January 25, 2012

Name: Julia Neubauer-Babu
Nationality: Austrian
Age: 26

Q: You have a background in finance, but you’ve spent much of your time with a not-for-profit that you co-founded, the Ashraya Initiative, a home for orphans and outreach centre in India. Tell us about this.

A: When I was 16, I earned a scholarship to the Mahindra United World College (UWC) in Pune, India, and volunteered in an orphanage there. I went thinking it would be cute. It wasn’t. They had 200 kids, six caretakers, incredibly inadequate conditions. I spent most of my time there just holding children and it affected me profoundly. When a UWC friend suggested we start a home for orphaned street children, I was right on board. Administratively, both in the West and in India, we learned as we went. We were determined to design something to truly take kids out of the poverty cycle. We wanted to give each child individual opportunities like sports, schooling. We’ve done really well at this — one of our girls, who’d been living on the streets, just did a study abroad program at Exeter Academy in the US.

Q: You and your co-founder were college freshmen when you started laying the groundwork for Ashraya. Was your age a hurdle?

A: Sometimes. We were quite mature since at boarding school in India, we’d been very self-sufficient. But while we were used to travelling in India, we weren’t used to navigating the system! On the other hand, our youth was sometimes an advantage: we didn’t worry about potential hassles. We’d walk into any government office in India saying “I want the forms for this.”

Q: Why do an MBA at this point in your career?

A: I plan to step back to a more offsite role with Ashraya, but want to apply MBA knowledge there, for example in the restructuring we are doing as we grow. The MBA is also critical to my goal of getting back into the excitement of the corporate world, which I miss. I can bring together the leadership experience from the NGO, my other experience as a financial analyst in the US, and the firm grounding of proven leadership training.