Five-Year Updates: Meet Jelena Lukic, F09

Our next post from the Class of 2009 comes from Jelena Lukic.  While at Fletcher, Jelena served as a member of the Admissions Committee, and I remember well how much I enjoyed working with her.  I’m so pleased that she agreed to provide an update on her post-Fletcher life.

My journey to Fletcher started while I was working on governance and youth programs in Iraq.  As a native of Serbia, prior to Iraq I had spent most of my early career working with civil society organizations in the Balkans on youth leadership and reconciliation issues.  Working in a complex environment such as Iraq helped me realize that I needed to augment my degree in psychology with graduate studies in international affairs.

I chose Fletcher because its multidisciplinary and flexible curriculum enabled me to design an educational experience that would strengthen my existing technical skills and, at the same time, build a new set of professional competencies that I needed to make a career change.  To marry my background in non-profit work and my growing interest in the role that the private sector can play in fragile environments, I decided to focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues during my time at Fletcher.

I chose International Negotiations and Conflict Resolution and International Business Relations as my Fields of Study.  The diversity and flexibility of the Fletcher curriculum allowed me to explore a broad range of CSR issues, such as through Prof. Everett’s petroleum industry class and a clean energy course with Prof. Moomaw.  Knowing that the CSR efforts of many companies include health initiatives, I took a global health course.  I also benefited from the opportunity to take a CSR course at Harvard Business School.  In my work, I still use the analytical approaches I learned in the negotiations course with Prof. Babbitt.  Appreciating that two years at Fletcher was a precious time to explore personal interests, I took courses on Iran with Prof. Nasr and oceanic history with Prof. Perry.

At the end of the day, it’s not the classes that made my Fletcher experience so special, but the lifelong friendships I developed.  Step practice for the Africa Culture Night was a great getaway from number-crunching lessons.  Being a student member of the Admissions Committee was one of the best jobs I ever had, and memories of the weekend on Cape Cod during “Dis-Orientation” week still make me laugh.

My Fletcher experiences led me to develop a clear goal to work on community engagement issues in the oil, gas, and mining industries.  My thesis, which analyzed why the relationships with local communities are often tense, despite the many investments that oil, gas, and mining companies make in local development, helped me land a job with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group that is devoted to the private sector in developing countries.

At IFC I worked for more than three years as a Social Investment Specialist, helping oil, gas, and mining companies develop strategic community investments to enhance benefits to local communities.  I was a member of the team that developed the Financial Valuation Tool for Sustainability Investments, an innovative tool that quantifies the financial return back to the company from community investments, and helps build a business case for investing in local development and communities.  I also worked on developing the Water, Mining, and Communities Framework, which guides mining companies in how to effectively address social risk around water and deliver positive development outcomes.

Working at IFC, I strengthened my expertise in social sustainability.  As a next career step, I wanted to experience how the public sector tackles sustainability issues.  So, for the past two years, I have been working as a Social Development Specialist at the World Bank, focusing on the application of environmental and social standards in investment lending projects.

Despite having an interesting career, I don’t let my job define me.  Through a Fletcher classmate, I discovered sailing as a passion in my life.  Obtaining a boat-cruising certificate is one of my biggest accomplishments since graduating from Fletcher.  And, of course, the Fletcher crowd joins me in annual sailing trips in the Mediterranean.