Harvard Business School (HBS) has announced the 2022 recipients of its Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships. Out of 10 fellows, three are of Indian-origin.
Established in 1988 by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Richard L. Menschel (MBA 1959), a former director of the foundation and a limited partner at Goldman Sachs, to encourage students from the nonprofit and public sector to attend HBS, these fellowships enable the School to award $10,000 to a select number of incoming MBA students.
Beginning with the Class of 1990, 247 incoming students have received the fellowship. Recipients of the award have served in leadership roles in nonprofit and public sector organizations and demonstrate a strong commitment to continued career paths in these areas.
The three recipients are Rishi Razdan, Shashwat Shivam and Vishnu Sridhar.
According to a Harvard Business School release, Rishi was at Bain & Company for three years before spending a year as a fellow with the University of Chicago, building capacity of high-impact social enterprises, followed by serving as co-founder and CEO of X Billion Skills Lab in Mumbai, providing affordable training and job placement services to college students. He then joined Acumen, leading the organization’s work in India on education, employment, and entrepreneurship. He said, “My goal for the future is to improve the quality of higher education in India. The Goldsmith Fellowship provides me with access to an exceptional network of peers that I hope can become a community of action.”
Shashwat comes to HBS from Clinton Health Access Initiative, where he worked with India’s Covid-19 National Task Force to set up the country’s testing systems and roll out the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination program. He has also helped shape India’s long-term digital health strategy. Prior to this, Shashwat helped build UrbanCompany, a technology-first startup that creates livelihood opportunities and improves access to healthcare services for gig workers. Post HBS, Shashwat said he hopes to “accelerate the adoption of innovative and sustainable solutions that can make quality healthcare more accessible and affordable and optimize provider workload in low-income settings.”
HBS said Vishnu has been a leader in both the nonprofit and public sectors and is pursuing an MS/MBA in engineering sciences. In his professional career, he served as a lead engineer for successful NASA missions including the Europa Clipper, Mars 2020 Rover, and Mars Exploration Rover. He also manages the Navagraha Temple in New York, uniting and supporting people worldwide based on the principles of ancient Indian tradition. He said, “In the future, I am excited to focus my attention on new satellite technologies that will monitor the effects of climate change across the globe and will aid in carrying out government policies.”
Three Indian-origin students named 2022 Goldsmith fellows by Harvard Business School
