A UCLA Anderson Global Immersion in South Africa Adds “Sustainable Positive Change” to the MBA Experience

Nelson Mandela House, Soweto. Photo by Lisa Tang

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By Lisa Tang (FEMBA ’18), Forté Fellow

My career path started in ethnic-specific nonprofit theater, where I had the privilege of working in diversity and cultural advocacy with activist-artists (the very heroes I had learned about as an undergraduate). Now I work in international film translation, connecting films and stories with people around the world.

So it may be no surprise that I was drawn to the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation immersion course in South Africa because of its global perspective on social justice and human rights. What I got out of it was the embodiment of what I hoped my MBA experience would be. The course empowered me with frameworks in social enterprise, then boldly challenged me with them in the immersion experience. It was nothing short of a profound de-layering of preconceptions of and possibilities for social enterprise and the South African context.

Lisa Tang with guest Jim Smith at Solms-Delta Winery in the Franschhoek Valley of South Africa, after a presentation by neuropsychologist, professor and Solms-Delta co-owner Mark Solms about how the power of storytelling spurred change in the winery's 300-year slavery- and apartheid-rooted history. Today, the winery operates under an innovative co-ownership/trust structure among the families who live on and manage the land. Photo by Milan Karunaratne (FEMBA ’18)

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In the continuing evolution of my career, this experience has blown open the scope of where I will look for sustainable positive change. I saw in Professor Northrop’s frameworks that it is not a binary question of either/or — but how. I took from the journey to South Africa what I hope everyone does from an immersive experience: a visceral broadening of perspective coupled with the humble realization that we’ve peeled away only one layer — and that this is a pivotal step to becoming a leader in any field.

The most profound moments came in meeting local South Africans while exploring on my own. These were marked by connection but also disconnection, in which a stranger was trying to tell me, another stranger, about the depth of his or her experience. But there was so much more to be said than our much-too-short encounters would allow. In these moments, I was thankful to have been traveling with UCLA in this immersion program. The frameworks this course provided became windows through which I could glimpse with more clarity another human experience.

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Read more about the UCLA Anderson Center for Global Management’s global immersion course to South Africa, where the focus was social entrepreneurship.

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