Interview by Camille Carlton 

  1. Can you tell us a little bit about your post-graduate life and how you came to start working in Mumbai?

After both a co-op and a language fellowship in India during my undergrad at Northeastern, I knew that I wanted to dig deeper into on-the-ground work in social enterprise in the country post-graduation. So, I accepted the William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India after graduating and began working at a social enterprise in the state of Andhra Pradesh. I specifically worked on implementing mobile data OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAcollection tools with the goal of improving the operations of the organization and monitoring impact.

This experience, coupled with continued, broad interest to make the social sector more efficient, ultimately led me to my role with Vera. Working at Vera allows me to work with clients across many economies and sectors with the goal of making their processes– be that monitoring and evaluation for human trafficking issues or monitoring savings and loans for a women’s savings program– more efficient.

 

  1. What is your role at Vera Solutions? What is an average day like at your job?

I’m a Consultant at Vera, which means that I get to do a lot of system design, project management, and interaction with our clients. I also do a fair amount of scoping for projects, which includes taking a client’s needs for a data system and drafting these into a proposal to meet their requirements. An average day can include anything from traveling off-site to a client’s office or field to calls with clients to building a system with my project team. We work with clients around the world, so I find myself engaging with clients in the US, Kenya, and India on any given day.

  1. What was one of the biggest surprises you found, either personally or professionally, about working abroad or specifically in Mumbai?

That I keep coming back! Each time that I think I’m done living in India, the diversity of the country keeps pulling me back.

  1. How do you feel ENTR 2206 and the concepts of social enterprise impact the way you view your current role and Vera Solutions as a whole?

It’s fun because a number of our clients are organizations that we studied in ENTR 2206 or other courses. It’s always nice to be able to tell a client that you’ve been following their work for some time. More broadly, working at Vera requires you to be able to relate to your clients and have an understanding of international development—from a small grassroots NGO to a startup social enterprise to a large foundation, it’s important to know the space in which they operate, have a sense of the clients they serve, and the challenges they face daily.

Studying social enterprise at Northeastern prepared me to engage with the issues our clients are hoping to solve and prepped me with the tools to think about their long-term visions and how a database could fit into this.Grad 24

  1. Finally, what do you find most rewarding about what you do and how do you want to take it to the next level?

The two most rewarding parts of my work are through interactions with our clients and our team. Our clients are impressive social impact organizations, and through our work, we hopefully empower them to do their work more efficiently and effectively. Through this, I get to work with a team of great humans at Vera who constantly push me and the organization to keep growing.