Kicking off the updates from the Class of 2011 is Chris Berger, who had a clear focus for his Fletcher studies before he even arrived and who took full advantage of the School’s quantitative offerings.

Before Fletcher

I graduated from Princeton in 2006 with a degree in history and I really struggled with what I wanted to do next.  I was passionate about foreign affairs and international politics, and deeply involved in the national security discourse in the wake of 9/11.  I was also, however, fascinated by the booming financial services industry, despite having taken little interest in economics/finance during college.

Determined to explore this path, I took a job at a financial consulting firm in New York that was focused on the bond markets.  Shortly thereafter, 2008 reared its ugly head and the financial world went into a tailspin.  A series of unanswered questions began to drive my focus: What was the genesis of the financial crisis and how had it metastasized so pervasively across the globe?  Were emerging market economies and the so called “BRICs” (Brazil, Russia, India, China) poised to lead to the next wave of global growth?  How would economies rebuild and how would government respond to strengthen the core of the global financial system?  Fletcher sounded like the perfect place to explore these questions and to further build my understanding of international economics.

At Fletcher

I was drawn to Fletcher’s MALD program by the flexibility of the curriculum and by the breadth of course offerings that directly appealed to my interests.  I took full advantage of this flexibility by structuring a course load centered around economics, finance, and the global political economy.  My work with Professors Klein, Krohn, and Drezner helped me to build a solid foundation in economics while also refining my understanding of the interaction between finance and public policy.  Working with Professor Krohn, I wrote my thesis on how emerging markets were, after the financial crisis, poised to decouple from the West and lead the path for GDP growth over the coming years.  (FYI — I was wrong.)  As I looked to life after Fletcher, I was determined to find a career that straddled the worlds of public policy and finance.

After Fletcher

After graduation, I was very lucky to be offered a role at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as part of their Markets Group.  The Markets Group is responsible for executing monetary policy on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and I was fortunate to join right before the start of the Fed’s third round of quantitative easing (QE3, the program implemented in the aftermath of the financial crisis to provide the market with liquidity in effort to stimulate growth).  As part of my training program I was taught how to effectively analyze and interpret movements across global financial markets and opine on broader themes across global asset classes.  My training afforded me the opportunity to lead daily meetings with the Fed Governors and the Treasury Department and allowed me to participate in briefings with the leadership of the Federal Reserve, including Chair Janet Yellen.

After three years with the Markets Group, I left the Fed to assume a private sector position within BlackRock, where I currently work.  The group I joined, called the Financial Markets Advisory group (FMA), was formed in the aftermath of the financial crisis and provides consulting services for governments, central banks and global financial institutions.  Described by The New York Times as the “go-to SWAT team in financial crises,” I have worked on a number of assignments in the U.S. and abroad, including most recently a longer term project in Frankfurt.  During my two years in the group I have been granted exposure to a broad range of issues facing the global financial system in the aftermath of the crisis, allowing me to build on my Fletcher curriculum while keeping me deeply entrenched with some of the key issues that drive my intellectual curiosity.

During the fall, I reached out to members of the Class of 2011 and asked them to report on what they were doing during their first five post-Fletcher years.  I’ve now gathered these new Five-Year Updates, and I’ll start sharing them next week.

One could point out that by the time I publish the posts, five years has nearly melted into six, but let’s not quibble.  The updates give you a good sense of how the former students put their degrees to work in the early years after they graduated.

My assignment to the alumni is to provide readers a sense of their work before Fletcher, their academic path through Fletcher, and then their professional (and sometimes personal) lives after Fletcher.  Beyond that, the content is up to them.

Connecting with these members of the Fletcher family is a treat for me, whether or not I knew them well from their Hall of Flags days.  I always look forward to hearing how Fletcher has influenced them, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading their stories, too.

With the Class of 2016 about to graduate in only about a week, it’s getting to be time for me to wrap-up the Five-Year Updates from the Class of 2010.  Today we’ll hear from Claudia Ortiz, who provided me with this short bio, in addition to her post:

Claudia Ortiz (Mexico) has worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 2013, when she joined as Regional Technical Specialist on Climate Change Adaptation in the regional hub for Asia-Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand.  She is now based in UNDP headquarters in New York, acting as climate finance policy advisor and project manager of the Global Green Climate Fund Readiness Programme.  Before UNDP, Claudia worked with the Climate Change Team at the Global Environment Facility of the World Bank, in Washington, DC.

Earlier in her career, she supported the development of Mexico’s first Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions for the cement and iron and steel sectors at the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington, DC and worked at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Sub-regional Office in Ankara, Turkey, where she undertook research on energy policy and environmental issues in Central Asia.

It has been almost six years since I graduated from Fletcher.  I still regard the opportunity to study there as one of the best in my life: it changed the way I see the world, transformed my career, and allowed me to meet some of the most remarkable people, with very diverse backgrounds.  From the very first day of Orientation, students are constantly reminded that our most important allies are in the student and alumni community itself.  Besides this backbone virtue of the School, students are also reminded (as in the Mission and Impact statement) that as international affairs professionals, we ought to be “committed to maintaining the stability and prosperity of a complex, challenging and increasingly global society,” — in other words (or, as I interpret it), we are meant to be “global citizens.”

As global citizens, we let go of nationalistic or self-interests.  Rather we exercise collaboration and compassion, as we seek to become agents of improvement for the global society, including the most vulnerable populations in it.  And, as global citizens, we are led by our never-ending hunger to explore, travel, and experience different cultures.

This concept resonates well for me with the cause to which I have dedicated my career since Fletcher graduation: to support developing countries’ access to international climate finance for initiatives, projects and programs that address climate risks.  Climate change must not be regarded an “environmental” problem.  To label it that way would be misleading, as it places emphasis on the risk being posed to ecosystems or natural habitats.  In reality, it is the human species and human development gains that are most at risk and are being severely impacted by climate change in the form of food insecurity, forced migration, destruction of infrastructure, loss of livelihoods, etc.  Climate change is therefore a global development problem which does not recognize political boundaries and one which cannot be solved by acting in isolation; international diplomacy has a significant role to play.

Today, it is evident that diplomacy driven by recognition of the universal threat of climate change, but also by emphasizing the needs of the most vulnerable populations on Earth, has succeeded in shifting the climate change paradigm.  In December 2015, the diplomatic efforts of over 150 heads of state and their delegations resulted in an unprecedented Climate Agreement, reached at the 21^st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  For the first time in history, there is global recognition that climate change is a common concern of humankind, whereby all the world’s economies need to act together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience to climate change impacts.  Decades have been spent in breaching the gap between achieving economic growth through the use of cheaper fossil fuels and the urgent need to enhance resilience to climate change, especially in the poorest countries.  We are a privileged generation to witness a huge step in this direction.

As an officer of the United Nations, I function as an “international civil servant.”  I am not to respond to any government’s instructions (or those of any other source that is not the UN) as I carry out my duties; rather, I am supposed to bring forward only the interests of the UN.  Applying this principle has proven to be crucial for my work given that, for the past three years, I have served the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, Benin, Colombia, Nepal, Fiji, and others, but not yet my native Mexico.  I have realized that the only way to thrive in different cultures or contexts while achieving common social, environmental or development objectives is by maintaining impartiality and independence.  This is, of course, challenging, as we are all calibrated to operate based on our own cultural norms, traditions, and pre-conceived ideas.  I admit that only by living the experience itself have I been able to “adapt” quickly to unknown contexts, while still managing to get the work done.

Evidently, Fletcher was the perfect launching platform for my current job with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and my former position in the World Bank, another institution where staff uphold the same principles of impartiality and of a global mindset.  Fletcher is a microcosm where the exact same principles are enforced, not only to excel in the very demanding, inter-disciplinary curriculum but also to succeed as a member of the ever-present Fletcher community.  As students, we would consciously work, discuss, and even debate respectfully, without prejudice.  We established long-lasting friendships with people we never imagined we would.  I proudly say that Fletcher prepared us to confront the most compelling global challenges by making us realize that solutions can only be reached through diplomacy and collaborative action, because as citizens of ONE planet we cannot regard challenges to be the problem of “the other,” but rather, these problems and their solutions must be assumed as “our own.”

It’s Friday and, having begun my week with newly admitted students, I’d like to turn to one of our 2010 graduates.  Constantin is a “double Jumbo,” holding two Tufts degrees.  He combined his undergraduate BA with the two-year MALD, reducing his total study time for the two degrees from six years to five.  Few undergraduates have their requirements sufficiently complete to apply to the MALD, and only a few of the applicants are admitted.  I remember meeting Constantin before he even applied and I was very pleased that he agreed to provide a Five-Year Update.

Honored to be one of the lucky few “BA-MALD” students at Fletcher, I still remember when I stepped into my first Fletcher class.  Intimidated by my peers, who had accumulated years of experience across an incredible variety of fields, I was also very excited to learn from and grow with them.  And so, for two years, I was fortunate to have fun learning both in the classroom and outside of it.  The students at Fletcher are really its greatest resource: sharp, cross-cultural, filled with fascinating viewpoints and open-minded.  I’m glad I have them as friends today.

Fletcher was a natural step for me at the time.  I was eager to further my studies on the complex web that is international affairs, while also building my academic background on business topics, as I had set my eyes on finance post-grad school — Fletcher was the perfect place to do it.  In the classroom, I focused on International Business Relations and Pacific Asia, while also exploring other topics of interest such as Maritime History and Comparative Legal Systems, and writing a thesis on the rapidly evolving business environment and regulatory framework for M&A (mergers and acquisitions) in China.  To further my business studies, I took classes at Harvard Business School, thanks to the cross-registration agreement Fletcher and HBS share.  I also spent time with students and professors pushing ideas to develop a non-profit I had been running for a few years, and attending engaging conferences.  The academic environment at Fletcher was exciting, challenging, and fulfilling, and it left me well prepared for my next challenge.

After Fletcher, I moved to New York and joined UBS Investment Bank, where I helped advise global manufacturing and natural resource businesses on mergers and acquisitions, as well as capital market transactions.  It was great to apply the knowledge I gained at Fletcher.  Professor Jacque’s teachings in accounting and corporate finance were naturally very helpful, while the ability to see the big picture and analyze complex interactions developed in International Relations classes allowed me to add more value while working on deals.  Fletcher also strengthened my comfort working with people from different cultures in different languages.  After a few years in M&A, I started work at Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, in Paris.  The experience here has been phenomenal, analyzing potential investment targets and working alongside portfolio companies to help them grow.

Altogether, my two years at Fletcher were incredibly rewarding, from fantastic relationships, to exceptionally interesting classes, to new skills developed.  I’m proud to be a part of the Fletcher community!