Private Sector
Rye Barcott
MBA/MPA 2009 | Special Adviser to the Chairman and CEO | Duke Energy | Charlotte, NC
Rye is a Special Adviser to the Chairman and CEO of Duke Energy and co-founder of Carolina for Kibera, a non-governmental organization that uses participatory development to break cycles of violence and develop leaders in the Kibera area of Nairobi, Kenya. He is the author of It Happened on the Way to War, a memoir of his experiences as a U.S. Marine Corps Captain and in founding Carolina for Kibera. Rye is a TED Fellow (Technology, Entertainment, Design) and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He formerly served as a member of the Board of Trustees of World Learning, the parent organization of the School for International Training, and was appointed to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board by President Obama in March 2012. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MPA from HKS, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Reynolds Social Entrepreneurship Fellow.
Georgeta Dragoiu
MPP 2013 | Managing Director | MDC Strategies | Washington, DC
Georgeta grew up in a working-class immigrant neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, earning a scholarship to become the first in her family to go to college. Georgeta graduated with honors from the University of Chicago and later earned a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. Her first-hand experience with injustice and poverty led her to focus on domestic and international development, and citizen empowerment. For the last three years, she has been a key architect in the business development, launch and management of an East African start-up that empowers citizens with mobile and internet platforms. Recently she worked with the Obama campaign to create and execute a metrics-driven GOTV and digital media strategy to increase Cuban-American voter turnout in Miami, helping President Obama become the first Democrat to win a majority of Cuban-American voters in South Florida since 1959. While at HKS, Georgeta co-authored a policy analysis for the State Department (Office of Innovation) on updating export controls for the internet age—this experience deepened her interest in initiatives that apply technology solutions to societal problems. At MDC, Georgeta is a strategy and engagement advisor to investors, non-profit and government leaders. She draws on her experience with tech start-ups in the U.S., field work with the World Bank in Latin America and Africa, and electoral politics to inform clients on turning their resources into the power they need to catalyze change, and to connect her clients with an unrivaled network in business and government.
Nick Grudin
MPP 2006 | Strategic Partnership Development | Facebook | Menlo Park, CA
Nick Grudin leads Community Partnerships at Facebook. His team is responsible for global partnerships with content creators and public figures seeking to integrate social interaction into traditional media and audience engagement. Prior to Facebook, he was VP of Business Development at Newsweek, where he led new enterprises and partnerships. Previously, Nick was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, focused on mobile strategy, online marketing, and organizational transformation. He has also worked as a newspaper reporter, including freelance coverage of national real estate trends for the New York Times. Nick serves on the advisory board at the NYU-SCPS Center for Publishing. He graduated from Pomona College with a BA in Cognitive Science & Linguistics, and he received a Master’s in Public Policy from HKS.
Rebecca Hummel
MPP 2007 | Senior Advisor, Corporate Responsibility | Chevron Corporation | Washington, DC
Rebecca is Senior Advisor, Corporate Responsibility, at Chevron. Previously, she served as a Senior Advisor in the State Department’s Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan & Pakistan, where she was a member of the political team focusing on transition and a political settlement for Afghanistan. Prior to joining the State Department, Rebecca worked in Afghanistan for USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, managing program implementation for the Afghanistan Stabilization Initiative from July 2009 to February 2011. She was based at Bagram Air Field in Regional Command East, and later was embedded with an infantry Army battalion in Kunar Province implementing development programs in three border districts east of the Kunar River. She also spent time in Nangarhar Province at the Brigade and Company levels. Prior to USAID, Rebecca served as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs from 2007-2009, focusing on counter-terrorism and non-proliferation. Overseas experience, in addition to the 18 months in Afghanistan, includes Islamabad, Pakistan and Cape Town, South Africa. Rebecca completed her Master in Public Policy at HKS in June 2007. At HKS, she was involved in The Broadmoor Project, facilitating community redevelopment efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans, and co-authored a guidebook detailing the community-driven planning process. She is a graduate of Pomona College and a native of Pasadena, California.
Lakshmi Iyer
MPP 2011 | Associate | FSG | Seattle, WA
Lakshmi is an Associate at FSG. Before FSG, Lakshmi managed the strategy and implementation of corporate social responsibility for an Indian multinational, the Mahindra Group, where she implemented community development projects in education, health, and environment across the country and also managed a successful employee engagement program for 40,000 employees. She began her career in the nonprofit sector where she mobilized funds for a national helpline and outreach service for children called Childline. Equipped with a background in social work, she has worked directly to grant rights to victims of human rights violations, bring systems in place in juvenile-justice institutions, and provide livelihood skills to marginalized youth in India. More recently, she worked with the United Nations in their Office for Partnerships division and the World Bank’s Financial and Private Sector Development division where she conducted an analysis on the impact of allowing 100% Foreign Direct Investment in the Indian retail sector. In addition to her MPP from the Kennedy School, Lakshmi has a Master in Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a Bachelors in Management, University of Mumbai.
Ryan Johnson
MC-MPA 2012 | Senior Manager | Accenture | Washington, DC
Ryan is a Senior Manager with Accenture, where he works within the company’s not-for-profit international development consultancy, Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP). Ryan’s experience includes designing, formulating, and mobilizing a global cross-sector partnership, the Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation, a Kenya-based public private partnership focused on innovative approaches to youth HIV prevention.; researching sustainable value creation with Fortune 500 CEOs, including work with the Center for Effective Corporate Philanthropy to publish Business at Its Best: Driving Sustainable Value Creation; and contributing to thought leadership related to cross-sector collaboration. Ryan has an MPA from the Kennedy School and a BA from Georgetown University.
Erica Matthews
MPP 2009 | Senior Director, Office of the Chairman and CEO | PepsiCo | Purchase, NY
Erica was previously Director of Public Policy and Sustainability with PepsiCo’s Public Policy and Government Affairs Department. In this role she led engagement with external stakeholder groups such as investors, NGOs and industry groups on sustainability issues, and was administrator of the Public Policy Coordinating Group, a cross-functional team responsible for key sustainability-related policy and strategy decisions. Erica worked with internal subject matter experts across global functions to implement the company’s “Performance with Purpose” strategy, in particular, leading the company’s human rights management strategy. Previously, Erica worked at ExxonMobil, where she led the company’s environmental, social and governance disclosure. She also spent over five years at the OECD, as Manager for the Global Initiative to Measure the Progress of Societies. She has spent time at Procter and Gamble working on a public-private partnership to combat childhood malnutrition and has held internships at C-SPAN and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Erica holds an MPP from the Kennedy School, and completed her undergraduate degree at DePauw University.
Audrey Phillipot
MPA 2012 | Senior Manager | Synergos Consulting Services | New York, NY
Audrey co-leads Synergos Consulting Services, a consulting unit advising multinational companies seeking to create sustainable business solutions and to generate a social impact in developing markets. Before joining Synergos, Audrey was a consultant for about ten years, mostly in the private sector. During her time as a strategy and management consultant at McKinsey and then internally within LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) she advised multinational companies on their strategy and operations and led transformation projects for them. She also worked for several NGOs in developing countries, across Asia and Africa, where she was mostly focusing on the development of entrepreneurship. She was also a Short-Term Consultant at the World Bank in the Investment Climate team, advising governments on the policy reforms required to enhance the ease of doing business in their countries. Audrey holds both a Master in Business from HEC in France and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Simon Rowell
MPA 2012 | Strategy and Market Development Associate | Big Society Capital | London, UK
Simon is a Strategy and Market Development Associate at Big Society Capital, based in London. Big Society Capital is often described as "the world's first social investment bank" and is tasked with building a strong, diverse and sustainable social investment market in the UK through acting as a wholesale funder of innovative social investment intermediaries and a market champion for the broader sector in this dynamic stage of its development. Simon works with multiple external stakeholders to develop and implement strategy to promote effective social investment intermediary business models as well as shape the external environment of legislation and policy to facilitate market development. Simon holds an MPA from HKS. Before coming to the Kennedy School, he worked as an international corporate lawyer for Linklaters LLP in London, Shanghai and Moscow, and advised multinational companies and investment funds on their strategic activities including acquisitions, capital raisings and joint ventures.
Marika McCauley Sine
MPP 2005 | International Public Affairs Director | The Coca-Cola Company | Atlanta, GA
Marika is International Public Affairs Director at The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia. She works on sustainability strategy, policy and communications with a focus on economic development, women’s empowerment and human rights in collaboration with government and civil society stakeholders. Before joining Coca-Cola, Marika worked with Oxfam America and other non-profit organizations on poverty alleviation, microfinance and rural livelihoods in the United States and Asia. As an AmeriCorps Fellow with the Congressional Hunger Center, she recommended ways to improve anti-hunger programs in the United States. Marika received her Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She is an Aspen Institute First Mover Fellow and a member of Georgia State University’s Corporate Responsibility Advisory Board. Marika hails from Hawaii and has lived in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Honor McGee
MPP 2014 | Account Executive | Edelman | New York, New York
Honor McGee is an Account Executive with the Business + Social Purpose Team at Edelman, the world's largest public relations firm. Previously, she was an intern at the White House on the Presidential Personnel Office on the National Security Team. Honor worked as Call Time Manager for the Kendrick Meek for U.S. Senate Campaign in South Florida and then as Director of Development for Alonzo Mourning Charities (AMC). Her areas of interest and research include corporate social responsibility, impact investing, philanthropy, and public service. Honor is a graduate of Harvard College (2010) with a B.A. in History and Literature/Post-Colonial Studies and holds an MPP from HKS, where her thesis looked at the U.S. State Department's Global Partnership Initiative, and where she currently serves as Research Fellow for CRI.
Rick Relinger
MPP 2014 | CSR Supervisor | PVH | New York, New York
Rick is a CSR Supervisor at PVH, the clothing company that owns brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein and licenses brands that include BCBG Max Azria, Sean John, and Kenneth Cole New York. He previously served as Accountability Program Intern at the Fair Labor Association, and taught middle and high school social studies in Apache Junction, Arizona, as a Teach for America Corps Member. Rick graduated from the University of California, San Diego, where he researched the impact of free trade agreements on labor rights and served as an Obama delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He holds an MPP from HKS, where he served as President of the Business and Government Professional Interest Council and as a Research Associate for CRI.
Athol Williams
MC-MPA 2013 | Independent Consultant | London, UK
Athol is a strategist and social entrepreneur involved in a range of activities that seek to “inspire and enable others to thrive,” from advising national governments and multinational corporations to supporting organizations that care for the homeless. His most recent venture is Read to Rise which distributes and reads books to Grade 3 students in poor South African communities. Athol is a former Partner at strategy consulting firm, Bain & Company, working in their Boston, London and Johannesburg offices. In addition, he has worked in mining finance, financial services and private equity. In 2002 he founded Taurus Associates, a strategy consulting firm and in 2011 founded an offshoot, Taurus School Solutions which consults to the education sector, for which he received an award from the South African Institute for Advancement in 2012. He has served on the boards of numerous community development and educational NGOs. Athol holds an MPA from HKS, where he received a Lucius N. Littauer Award, an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an MS in Finance from the London Business School and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) studying Political Theory.
Jessica Droste Yagan
MPA 2007 | Director of Sustainable Supply | McDonald's USA | Chicago, IL
Jessica is Director of Sustainable Supply for McDonald’s USA. In this role, she is responsible for leading and advancing the U.S. sustainable supply strategy in partnership with the Supply Chain Management team and McDonald’s suppliers. Prior to her current position, Jessica served as Senior Manager of Sustainable Supply Chain supporting the McDonald’s Worldwide Supply Chain and Corporate Social Responsibility teams. She played a key leadership role in integrating sustainability into McDonald’s global supply strategies. Among many accomplishments, she headed the global Sustainable Supply Steering Committee, served on the global beef, poultry, fish, and packaging global product boards, developed the Sustainable Land Management Commitment, helped assess the sustainability impacts of our supply chain, managed emerging issues, collected information for CSR reporting, and supported the development of communication and education materials. Prior to beginning her work with McDonald’s in 2006, Jessica consulted with city, non-profit, and corporate clients in the areas of strategic and financial planning as well as corporate social responsibility. Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and an MPA from HKS. While in graduate school, she co-authored two Harvard case studies, including one on McDonald’s supply chain. In 2010, she received the McDonald’s President’s Award which recognizes the top one percent of McDonald’s employees who achieve considerable results in strategic initiatives. She has been a member of the McDonald’s Working Mother’s Council since 2008 and served on its steering committee from 2008 until 2010.