Considered a born leader by her fellow students and mentors at the UCLA Anderson School, Elizabeth Pratt hopes to inspire a cultural shift away from a fixation with high starting salaries and toward an interest in social change.
Every day, she senses the imperative among entrepreneurs to think fearlessly; now she wants to see that spirit carried over into hands-on opportunities for students pursuing social impact careers.
That’s perfectly in sync with the man whose published works she has read, John Wooden, and whose name graces the prestigious award she will receive tonight at a gala hosted by the UCLA Anderson School to celebrate his values and honor individuals who best reflect them.
Pratt, who is working toward earning a master’s degree in public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs concurrently with her M.B.A., is one of three Anderson student recipients of the 2014 John Wooden Global Leadership Fellowship.
“The thing that really resonates with me about him is the ethic of service,” Pratt said. “That’s my driving force.”
When Pratt earns her combined master’s degrees from UCLA in 2016, she intends to apply her newfound knowledge to the kind of community-based projects she’s always felt so passionately about. “I came to UCLA to acquire management skills and policy knowledge to complement my dedication to service,” she said.
“In terms of sharing success,” Pratt said about UCLA Anderson, “it’s a welcoming culture. People take time; the faculty is very accommodating.”
She has already amassed considerable experience abroad. After earning her B.A. at Stanford in 2008, Pratt taught at the Ouyang Yu Experimental Middle School in China and at the parent-owned nonprofit Iringa International School in Tanzania.
She later ran a small NGO in Peru for two years and led teams of Peruvian staff and international volunteers in establishing programs and partnerships across organizations. Their hard work paid off in more efficient and effective delivery of educational, health-care and financial services to thousands of underserved citizens.
Bilingual in English and Spanish, she is making strides toward becoming proficient in Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese and Swahili. She recently completed an internship with Amgen, a biopharmaceutical company based in Thousand Oaks, California, in order to acquire professional experience domestically.
Pratt envisions “an academic specialization in social entrepreneurship or nonprofit management, or a center for social innovation that encourages faculty to bring social impact examples or cases into the classroom.”
Walking her talk, Pratt is leading two social impact consulting programs for UCLA Anderson’s chapter of Net Impact, a national organization of students who want to put their business skills to use in a positive way, whether by incorporating environmental management practices into a large corporation, bringing microfinance to developing countries, working for a small nonprofit or launching into the world of social entrepreneurship. She’s consulting for a local educational nonprofit and working pro bono for the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row.
She feels strongly that the nonprofits and NGOs she wants to see succeed can learn lessons from well-run corporations.
“I would like to be running my own social enterprise that is working to effect holistic community change,” Pratt said, “not just in the form of schools or clinics, but also resources for jobs, for people to help themselves. I need to learn how to run the organization as well oversee all the business elements — financial especially. Most people who lead nonprofits don't have that experience.”
This story was adapted from one posted on the Anderson School blog. Learn more about the leadership awards inspired by Coach Wooden; Nicole àBeckett and Derek Herrera, the two other Anderson student recipients of the fellowship; and the winner of the 2014 John Wooden Global Leadership Award, Paul Jacobs, executive chair of Qualcomm.
Read a recap of the award presentations here.
