Redefining Success

Prior to undertaking the International MBA in 2012—where she graduated in the top 25 percent of the class—Yvonne Krywyj worked nearly a decade as an attorney in the public sector. After her graduation, she pivoted to managing business operations, developing and improving processes and financial controls for companies and NGOs with a social impact. But four months ago, Krywyj decided to go a step further.

While women’s issues had always been a motif throughout her work, the lifelong feminist threw herself completely into a new role as Gender and Business Expert at Value for Women, a specialized advisory firm that applies a gender lens to a diverse set of organizations, investors, and small and growing businesses and takes a business-first approach to gender inclusion. She moved to Value for Women both to apply gender inclusion to her work on a full-time basis and to go beyond managing niche businesses and NGOs to advise companies in a variety of sectors and regions.

After living in sub-Saharan Africa for more than seven years, the U.S. citizen isn’t sure where this new role will lead her. However, she is clear that social impact, women’s inclusion and business feed her sense of purpose and encourages others to think outside the box for their career: “For someone who is very set on switching out of a traditional career path, I’d recommend they just go for it. There are so many skills in the private sector that are transferable to the social enterprise and nonprofit worlds.”

WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND? WHAT WAS YOUR CAREER FOCUS WHEN YOU WORKED AS AN ATTORNEY AND WITH UPENERGY?

I’m on my second, or maybe now my third, career. Before pursuing my MBA at IE, I worked as an attorney with the US government, regulating interstate commerce. I was never quite fulfilled as a lawyer and wanted to do something where I would make a difference and travel or live overseas, which is why I went to IE. After IE, I spent seven years managing social enterprises that sold products to base-of-pyramid customers.

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO CHANGE GEARS AND LAUNCH INTO THIS NEW STAGE FULLY FOCUSED ON WOMEN?

In many ways, women’s inclusion has been a through line in my post-MBA career. Both SHE and UpEnergy sold products (sanitary pads and efficient cookstoves) primarily used by women. At SHE, we had a majority-women work force and women in our value chain, and I worked to increase the number of women on our team and in our value chain at UpEnergy as well. So, the move to Value for Women feels like more of a natural next step than it may look from the outside.

WHAT IS YOUR ROLE? WHAT DO YOU DO? WHY IS IT MEANINGFUL FOR YOU?

My official title is Gender and Business Expert; I advise SGBs and impact investors on gender inclusion and applying a gender lens to their business practices. This includes not only women-owned businesses and women in the work force but also products and services that benefit women and women’s inclusion in value chains. At Value for Women, we take a business-first approach to gender inclusion. There’s a strong business case for applying a gender lens – for example, a Crédit Suisse study found that companies with at least one woman on their Board of Directors had better share price performance than those with none – and we make that business case to our clients. As a lifelong feminist, I’m thrilled to be doing work where I can live my values and advance a cause that’s important to me.

WHAT IS IT THAT MEANS THE MOST TO YOU WITH RESPECT TO WOMEN’S INCLUSION AND HOW DOES VALUE FOR WOMEN MEET THAT NEED?

It’s hard to nail down one specific thing about women’s inclusion that means more to me than others. There are still many issues in the workplace, from sexual harassment to the lack of paid maternity leave to VCs asking women entrepreneurs when they plan to have children and don’t ask men entrepreneurs the same question. There are also cultural and social issues, from rape culture and victim blaming to women presidential candidates in the USA never being “likable” enough to get elected– which isn’t a consideration for male candidates. There are design issues – women suffer more often, and more serious injuries in car accidents, because safety testing is done with male crash test dummies, for one. Unfortunately, the patriarchy is still alive and well. I’m happy to have an opportunity, at Value for Women, to do my part to chip away at it.

WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF MAKING THIS CAREER CHANGE?

Going from managing businesses to advising businesses has been a steep learning curve! There’s a lot of technical knowledge I didn’t have going in and am still getting up to speed. Fortunately, we have a very collaborative team. Everyone is willing to share their knowledge and learnings.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR NEXT STEP?

Professionally, I’ve just started at Value for Women and am still finding my footing there, so it’s a bit early to think about next steps, though I do see it as an organization where I have room to grow and advance. To be honest, every step I’ve taken in my career has informed the next step, but I haven’t followed one singular path plotted out from the start. My life isn’t that linear. Personally, I’ve been living in sub-Saharan Africa for seven years, and am thinking it might be time for a change of scene in the next few months. I’m not ready to move back home to the USA yet, but I would like to see what parts of the world are opening up as more of the population gets covid vaccines, and where I can get a remote work visa, as I can do my job from anywhere in the world.

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL SOMEONE DECIDING WHETHER TO SWITCH OUT OF A TRADITIONAL CAREER PATH?

For someone who is very set on switching out of a traditional career path, I’d recommend they just go for it. There are so many skills in the private sector that are transferable to the social enterprise and nonprofit worlds. For someone on the fence, I’d suggest they find a short- or medium-term opportunity to try working in social impact and see how they like it before taking the plunge. Yunus Social Business (where I did a pro bono consultancy right after my IMBA), Emzingo, Kiva, Grameen Foundation, and MovingWorlds all offer such opportunities.

Fresh out of the International MBA in 2016, Max von Hoyningen started consulting at a London-based company. He enjoyed helping a British private equity fund cut costs and reorganize its assets. From there, he moved back to Germany to head business development for innovative Haspa Next’s digital products and then to oversee corporate development for Linc Institute for Corporate Learning.

But after years of investing himself to help companies improve, von Hoyningen felt the time had come for him to apply his expertise to affect the world around him. He consciously sought a project that would weave together his business background with his desire for meaningful work in conservation.

That’s how he decided to take a position at the World Wildlife Fund in March 2020. While he admits the transition was more challenging than he expected and that luck and circumstance aided his move, he said it was unquestionably the right decision: “Untraditional career paths are guaranteed to be more interesting, be more aligned with what you believe in and care about, and ultimately allow for more self-actualization.”

WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND? WHAT WAS YOUR CAREER FOCUS WHEN YOU WERE INVOLVED IN CONSULTING?

Since my background is in business psychology, my consulting projects mostly focused on organizational development. At KPMG, I re-engineered processes for ICT companies and financial services providers. Right before coming to IE, I offered asset-based consulting, text analytics algorithms to automate data analysis and facilitate consulting. After the MBA, I reorganized one of its assets and cut costs for a British private equity fund as an independent consultant.

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO CHANGE GEARS AND LAUNCH INTO THIS NEW STAGE AT THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND?

In my previous positions, I often struggled to be emotionally invested in the job. While consulting is fun, intellectually challenging and a great way to meet a lot of very smart people, I felt like a mercenary working for the success of my clients – usually not for anything on a global scale. I think, however, that the methodologies of consulting are extremely powerful, that’s why I looked for an industry that I genuinely care about to apply what I’ve learned, which made sustainability the obvious choice. Since WWF is the only global, full-fledged conservation organization which is open to work with business, it’s the one I chose.

WHAT IS YOUR ROLE? WHAT DO YOU DO? WHY IS IT MEANINGFUL FOR YOU?

At WWF Germany, I am Head of Corporate Partnerships. In this role, I am ultimately responsible for evaluating, negotiating and closing all the partnerships for the German branch. Daily business for us is assessing the ecological impacts of various industries as well as companies and then deriving ecological business transformation measures and opportunities for them to align their economic realities with ecological targets. Since we are business partners, not service providers, and own the most respected brand in conservation, I feel we have a huge influence on the ecological performance of the companies we work with. Since business as a force for conservation fascinates me, it makes the job very meaningful to me.

WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF MAKING THIS CAREER CHANGE?

Finding an institution with a mission I believe in. There are many fundamentalist conservation organizations which are profoundly anti-business. And there are many businesses who run greenwashing marketing campaigns to conceal their profoundly anti-conservation operations. True conservation, which is open to work alongside business to solve the biggest challenges of our time, is rare. Also, since my private network is mostly in consulting, finance and entrepreneurship, it was challenging to get first-hand insights.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR NEXT STEP?

Since I started my position very recently– and I have set many targets for myself– I will be very busy in the near future. While the topic of sustainability has received some attention over the past few years, how to align business with sustainability is still mostly uncharted territory. So, I won’t get bored or run out of projects in my current position any time soon.

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL SOMEONE DECIDING WHETHER TO SWITCH OUT OF A TRADITIONAL CAREER PATH?

Do it– as long as you are comfortable with uncertainty and the risks associated. Also, talk to many people who chose untraditional career paths as well about their experiences and what they would do differently. From what I experienced, it turned out to be more challenging than expected and I have to admit in some cases I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. However, untraditional career paths are guaranteed to be more interesting, be more aligned with what you believe in and care about, and ultimately allow for more self-actualization.