69. Carolyn Barnett Gibson, From Refugees to Boardrooms to Nuclear Submarines

Show Notes:

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