Social Impact Week 2024

Sabrina Ling is the founder of We, the People People, a boutique consulting firm obsessed with all things People and Human Resources. They help clients create workplaces where their teams are excited to share their full selves, while learning, growing, and helping achieve the organization's mission. Sabrina has offered her time to chat with 2nd years who are going into consulting but want to start thinking through their post-consulting careers or how to best use their time in consulting for what will come next.

Sabrina Ling is the founder of We, the People People, a boutique consulting firm obsessed with all things People and Human Resources. They help clients create workplaces where their teams are excited to share their full selves, while learning, growing, and helping achieve the organization's mission. Sabrina has offered her time to chat with 2nd years who are going into consulting but want to start thinking through their post-consulting careers or how to best use their time in consulting for what will come next.

Join Net Impact, General Management, Tech Club, and Tech & Society for a panel with SoVonna Day-Goins, Alex Kasavin, and Sabrina Ling. They will be discussing their career paths, the values that drive their decision making, and the challenges and joys of marrying business with social impact!
*Lunch will be served - please register early and commit to attending if you register so we have enough food and can prevent food waste. Cancel if you can no longer attend*
About SoVonna: SoVonna Day-Goins is a seasoned leader in financial services and social impact, with a 30-year career on Wall Street spanning Citi, JPMorgan, and Credit Suisse. At Credit Suisse, she held roles as the first Global Head of Social Sustainability on Wall Street, Head of Acquisition/Bridge Finance for multibillion-dollar event-driven M&A deals, and Co-Chair of the Inaugural Black Talent Advancement Council. She co-founded WomenXMeta (WXM), an EdTech startup with her two daughters, empowering economic mobility of women, children, and people of color through financial and digital literacy. SoVonna also serves as the Board Chair of Comprehensive Youth Development and Co-Secretary of the Board for The Count Basie Center for the Arts and formerly served on the board of City Harvest. While her career exemplifies upward mobility, she prides herself on her mentorship, sponsorship, and advocacy for just and fair professional environments. SoVonna has maintained a loving 30-year marriage to her high school sweetheart, raising two well-adjusted adult children who thrive in careers as a Social Justice Educator and a full-time stage, TV, and film performing artist. Her career embodies the integration of purpose-driven work across corporate and nonprofit sectors, highlighting her commitment to a socially sustainable future.
About Sabrina: Sabrina is the former Head of People at Noom, a consumer-first digital health platform that empowers its users to achieve holistic health outcomes through behavior change and the latest in modern medicine. Founded in 2008, Noom’s mission is to help people everywhere lead healthier lives. During her time at Noom, she led significant change across Noom, from organizational restructurings to revamping Noom's leadership development programming, using a data-driven approach to improving the employee experience around Noom's approach to return-to-office, diversity, and career development. She has led in both for-profit and non-profit environments, serving as the Executive Director of the largest middle school mentoring program for at-risk youth in Los Angeles, prior to entering SOM.

Sabrina has been working in and adjacent to the People/Talent space for over 20 years, and focused on People/HR strategy while studying at the Yale School of Management. Her career has spanned across a number of organizational dimensions, from for-profit to non-profit, public vs. privately held companies, hyper-local to global, and being an entrepreneur to working at a firm of 100K+ employees.

Join us for Social Impact Lab! As part of Social Impact Week, this special Social Impact Lab, co-hosted by Net Impact and Business & Politics, will be on the topic of Demystifying Local Government. Student panelists include Malik Dent, Emily Harwell, and Peter Waggonner, joined by moderator and New Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith!

Lunch is served at 11:30am, session begins at 11:45am.

Join us ahead of the last day of Social Impact Week for dinner and conversations with the people you've been seeing around all week!

Take a book and leave a book! Table will be outside Ross Library on 12/7-12/8

Join Net Impact, FAB, and the Impact Investing Club for the second day of Social Impact Week for a fireside chat with Mark Watson, Co-founder and President of Potlikker Capital. Mark will be discussing how he has leaned on lessons learned in traditional finance to have a social impact through his model of reparative capital at Potlikker, balancing impact and financial goals, and more!
*Lunch will be served - please register early and commit to attending if you register so we have enough food and can prevent food waste*
About Mark:
Mark Watson is Co-founder and President of Potlikker Capital, a farm community governed charitable integrated capital fund dedicated to supporting BIPOC farmers at the intersection of racial and climate justice. He is also the founder of Keel Asset Management LLC, a financial advisory firm that provides socially responsible financial planning and investment advisory services to nonprofits, public and corporation pension plans. Mr. Watson started his career as a banker at the First National Bank of Chicago, now JP Morgan in commercial banking, corporate and public finance. He had a 35-year career which included managing investment portfolios for foundations, endowments, private and public pensions funds. Mr. Watson also co-designed and helped to launch and manage an integrated racial justice capital fund which deployed capital to BIPOC entrepreneurs, The Boston Impact Initiative Fund. He serves as an advisory board Member of MIT/Health Innovation Systems Inc.; a Steering Committee member of Transformative Investors in Food Systems (TIFS); a Director of Winrock International; Director of Hyams Foundation and Good Food Purchasing Program and Board Chair of Possibility Labs. Mr. Watson holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance, University of Illinois Champaign -Urbana and a Master’s in Business Administration, The Booth School, University of Chicago.

Join us for a volunteer session with the New Haven Pride Center for Social Impact Week! Our group of five will spend two hours supporting Pride Center members with professional services, including resume reviews, interview preparation, and career development tips. It’s a great opportunity to give back, connect, and empower the local LGBTQ+ community. All skill levels are welcome, and your guidance could make a real difference!

What is a Donor-Advised Fund? Should I give locally or support global causes? Where can I turn for advice when I get a big bonus and want to give some back? Join Net Impact, Finance Club, Consulting Club, and Nonprofit Board Fellows for Social Impact Week 2024 with Jackie Downing and Sharon Cappetta from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven for a workshop on how to think about your own giving strategy for the future!
*Dinner will be served - please register early and commit to attending if you register so we have enough food and can prevent food waste. Cancel if you can no longer attend*
About Jackie:
Jackie Downing has been with The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven for thirteen years and is now the Senior Director of Grantmaking and Nonprofit Support. She divides her time between supporting the competitive grantmaking processes and strengthening nonprofits through capacity building programs and The Great Give. A graduate of Southern Connecticut State University, Jackie started her professional career at the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and went on to the Dixwell Community “Q” House and Sacred Heart Academy. She spent four years as the Deputy then Chief Administrative Officer for the Town of Hamden, and five years with the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund (now Capital for Change). Jackie has served on numerous boards and is currently a member of the City of New Haven’s Q House Advisory Board. She volunteers with the Whitney Players and is a 17-gallon+ blood donor.
About Sharon:
Sharon Cappetta is the Director of Development at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. Sharon works with donors and those who advise them on charitable strategies and tools to achieve the donor’s goals. She also serves as the lead staff for The Foundation’s professional advisor services.
Sharon is a career fund development professional, a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP®) and is a member of the board of directors of Advisors in Philanthropy, a national association for legal, financial, tax and accounting professionals promoting philanthropy in practice.

Join Net Impact for the keynote address of Social Impact Week 2024! The 2024 Social Impact Week theme, “Pathways to Purpose”, speaks to a desire to engage all SOM students - regardless of their sector of choice - on how they can meaningfully lead impact-minded careers and lives, using their networks and knowledge to bring integrity and responsibility to every role. The theme seeks to make known what it means to work at the intersection of business & society, recognizing the values each brings to creating solutions for a brighter future.
Seth Goldman is Co-Founder of JUST ICE TEA, a line of organic and Fair Trade bottled tea that’s Just Sweet Enough. Seth and his co-Founder, Celebrity Chef Spike Mendelsohn are also co-founders of PLNT Burger, a plant-based quick-serve restaurant that offers delicious burgers, fries, and soft-serve.

Seth is also the Co-founder of Honest Tea and Chair of the board of Beyond Meat. In 2023 he took on a new role as Chair of the Mission Guardians for Tony’s Chocolonely, an international chocolate company committed to creating an exploitation-free supply chain. He has been widely recognized for his entrepreneurial success and impact, including the Washington DC Business Hall of Fame, Partnership for Healthier America’s CEO of the Year, and EARTHDAY.ORG’s Climate Visionary of the year.

He is a graduate of Harvard College (1987) and the Yale School of Management (1995). Seth and his Honest Tea co-founder, Barry Nalebuff are the authors of The New York Times bestselling comic book, Mission in a Bottle. The book tells the story of the creation of Honest Tea and its sale to The Coca-Cola Company.

For Social Impact Week, Retail Club, Sustainability Committee, and SWAY at YSPH are organizing the annual clothing swap in the Student Lounge! See the flyer for details!