MBA Purposeful Career Insights & Recommendations from Inspiring Capital MBA Impact Fellows

Written By: Camila Magendzo

The Inspiring Capital MBA Impact Fellowship is a professional development opportunity that provides knowledge, tools, and community for MBAs committed to using their business education as a force for good seeking to grow purposefully into a high-impact professional. Topics covered include latest thinking and practice in social and environmental impact, as well as the skills and personal development tools required to navigate a successful purpose-driven career. The program is fully virtual, designed to complement any summer internship, regardless of location, industry, or project assignment.

Today we are interviewing Simonil Rustomji, a 2018 Inspiring Capital MBA Impact Fellowship alumni. She talks about the important role the IC Fellowship played in her professional development, how it impacted her understanding of a purposeful career, and offers her advice to current MBA students.

Tell us about yourself! What is your name, university and program that you attended, your IC Impact Fellowship year and your professional career?

My name is Sim Rustomji and I’m originally from Mumbai, India. I completed the Michigan Ross MBA program. I graduated in 2019 and I was an IC MBA Fellow in 2018. After my MBA I moved back to India and am currently freelancing with two different companies. One of them is a sustainable furniture company based out of New York, and I work with them on operations and strategy projects. I am also working with a CSR consulting firm here in Mumbai.

What was your background before the IC MBA Impact Fellowship?

I did my undergrad in accounting and finance, but started my career directly in the social impact space. I started out in an urban microfinance institution in India where I was doing a lot of operations and field work interacting with clients. Then, I moved into a CSR consulting firm, which is the same one that I’m currently doing consulting for. There I was doing project management and business development. It was a client facing strategy role. Finally, I made a slightly different transition into my family’s furniture manufacturing business in an operational role.

What led you to pursue your MBA? When you started your MBA, what did you think your ideal purposeful career would be?

I’ve always been interested in the social impact space, but for some reason as I was always wary of entering the nonprofit space specifically. I always thought I wanted to be in social enterprise instead. A big realization for me when I actually entered the workforce was that the issue was not with nonprofits specifically. What scared me was the idea that nonprofits were not being run by traditional business principles, which is a big misconception I had. I ended up realizing that all organizations need strong business principles to run effectively, whether it is a nonprofit or for-profit.

As I went through my different work experiences, I realized I wanted to get an MBA so that I could get the frameworks I needed to get into leadership roles and eventually become an entrepreneur. I knew I wanted to be at the intersection of business and impact, and an MBA was going to help me achieve that. When I initially went into business school, I thought that my ideal purposeful career would be at a large impact consulting firm. This changed after my summer with Inspiring Capital.

How did the IC MBA Impact Fellowship change/influence your career path and thinking around a “purposeful career”?

In many ways business school is like a bubble. You can get sucked in by what your peers are doing. The Inspiring Capital Fellowship really helped me ground myself again and establish who I was and what it was that I really enjoyed doing.

The entire experience, especially the professional and personal development aspects of it, gave me time to introspect, take a step back and evaluate what I really wanted to do in the long-term.

I realized I wanted to eventually be an entrepreneur. One of the key things I wanted to get after my MBA was the ground knowledge of what it really meant to be a social entrepreneur. That was going to be my purposeful career. I wanted to be in the social impact space and at a small company, so that I could really see the impact of the work that I was doing and be a first-hand decision maker.

What role does professional development work play in helping someone identify or pursue a purposeful career?

I think professional and personal development work gives you a lot of clarity on what you want, who you are and what you have to offer. It helps you be more intentional about that things that you do and the goals you pursue, so that you don’t just fall into things.

Through this work you build a roadmap for yourself that helps you intentionally fight for what you want. However, it is a process of continuous growth. You have to regularly invest in your professional development as your career progresses.

What would you tell an MBA interested in a purposeful career?

One of the things I wish I had known before I want to business school is to keep an open mind. Again, during your MBA you can end up with blinders because there is a lot happening on campus. It’s important to keep an open mind and to remember that at the end of the day the job you get will just be your first job out of school and is not the rest of your life. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Take the right step towards what you want to do in the long-term, but it doesn’t have to check all the boxes just as long as it gets you excited. We try and answer all the questions in those two years and it’s just too overwhelming. Remember to keep an open mind and be okay with not having everything turn out exactly according to a checklist.

Inspiring Capital is a NYC-based B Corp that offers learning and development services for professionals and organizations. Inspiring Capital’s mission is to guide people to meaningful lives. IC exists to give others the permission, invitations, tools, guidance, inspiration, and accountability that we all want and need to grow purposefully toward our wholehearted potential. So that, together, we can build healthier, fairer, more inclusive, equitable, just, and regenerative teams, organizations, societies, and economies.

Learn more about Inspiring Capital here.

Learn more about Inspiring Capital Impact Fellowship here.

Watch an Informational Webinar on YouTube to learn more about Summer 2021 IC MBA Impact Fellowship details, logistics and program adjustments here.