Our guest for today, Alejandra Arrué Lou, is a solutionist implementing new creative solutions at the intersection of business, social impact, and innovation. She has worked for Deloitte Consulting and IDEO, and is currently a Consortium & Forte Fellow at Berkeley Haas.

Spending her early years in Guatemala City and moving to the US when she was nine years old, Alejandra experienced different cultures at a young age. It might seem like a difficult transition; yet, she felt fortunate and privileged to have the best of both worlds.  

In this episode, Alejandra shares her experiences from going to a women's college, the time she spent with Teach for America, and how she ended up consulting to build up her leadership skills. She also tells us her reasons for pursuing an MBA and her experiences as Consortium & Forte Fellow.

Episode Quotes: 

On leaving Guatemala City for the US during Thanksgiving and what the holiday meant for her

“I came on what I think is the best holiday in the United States. You get to celebrate being together. It's a complicated holiday but I can't help but also recognize the beauty in coming together on a non-denominational holiday and it doesn't often happen in countries outside of the United States. So, there's sort of that beauty of opportunity of this American dream, of being in a place that it's so culturally diverse that you can sit in a table with people who look different from you. And it's such a privilege and such an awesome thing to claim that I can experience and hold dear both of those two cultures and people and experiences together.”

On going to Barnard College

“That journey of attending a women's college really helped me come out of my shell. It allowed me to be surrounded by talented and empowering women. I think college isn't just about the brand of the school; it's also about what do you get out of it and how much you're able to grow.”

On becoming a teacher

“In my mind, I thought I was going to become a humanitarian lawyer. I was thinking about what will my next two years after graduation look like? What kind of skills and experiences do I want to gain in order to get there? I met a number of Teach for America alums, fellows, and current members and I was humbled about what they did. I also knew that I could help and use my really young spirit and energy to do something good for the world. And so I ended up deciding to apply and do Teach for America for a few years, gain a lot of skills, see how I can directly help communities and be exposed to that and really absorb because, in my opinion, it's much harder to help and solve and do social impact without understanding the realities of the day to day.”

On pivoting from a school teacher to consulting

“I realized that as much as I could be helpful being a teacher, I had better ideas on how to change workforce compositions or how to drive better organizational change, or how to upskill teachers and help them be more successful in the classroom. I just had all these ideas about how to change from a systems perspective and realize that I could make a better impact by doing that type of work.

I was also doing some policy work at the Department of Education and my boss at the time had been a former consultant. And then just having those conversations about how I think I could solve public education and the gaps in the system, she recommended that I think about consulting, sort of spending some time really building my skills as a leader, as a thought provoker, and then seeing where that would take me. And so, I certainly agreed with her that it was the right direction. That road took me to consulting specifically working within the human capital sphere and thinking a lot about organizational and workforce transformation.”

On pursuing an MBA

“I was very focused on the social sciences and systems thinking and I think that is certainly where I get a lot of my intellectual energy and I love thinking that way. But I also recognize the gaps in my quantitative and more logical thinking and going back to my origin story, I've always been a huge nerd and I didn't want to leave not having really tactical quantitative skills that could propel me to any leadership position that I wanted to go to. And so, I knew that I wanted to get the core skills that I think the business degree offers and really balance that out a little bit more. And then I think a little bit of it was pride. I wanted to be the first person in my family to have a graduate degree in the US. That was really a dream I've always had. I thought that would be really just a great accomplishment.”

On what gets her excited about the future

“One thing that gets me excited is seeing the continuation of the younger generation, our generation, and future generations, being more empathetic towards the environment and towards each other, hopefully. That's certainly the kind of world I want to live in.”

Show Links:

• LinkedIn Profile
• Teach for America
• Berkeley Haas Consortium

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/onehaas/donations