Business & Government Professional Interest Council
2020-2021 Leadership Team
Co-chairs for 2020-2021
Zach de la Rosa is a second-year MPA student and also getting his MBA at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In the past, he has supported migrant farm workers in rural North Carolina, taught math to immigrant high school students on the USA-Mexico border, managed teams to accomplish business projects and initiatives across transportation and finance, and most recently worked with leaders of São Paulo to create a pipeline that will bring youth into the job market with digital skills. He has a particular interest in developing opportunities for students to learn more about Financial Services and FinTech regulatory policy, specifically tradeoffs at the core of financial inclusion efforts. More
Davide Veronese is a second-year MPP student with a background in technology and data science. This past summer, he worked on cross-Harvard Covid-19 modelling; last summer he worked at a government technology VC in London (Public.io), and prior to that he worked with the Italian Digital Transformation Team under the Prime Minister's Office. He has also worked for a top-3 Formula 1 Racing Team as a mathematical modeler transforming wind tunnel data in decision-driving metrics. More
Communications director
Jesse Lin is a first year MPP student at Harvard Kennedy School and he is passionate about the intersection between emerging technologies and public policy. Jesse most recently worked at the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution on emerging technologies including blockchain, AI, and IoT. Earlier in his career, Jesse worked for a Y Combinator-backed e-commerce start-up and at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He graduated summa cum laude in Economics and Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. More
Finance director
Carrie Ruh is a first-year MPP/MBA joint degree student with Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. She is passionate about financial inclusion and spent the past summer working with MIX, a unit at Accion’s Center for Financial Inclusion, researching investment in inclusive fintech. Previously, she worked as an economic consultant at Cornerstone Research, where she performed economic analysis for litigation cases and regulatory investigations. Outside of work, she coordinated the youth empowerment program for a global microfinance network. At HKS, Carrie is eager to explore how businesses and governments can partner to promote financial inclusion and economic development.
Corporate Responsibility sector chairs
Svenja Kirsch is a first year Master in Public Policy Candidate and Fulbright Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School. She focuses her studies on business & government policy and is passionate about corporate policy, CSR, government affairs and sustainability. Prior to HKS, Svenja graduated from an International Relations program and worked in corporate sustainability management in the German automotive industry. This experience informed her desire to help turn American and European corporations with tremendous impact on policymaking into purpose-driven players advocating for societal needs beyond economic benefit by sincerely realizing their corporate social responsibility. Through active policy leadership, Svenja wishes to create public purpose beyond economic gain and envisions to advocate for corporate sustainability as a long-term competitive advantage. With prior experience in academic reviewing, female economic empowerment, political campaigning, political risk analysis and transatlantic think tank research, Svenja is eager to support private-public cooperation on socially responsible business conduct.
Saba Selvaraj worked for over 6+ years at the South Asia practice of commercial diplomacy firm Albright Stonebridge Group, where he led the research team and specialized in technology, renewable and development sectors. He is deeply passionate about improving corporate accountability and enabling tri-sector partnerships. He has developed and taught modules in a leading business school in India on Non-market Strategies and Tri-sector Collaboration, to introduce future leaders to stakeholders beyond the market and effectively collaborate with them. He is currently a Fulbright scholar from India, for the category of international affairs. He graduated with a degree in engineering and studied liberal arts at Ashoka University, as a Young India Fellow. He is passionate about improving India's WASH indicators and women's participation in the work force, and volunteer with organizations seeking to achieve this change. More
Impact Investing sector chair
Louis Chenat is a MidCareer MPA candidate at HKS and chair of the Impact Investing Club. He began his career as an infrastructure finance specialist for the French Development Agency, financing public services for cities around the world. He became economic advisor for the French Government and was responsible for the implementation of a new economic model based on biodiversity in French Guiana. His last position was Senior Manager in Project Finance at EY in Paris. In parallel, Louis is a Lecturer in Public finance for 8 years in France and author of two books and many articles. He is mainly interested in corporate responsibility, environmental finance and carbon pricing. His objective is to work with businesses and investment funds transitioning in a sustainable way. Louis graduated from Sciences Po (MBA) and Sorbonne University (LLM) in Paris. More
Public Health sector chair
Zoe Williams is a masters in public policy candidate at Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to HKS, Zoe worked as a consultant to non-profit hospitals for McKinsey & Company (2017-2019) and as an analyst for federal healthcare programs at the Congressional Budget Office (2014-2017). Zoe received a BA in economics with a concentration in international studies from Davidson College, where she conducted her capstone research in economic and health barriers to female participation in government.
Public-Private Partnerships sector chairs
Godwin Chan is a Mid-Career MPA degree candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. A commercial lawyer with experience in business-government transactions, Godwin has been an elected official in his home city in Canada since 2006. He chairs the city’s economic development committee to direct strategy to promote economic vitality and act as the city’s Business Ambassador to attract inbound investments to the “Smart Place for Business”. He is interested in looking for creating synergies and values in workable public-private partnerships in infrastructure projects such as mass transit and public facilities. As such, he looks forward to an exciting year at the Harvard community to build deeper understanding of the best practices in business and government partnerships.
Yasmin Chen is a first-year MPP student from Germany and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Before HKS, she worked in the financial sector in London, supported the German and Chinese government in building private-public partnerships in sustainable mobility in Beijing, represented the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations in New York in international disarmament and security issues, and most recently interned at a research-based consultancy focusing on China's business and policy nexus in Berlin. Yasmin is particularly interested in advancing private-public partnerships and believes that bringing the public and private sectors together can not only promote social equality and innovations but also enable individuals to achieve their potential and create a greater impact on the society.
Sustainability Consulting sector chair
Siddhant Awasthi is an MPA/MBA dual degree candidate at Harvard Kennedy School and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Before graduate school, Siddhant worked as a public sector consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in India. He has worked with federal, state, and local government agencies as well as with international development finance institutions such as The World Bank and Asian Development Bank to help develop sustainable cities in South Asia. He is passionate about tackling sustainability-related issues from the perspectives of both policy and business. Siddhant has a graduate degree in finance from NMIMS University and an undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from VIT University in India. He has also worked as a medical researcher at Washington University and Imperial College London. LinkedIn URL
Government & Entrepreneurship sector chair
James Moore has lived in Asia for over 10 years working in the retail, consulting, and now government sectors. In the retail industry, he worked as the Beijing Branch Manager for 30 franchise retail stores and later as Sales and Marketing Manager for 200+ stores in Taipei for Sunrider International. In the consulting industry, he worked for IDFL Laboratory and Institute, a quality assurance firm, as the CEO of IDFL Asia, leading a team of 70+ people to service many brand name companies such as IKEA, Costco, Target, GAP, Adidas, etc. Around that time, he became an expert in setting up and managing wholly foreign owned enterprises and local companies, one of which became a multi million dollar business. With the experience of setting up companies, he began partnering with the CEO and others to create five other companies/divisions, four of which were unsuccessful but the fifth is now also a multi million dollar business unit. This entrepreneurial experience was a catalyst that opened the door to obtain a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship, which lead him to the unique opportunity to work for the Chinese government. In the government sector, he worked for the Hangzhou Yuhang Government of China in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Bureau as a Senior Government Consultant,where he was responsible for a variety of economic development, policy, and foreign affairs projects. More
Fintech sector chairs
Carrie Ruh is a first-year MPP/MBA joint degree student with Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. She is passionate about financial inclusion and spent the past summer working with MIX, a unit at Accion’s Center for Financial Inclusion, researching investment in inclusive fintech. Previously, she worked as an economic consultant at Cornerstone Research, where she performed economic analysis for litigation cases and regulatory investigations. Outside of work, she coordinated the youth empowerment program for a global microfinance network. At HKS, Carrie is eager to explore how businesses and governments can partner to promote financial inclusion and economic development.
Zach de la Rosa is a second-year MPA student and also getting his MBA at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In the past, he has supported migrant farm workers in rural North Carolina, taught math to immigrant high school students on the USA-Mexico border, managed teams to accomplish business projects and initiatives across transportation and finance, and most recently worked with leaders of São Paulo to create a pipeline that will bring youth into the job market with digital skills. He has a particular interest in developing opportunities for students to learn more about Financial Services and FinTech regulatory policy, specifically tradeoffs at the core of financial inclusion efforts. More