The Center for Responsible Business is proud to introduce Liz Schasel as our 2022-2024 Fellow. The inception of the CRB Fellowship in 2011 is a symbol of our commitment to advancing graduates who will redefine conventional business practices and strive for impressive social impact. Liz’s dynamic education and professional experience present her as a change-maker and an embodiment of Haas’ Defining Leadership Principles.

Meet Liz

“Before moving to Berkeley, I spent the bulk of my days hopping around Texas. I was raised in the suburbs of Dallas, educated at The University of Texas at Austin, and started my professional career in Houston (with brief stints in Italy, Minneapolis, and Southeast Asia in between). My undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Plan II Honors (a small liberal arts program) led me to an enriching job at the management consulting firm Bain & Company, where I advised clients across multiple industries on a variety of projects. In my free time, you can find me cultivating my ever-growing love of hobbies such as swing dancing, pickle-ball, board games, reading, cycling, journaling, and people-watching.

Ever since I learned about “global warming” in elementary school, I have been passionate about the environment. Sustainability didn’t fully crystalize into my purpose, however, until I spent one summer cycling from Austin, TX to Anchorage, AK to raise money for cancer research. Alongside North America’s most beautiful landscapes, we cycled through wildfire smoke, along contaminated rivers, and past endless roadside litter. The adverse impacts of the environmental degradation on the health and wellbeing of the communities we passed through were tangible, and the urgency I felt in those moments to fight for climate action has been with me ever since.

There was no doubt in my mind that Berkeley Haas was the best fit for me. As a believer in the maxim “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” I wanted my MBA experience to be spent with a friendly, humble community embedded with socially-conscious and values-driven leaders. Everything about Haas—from the small class size to the emphasis on Defining Leadership Principles—demonstrated that this is exactly the type of community it fosters. I particularly resonated with the Defining Leadership Principle of “challenge the status quo” because, as a native Texan with professional experience in industries that aren’t necessarily known for being environmentally-friendly, I’ve regularly found myself pushing the envelope to inspire social change.

To paraphrase the author and zero-waste chef Anne-Marie Bonneau, we don’t need a handful of people doing sustainability perfectly, we need millions of people doing it imperfectly. By joining the CRB, I hope to inspire not just my peers at Haas, but also my entire network (past, present, and future) to think creatively about how they can incorporate more sustainable business practices into their roles and systems, whether sustainability is a defined responsibility or not. The CRB has done a great job of integrating this ethos throughout Haas, and I want to do everything I can to inspire my peers to take advantage of the resources they offer.

I feel so grateful to be starting my MBA in the same month that the U.S. passed the Inflation Reduction Act—the biggest climate change investment we’ve ever made. I am also confident that it will not be the last, and I am excited to see how the increased national focus on (and funding for) sustainability will impact the career trajectories of my peers. More generally, I am deeply inspired by the shifting cultural tides in the workplace that emphasize not just sustainability, but also diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as well as mental health and wellness. I believe these values are essential to helping communities thrive.”

About the Fellowship

The CRB Fellowship is one of the ways the Center encourages the development of business leaders who will redefine business for a sustainable future and address the great challenges of our time. Started in 2011, the CRB Fellows are part of a growing network of graduates leading the movement to integrate sustainability into their work and the practices of the firms that employ them. The CRB Fellowship is graciously funded by retired Goldman Sachs Partner and CRB Senior Advisory Board Member Scott Pinkus. Upon earning the fellowship, this thought-leader serves as a liaison between the Center for Responsible Business and the Haas student body and receives automatic placement on the CRB Student Advisory Board to help calibrate and accelerate the agenda for the CRB. Additional benefits include close access and mentorship from our Senior Advisory Board, CRB Staff and Faculty, and donor Scott Pinkus.

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