69. Carolyn Barnett Gibson, From Refugees to Boardrooms to Nuclear Submarines
Release Date: 09/04/2023
98. Julie Lin, The Kidneys and Chamber Music
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Julie Lin was a medical student at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons when she met her future husband. It was the first day of medical school and they met while attending a class where they were both serious amateur classical musicians. Julie talks about their shared love of music and how they planned to have a family quartet. The All-state Orchestra Model Julie shares her story of starting an orchestra at medical school, which initially had a traditional weekly rehearsal and concert. However, they found that the show rate was low as exam time approached, leading...
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97. Dennis Crowley, Medical Device M&A Executive
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Dennis Crowley started working for Tyco International in 1996 and spent five years in Europe, spending half his time in Paris and two and a half years in Brussels. This experience was enjoyable as it allowed him to work, sightsee, and travel around Europe. During his time in Europe, he had the opportunity to visit every country in Europe, including Spain, Italy, the UK, and France. He moved back to Florida, then lived in New England for 25 years before settling just south of Boston. Dennis worked in various divisions at Tyco until 2007, where he worked in their healthcare...
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96. Natalia Tsarkova, Media Entrepreneur and Filmmaker
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Title: Media Entrepreneur and Filmmaker Show notes: Natalia Tsarkova, a transfer student from Latvia, was the first student from the former Soviet bloc to apply to an American college. She was thrown into a completely different world and roles, but knew she wanted to create more contexts for others to transform their lives like she didher life. Growing up in Latvia, she watched pirated MTV videos and credits seeing Billy Jean for the first time for inspiring her to work in the media space. In 1993, she met a professor at the MIT Media Lab, who recognized her mixed...
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95. William Cheng, Hospitalist and Singer
The 92 Report
William Cheng has been working in the Silicon Valley area since 2000. He graduated from Harvard as a bio concentrator and later attended UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, a county hospital affiliated with Stanford Hospital System. He then joined the Palo Alto Medical Foundation as a hospitalist, focusing on acutely ill patients. Working as a Hospitalist William's understanding of the world has changed over the two decades as a hospitalist. He now understands the importance of non-hard science...
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94. Jeanne Simpson, Actor/Dancer/Choreographer/Director/Teacher
The 92 Report
Jeanne Simpson moved to New York after graduating. She started doing day jobs in New York City to make ends meet while attending free dance classes, which allowed her to continue her training without having to pay for grad school. She eventually joined the American Isadora Dance Company, a modern company. Beginning a Career in the Performing Arts Jeanne began her acting career at HB Studios, where she was given a scholarship and studied under Austin Pendleton, a talented teacher who taught the advanced Acting Program at HB. She worked with other amazing actors and learned to choreograph scenes...
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93. Joshua Brandon Holden, Math Professor and Author of The Mathematics of Secrets
The 92 Report
Joshua Brandon Holden, the author of The Mathematics of Secrets, Cryptography from Caesar Ciphers to Digital Encryption, graduated with a degree in pure math and went on to teach at the University of Massachusetts and Duke. He discovered that he was spending most of his time on teaching, so he sought jobs where they would reward teaching. He then worked at the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, where he did both teaching and research. Common Misconceptions about Cryptography Joshua discusses common misconceptions about cryptography and its connection to the internet. He explains that...
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92. Mark Jacobstein, Accidental Entrepreneur
The 92 Report
Mark Jacobstein resides in Stanford, California with his wife, two children, and his mother in law. Mark's career has primarily focused on entrepreneurial technology, primarily in health tech, biotech, molecular diagnostics, and digital health arenas. After Cambridge, he worked with Scott Murphy, a close friend and business partner. He moved to California in 2003 to start a technology company and has been there ever since. He lives on the Stanford campus, which allows his children to grow up on a college campus. Founding a Fantasy Sports Business Mark shares his journey from writing...
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91. Andreas Stavropoulos, Entering the Third Act
The 92 Report
Andreas Stavropoulos, a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, came to the United States from Greece at 18 and has been in the United States ever since. His big moves include marrying his high school sweetheart, arranging their lives around graduate school, medical school, business school, and moving to California. He is now 55-years-old and is excited about the third act of his life, where he can choose where to spend his time more than he used to. A Career as a Venture Capitalist Andreas started his career as a venture capitalist in 1999 and has been doing so for over two and a half years. He...
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90. Shannon Frison, Marine and Judge
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Shannon Frison joined the United States Marine Corps during her time in law school. She spent her second year at officer candidate school and became commissioned as an officer. After law school, she returned to Massachusetts, worked for a year at the TAs office, took the bar, and went on active duty with the Marine Corps. After serving at Marine Corps Air Station, New River, North Carolina, she worked for a litigation firm called Dwyer and Clora before opening a law firm. In 2009, she applied for the bench in Massachusetts and was appointed to the Boston Municipal Court. She then...
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89. Anastasia Fernands, Patent Litigator
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Anastasia Fernands has been practicing law since graduating from NYU. She started practicing in Boston at Hutchins, Wheeler and Dittmar, which was the oldest continuously running firm in Boston at the time. Anastasia has since moved to New York and now practices at Quinn Emanuel. Anastasia’s career primarily focuses on intellectual property litigation, particularly patent litigation since the mid to late 90s. At that time there were two schools of thought on patent litigation: technical people who understood technology and those who were litigators by trade. There was a...
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Carolyn Gibson, a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe, has had a diverse and different path since graduating from the university. She initially wanted to be an ambassador, but realized that she wouldn't be a great ambassador to the United States due to her Dutch passport and not agreeing with the U.S. foreign policy. Instead, she decided to go into international aid and development. She tapped into the Harvard network to find information about Europe and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. She worked as a speechwriter for the High Commissioner herself, Madame Agata, and later landed a three-month internship with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
Carolyn was encouraged to work in the field. She had been working with two Italian men from Napoli who had received funding from George Soros to start a reunification program in the former Yugoslavia. She took up the offer to start a program using CD ROMs to record the names and photographs of children displaced during the war and make them available in UNHCR offices in the war zone for parents to find their children's homes. She talks about the importance of International laws for protecting and helping refugees, and how the Harvard network can help alumni find positions.
Working in Yugoslavia during the War
Carole recounts her experience in former Yugoslavia, where she helped reunite children with their parents. She experienced disillusionment with the war and the profiteering surrounding it, which led to loss of life and inappropriate media coverage. She talks about smuggling and how the role of the UN. Carolyn met her future husband, Trevor Gibson, who worked for the UN Fire and Rescue Service in Syria, which was a cowboy unit that was on the front lines, running ambulances and stopping fighting. Carolyn talks about the bias in the media and how a lack of willingness to understand and inappropriate media coverage contributed to her disillusionment. They decided to leave Yugoslavia, and Carolyn was offered a post in East Africa helping reunite parents and their children after the Rwandan genocide. She and her husband eventually decided to return to the States in 1995, but decided to move to Scotland where her husband decided to pursue a law degree in Birmingham, UK. They found themselves in a city that was similar to the Detroit of the UK, with car manufacturers and coal mining where Carolyn worked as a copywriter for nonprofit organizations before she earned a scholarship to an MBA program from Warwick University.
Working in Consulting at Deloitte
Carolyn talks about her experience of working in the management consulting practice of Deloitte. She started with Deloitte's program leadership practice and later worked with a child support agency. Carolyng and her husband decided to stay in Birmingham to settle down and have children. She then moved to a local government practice with Deloitte. They set up the first contact center for multiple local governments in one spot, and she became a specialist in setting up cross-governmental contact centers. However, the local government practice and Deloitte's public sector practice merged, which involved a lot more travel, so Carolyn decided to become a stay-at-home mom.
Writing a Book on Teaching Languages
She had been home for 10 years, running the PTA and serving on the Board of Governors for a school, and she wrote a book on teaching other languages. She shares three key tips from the book: make fun, set aside time, give children exposure as much as possible to the language they find fun. She discusses her experiences teaching their children French and moving to France for a year. They eventually moved back to Birmingham, which she has found to be a friendly city and a great place to raise a family.
She moved out of the stay-at-home mom phase and started working in a startup tech company in Coventry, which focused on strategy execution software. She worked with top Fortune 500 companies, such as Nestle, Pratt Whitney, Societe Generale, Philips, L3, and energy companies and eventually became head of consulting. However, the company struggled to translate their investment into a working financial model, and she missed the opportunity to work with public sector organizations, but she gained their support to pursue a master's degree at Oxford, which had links to the UK Government.
Working for the U.K. Defense Ministry
After completing her master's, she worked for the Cabinet Office, particularly in the Ministry of Defense. She is in their strategic supplier program, which aims to align strategic suppliers with the UK Government's goals and vice versa. She works with Rolls Royce, a company that makes engines and E power plants for their nuclear submarines, and Babcock, helping them work at a strategic level, aligning across government, and identifying problems and improving them. Carolyn talks about her accomplishments at the Ministry of Defense and her work as a consultant, where she can make specific nudges that make a big difference. She has helped resolve major contracts and ensured that the government's goals are met. Carolyn explains the culture of a military environment, and how an open door and willingness to share information is crucial, as it allows for a more open and diverse workforce. She found that the defense industry is highly meritocratic and open to new ideas, which is important for women in the industry. Carolyn is now considering pivoting back into the nonprofit world, particularly in the area of unconditional cash transfers, which she believes is a growing area in the United States.
Influential Courses and Professors at Harvard
Carolyn shares the courses and professors at Harvard that resonated with her, including a course with Stanley Hoffmann about war, and a seminar with Rena Fonseca on India-China relations. She also shares her experiences with Stanley Hoffmann, who taught her the importance of holding onto convictions and ideas, and Rena Fonseca, who taught her the importance of perseverance and adaptability in the face of challenges.
Timestamps:
05:11 How Carolyn’s involvement with the Harvard network helped her find work
10:30 Smuggling and profiteering in war-torn Yugoslavia
13:35 Media coverage of the war that was inappropriate
21:46 Working at Deloitte
24:00 Carolyn’s book on teaching kids languages
28:07 Working in strategy execution software at a tech startup
31:06 Impressions at the Ministry of Defense
CONTACT:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-gibson-2579295/
Facebook: Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1992