Career Opportunities for Green MBAs: Talking to Co-Founder of Powermundo

I’m working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show focusing on real-life career opportunities for Green MBAs. Green seems to be the word of the day but how does that translate into a real job once you graduate from the pristine confines of your business school? What sort of path can Green MBAs expect? What’s the outlook 5 or 10 years down the line? I’ll be asking this of my guests and keeping you posted along the way with blog updates.

Today I’m talking to Michael Callahan. Callahan’s a passionate social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Powermundo, a company that builds and manages a network of customers, retailers, and suppliers to deliver appropriate clean technology products for people in developing countries.

Callahan’s inspiration for his company comes from a grandmother who lived in the shanty towns of Lima, Peru with her two orphan grandchildren.

She used a candle to light her shack and make handicrafts at night to sell to support herself and her two orphan grandchildren. She came to our demonstration and saw the solar lights and the solar panels and realized that this could save her money, she wouldn’t have to by candles or kerosene, she could work more efficiently and her children would be happier. I came back after selling her the product two nights later and she was ecstatic on how much it had changed her life... There is no reason why this business couldn’t scale.

So Callahan enrolled in the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise master’s program in the College of Business at Colorado State University specifically to start his own business, to recruit a team and make connections to funding. I interviewed him for an upcoming show that will explore the new job opportunities for Green MBAs. Other guests on the show include:

• Ellen Weinreb, a sustainable recruiter, who will talk about other job paths for Green MBA's;
• Katie Kross, author of Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability, who will discuss what skills are need for new green MBA's and how to talk to companies about their specialized MBA; and
• Nicola Arcutt, the Associate Dean of the Presidio Graduate School, who will talk about which companies are coming to campus and what they are looking for in a Green MBA. 

Stay tuned for the full show coming live in a couple of weeks and send us any questions you’d ask from these guests. Register on our site to stay tuned when new episodes become available or register for MBA Podcaster on iTunes.