THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A SHARED MISSION
One of the benefits of being at a school like Presidio is knowing that no one’s there to just check a box and move on to a higher-paying position. To even consider enrolling, you have to demonstrate a serious investment in using business skills for good. “We’re a mission-driven school,” Shutkin says. Simply put, people who attend the school believe in it.
But there are drawbacks to the environment, too. For one, Steven Crane, who teaches managerial finance at Presidio, would like to students from more varied walks of life. “In many ways, it’s an advantage not being diverse in terms of having this uniformity of value set,” he says. “But it’s also problematic, because at the same time, you get into this bubble where you’re only speaking to the choir, and particularly in the area of finance—which really needs change agents—you need to be able to communicate and be convincing to others well outside the choir, that you actually need to convert or find those leverage points to pull them into sustainability. I think one way to get at that is having more diverse bodies in the school, whether coming from different cultures, even the look—you know, our students are largely white, middle-class,” he points out. “I’d like to see a lot more diversity in that.” (To be fair, Galyon says that his cohort is one of the most diverse groups he’s ever worked with.)
It’s not like the students at Presidio stay in their environmentally conscious bubble forever, though. “We do not fulfill our mission if our students are not employed within a fairly short period of time after they graduate,” Shutkin says. Galyon says that there’s heavy competition for the relatively small number of sustainability-focused business roles, but Presidio’s latest employment data is not too shabby: 83% of the 50-person class that graduated in June found full-time employment after 90 days, and the average salary was in the low $80,000s.
Megan Crocker, a Presidio Graduate School MBA student
“MY EXPECTATIONS ARE NOW MUCH GRANDER”
That salary average might not excite all would-be MBAs, but Presidio does encourage students to think big in other ways. “My expectations now are much grander,” Galyon says of his job-related standards. The second-year student hasn’t targeted a specific field yet, but he feels that he’s made enough quality connections to move in whatever direction he chooses. Not that he can just take it easy: “It dawned on me,” he says. “Waiting until I graduate to start the job hunt is not a luxury I can really afford for myself.” He’s been putting himself out there, scheduling informational meetings—“basically just trying to put as many irons in the fire as I possibly can right now,” he says.
Crocker, on the other hand, is taking the opposite approach. “I have 100% compartmentalized graduation,” she says. She knows she’s going to take a break, but beyond that, she doesn’t have a specific plan, “other than maybe go to a yoga retreat,” she jokes.
She does have a clearer idea of what kind of job she’d like, though. At first, she wanted to get far, far away from finance, but as she’s gone through the program, she’s circled back to that world. She could see herself doing finance for a solar company, for example. She also knows the non-profit world isn’t for her; she has “a fundamental problem” with the fact that in many cases, non-profit organizations are not self-sustaining. “I have utmost respect for [non-profit employees] and their work ethic is tremendous, but I’d like to see a different financial model supporting their activities,” she says.
Whichever paths they go down, Presidio’s small but tight-knit alumni community will help them, Crane says. “I think our students are curious about the network but don’t realize how robust and amazing the Presidio community is in terms of providing a network,” he says. “It’s really quite unlike anything I’ve experienced.” Part of its strength comes from the strong identification with a common set of values, he explains. The group is consistent, committed, and almost tribe-like.
KEEPING PRESIDIO SMALL—IN TERMS OF NUMBERS, ANYWAY
Three years ago, Shutkin and his team devised a ten-year strategic plan for the school. Like most plans of that nature, it’s been revised along the way, but two big goals stand out.
First, Shutkin would love to have a more permanent presence in the Presidio. The closest thing to ownership in the park is a long-term lease, though the school is also in discussion with a potential university partner, an India-based institution with 120,000 students and roughly 14 campuses around the globe. The school doesn’t have a permanent presence in the U.S. yet, and it has its eye on the Bay Area.
Second, Shutkin would like to grow the school’s enrollment. “I’d love to see 80 to 100 students showing up here, new students each year,” he says. But his ideal size is still relatively small: 250 to 300 students in the entire school—which includes an MPA program—sounds good to him. “We don’t ever want to get too big, because we kind of like our tight intimate authentic community, if you will,” he says. “And size necessarily creates problems when it comes to cultivating a community like that.”
A smaller number of graduates means each one will need to be that much more effective to make a dent in the business world. That’s one reason why Presidio teaches students something called self-efficacy, i.e. the ability to understand the influence you can have on the people and world around you. “When they go out in the world, they need to be magnets,” Collins says. “In other words, the people around them need to want to work with them because they’re so comfortable.” An aura of self-assurance helps: There’s always the danger that people who haven’t bought into the whole business-for-good thing will think Presidio graduates are just crazy.
