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Name: Lindsay Stradley
Job: Co-Founder at Sanergy
Current City: Nairobi, Kenya
School: Yale - Class of 2003
Major: American Studies
Social Media:
After GraduationI have always been passionate about and committed to cities. As I graduated from college, I was determined to carve a career path that somehow tackled issues of urban poverty. I joined Teach For America (TFA) for three main reasons: 1) I love children and teaching, and am committed to closing the achievement gap in US education. 2) I wanted a job that would challenge and stretch me – and give me the opportunity to lead. 3) I wanted to develop a deeper understanding of the inner city than I could get in a college seminar class or as student volunteer. After joining TFA, I moved to New Orleans to teach high school math. Two weeks into my third year of teaching, Hurricane Katrina devastated my city. I soon wrote a charter to convert my traditional public school into a charter school – and became the Assistant School Director, essentially filling the role of a COO. With that experience, I plunged head first into the world of social entrepreneurship. Recognizing skills I still needed to develop in order to increase my impact on the people and issues I cared about, I decided to switch sectors to learn from an innovative private sector company. I worked in sales & operations at Google for three years. I learned a lot and loved my colleagues, but always knew I’d soon be heading back to social impact work. To hone my quantitative analytic skills and develop the contacts for my next move, I left Google to pursue an MBA at MIT. There I met the two other co-founders of my current social enterprise, Sanergy. AdviceI wholeheartedly believe that you learn best by doing. Because I dove headfirst into challenging situations in my first few years out of college, I got so much more out of my more recent experiences – and believe I’ve contributed far more than I would have had I tried to chart a more cautious course. |
Contact:
If you're interested in global social enterprise, check out my company's website: http://saner.gy, and feel free to contact me via the information posted there.
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