The Trinity MBA Blog

Trinity Executive MBA alumna and Vice President Client Services at State Street, Natasha Persad, reflects on the social impact of doing business for good. 

Each year, the world’s most inspiring MBA students and graduates come together under one roof for a high-impact-exchange, reverse-mentoring event, known as the World MBA Summit.

The agenda of this year’s World MBA Summit, with the notable inclusion of a social impact-specific event, reflects the importance of the theme right now. As one of Trinity Business School’s Executive MBA graduates, social impact has long been a priority and passion. The School’s commitment to social equality and ethical business is evident through its partnership with the 30% Club, offering scholarships to female students, in different areas of higher level education.

Natasha (second from left) with fellow Trinity MBA candidates at the 2022 World MBA Summit.

Trinity’s commitment to social impact is seen clearly through, amongst other things, its teaching. Reflecting on my time in the EMBA, I was presented with numerous opportunities to do more than just upskill, but to also make a difference. One such opportunity was our Social Enterprise project with Third Space, a self-sustaining social enterprise café in Smithfield that sought to become more environmentally sustainable and increase it’s community outreach to lend more assistance to its local community.

Leveraging the skills we had been taught on the Trinity EMBA, we were tasked with helping Third Space scale its social impact, as well as its profitability. This proved to be an invaluable task, aligning successful business practice and social good as two inextricably-linked goals is, after all, the only way forward for business. Keen to capture the magic of Third Space, we wanted to enhance its operations to boost its impact and profitability, while avoiding simply overhauling its operations.

We conducted both primary and secondary research, and utilising various academic models to identify strengths, resources, capabilities and opportunities that could help define viable solutions for scaling of a social enterprise. We used focus groups to help Third Space redefine its strategy, core values, priorities, initiatives and enablers whilst also giving employees an opportunity to share their own ideas for growth.

Emphasising the need to focus on staff training and development, the economic viability of expansion and how to use social media effectively to promote the good they do in the community of Smithfield, we sought to do more than just boost profits for Third Space. We wanted to equip the firm to adapt to the rapidly-changing business landscape and, in doing so, ensure that social impact, as well as profitability, continues to grow.

In many ways, the World MBA Summit is a lot like Trinity Business School’s EMBA social impact projects: both are high-impact-exchanges, both involve a degree of peer-to-peer mentoring, and both highlight the reality that business is about so much than profits. Doing good is good for business.

Natasha presenting at the 2022 World MBA Summit SLS lab. 

Natasha Persad is a 2022 EMBA graduate at Trinity Business School. She was also selected as one of the Top 100 MBAs globally invited to the 2022 World MBA Summit. Natasha was also selected as one of 25 attendees to present her idea for a purpose driven recruitment platform for the current and next generation of employees at the SLS lab.