Lecturer | Executive Director, Berkeley Haas Global Access Program
Management of Organizations
Social Entrepreneur, Educator, and Best-selling Author
About
Alex Budak is a social entrepreneur, bestselling author, and award-winning faculty member at UC Berkeley who helps people spark change, find fulfillment, and make an impact wherever they go.
Budak holds faculty appointments at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and School of Public Health, where his classes and executive programs have helped thousands of people become changemakers — and have even inspired student tattoos. He is Executive Director of the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program and serves as Faculty Director of the Berkeley Executive Education Changemaker program. His book, “Becoming a Changemaker,” is being translated into over 20 languages and was named by CNBC as a “top 5 non-fiction book everyone should be reading about work.”
Budak’s change journey began when he co-founded StartSomeGood, which has helped people in over 50 countries raise millions of dollars to launch and scale new change initiatives. A graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University, he speaks on leadership, change, and meaning around the world, from Ukraine to Cambodia, and at organizations like Accenture, Intuit, and UNHCR.
Alex loves travel adventures (39 countries and counting), attempting new workouts, and spending time with his two favorite changemakers: his wife, Rebecca, and their toddler son. He also once learned the hard way to never go budget skydiving.
Expertise and Research Interests
- Leadership
- Change
- Impact
- Social Innovation
- ESG
- Happiness and Fulfillment
- Future of Work
At Haas since 2016
- 2023-Present: Faculty Director, Berkeley Executive Education Changemaker Program
- 2019- present Lecturer
- 2017- present Changemaker in Residence, Berkeley Haas
- 2016- present Director Berkeley Haas Global Access Program
- Lecturer, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
- Author, Becoming a Changemaker (Hachette)
- Columnist, INC
- Co-Founder (now Advisor), StartSomeGood
- Member, World Economic Forum Expert Network: Social Innovation
- Career Change Is Uncomfortable. Embrace It., The Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/20/2024
- Is ‘Kind Productivity’ the Future of Work?, Newsweek, 2/11/2024
- New generation shaking up the status quo of doing business, CEO Magazine, 5/31/2023
- 5 non-fiction books everyone should be reading about work in 2023, CNBC – Make It, 3/4/2023
- Classified: Empowering undergrads to be changemakers, Berkeley Haas News, 04/03/2019
- ‘New Berkeley changemaker’ course turns self-discovery into tool for change, Berkeley News, 07/01/2020
- Finding the changemakers of tomorrow, Forbes, 08/21/2019
UGBA 159: Becoming a Changemaker
FT/EWMBA 259: Becoming a Changemaker
UGBA C12 / L&S C12: The Berkeley Changemaker
Berkeley Executive Education: Berkeley Changemaker Program