Gwennan Hollingworth is a second-year MBA student at the George Washington University School of Business (GWSB), where over 50% of students are international and over 40% are women.
She’s spent a decade working in nonprofits promoting women’s health awareness and gender equality. For three years, she managed multimillion dollar projects at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).
Now, she’s looking to switch from non-profit to for-profit and become a leader in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) space.
At GWSB, she’s well-placed to do so. The school is ranked eighth in the world for CSR by QS. MBA students at GWSB can choose from 200 electives as well as 29 study abroad programs across 18 different countries.
Gwennan is president of GWSB’s Net Impact chapter. This summer, she worked as a sustainability intern at Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the coming years, she expects to see great changes in how businesses are run.
Why is CSR important?
It’s fundamentally a question of how proactive you want to be as a business leader.
With the environmental and social challenges we see today, it makes sense to look at how a company’s business model can move away from simply mitigating the risk these challenges pose to proactively addressing them in their business strategy.
What is the future for women in business? When will the c-suite be occupied by as many women as men?
The future involves these questions not being asked! Personally, I think we need to rethink how we view success, work-life balance and responsibilities, more than focusing on leadership or CEO-level gender breakdowns.
We should build companies that allow everyone to have more balanced work and personal lives. And we should seriously question a society that lionizes men (and women) who spend hundreds of hours a week in the office to the detriment of their families.
It’s about creating a saner life for us all, and equal opportunity for us all, not about getting women into the boardroom as we have it today.
Why did you decide pursue an MBA?
At ICRW, a large part of my responsibilities focused on daily operations; finance, staffing, project management and so on. And it became obvious to me that if I wanted to continue progressing in my career, I would need a firmer grounding in business best practices which I just wasn't getting where I was.
I knew that business school, and those core classes that you have to take, would position me with the sound business skills to complement the experience I've picked up along the way.
Why did you choose to study at GWSB in particular?
GWSB didn’t appear to be solely focused on the more traditional MBA industries like consulting and finance. This spoke to me and my interest in corporate sustainability. I felt like GWSB would be the school in DC that could best position me for those roles.
Plus, GWSB stood because of its positioning at the intersection of business and society. I’ve been in DC for almost a decade and love it here. I wanted to be at a school that really leveraged the fact that this is a great city for interacting with a variety of sectors who are driving interesting thinking and work. GWSB definitely does that!
What stands out from your MBA experience so far?
The awesome classmates and friends I’ve made over the last year. Being exposed to folks from all walks of life, different countries and backgrounds, makes all the difference in shaping your learning in an MBA.
One of the best things I did was go on a short-term study abroad program to Copenhagen, where we looked at the role of CSR in the Scandinavian context. It was a great opportunity and exposed me to the innovative work being done in a number of sectors.
What should applicants think about when deciding to do an MBA?
Take a look at what core classes are, what electives are, and visit the campus to talk to people. Is the school really what it says it is? Will you be lost in the crowd? What are faculty like? Just doing this research allows you to make a judgement call on the people who you’ll be spending a lot of time with.
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