at Dasra, India’s leading strategic philanthropy foundation, which has improved development outcomes for over 30 million Indians, her bio notes.
She focused on diligence and capacity building to help leaders scale their operations, working in the founder’s office to develop Dasra’s strategy, and to scale safe and inclusive sanitation solutions in urban India.
“By choosing to continue in a career in development post HBS, I hope to steer strategic, gender-focused investments that yield real social impact,” Chakraborty said.
Established in 1988 by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Richard L. Menschel, a former director of the foundation and a limited partner at Goldman Sachs, to encourage students from the nonprofit and public sector to attend HBS, these fellowships enable the school to award $10,000 to a select number of incoming M.B.A. students.
Beginning with the Class of 1990, 236 incoming students have received the fellowship. Recipients of the award have served in leadership roles in nonprofit and public sector organizations and demonstrate a strong commitment to continued career paths in these areas.
New recipients are invited to participate in events with current and former recipients as well as local social enterprise leaders in an effort to create a network of individuals committed to working in social enterprise.
