Kedar Kurpad

I am a freelancer and digital nomad currently helping small businesses in Latin America achieve their marketing, project management, creative and digital priorities. Before becoming a GBA student and freelancer, I served as a product manager, project manager, consultant, and business systems analyst in organizations spanning many different regions, industries, and sizes. I worked with public sector stakeholders in the State of Oregon, remote app development teams in Chennai and Yerevan, and engineering firms in Hong Kong and Dongguan.

What drew you to the Global Business Administration program?

Though I spent the past several years managing projects and products in the private sector, I hold a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University and have been looking for a way to leverage my professional skills to address some of the world’s biggest challenges today – especially regarding climate and decarbonization, digital privacy and transparency, and making government services more accessible to citizens around the world. The GBA’s interdisciplinary and international focus allow me to investigate these different subject areas while also developing core competencies in the professional arena.

What are your short-term and long-term career goals?

I am spending the next couple of years working in myriad capacities with small businesses around the world. In doing so, I hope to become a well-rounded and agile professional, while also developing cultural awareness in emerging markets and innovative regions worldwide.

What skills you’re looking to develop during your time at Fletcher?

I am particularly interested in developing my quantitative and analytical skills during my time at Fletcher. Coursework in Corporate Finance and Data Analytics will help me to support projects and proposals with robust projections based on empirical evidence. Furthermore, I am also interested in achieving subject-matter expertise in the energy/climate and tech/data domains, so that I can serve effectively in these fields after finishing up at Fletcher.

Seeing as the program is mostly online, do you have any advice on how to best foster relationships and increase collaboration with fellow students and faculty?

I have found it useful to stay in communication with my classmates through WhatsApp groups and email threads. Creating these channels of communication that exist outside of the confines of weekly class sessions have allowed me to not only stay on task, but to also maintain connections with others in the program.

What was one of your favorite international experiences?

One of my favorite (and most challenging) international experiences was when I was serving as a Fulbright grantee at a public school in Bochum, Germany. I was invited to teach a music class, and though I expected that the working language for the class would be in English (like all of my other scheduled lessons), the class of 5th and 6th graders expected me to teach in German. The co-teacher encouraged me to try, and I ended up teaching a music class in German for the whole term – learning lots of new vocabulary along the way!