Sana Mohammed (MBA ‘19) and Triston Francis (MBA ‘19) have been elected as the Harvard Business School Student Association Co-Presidents for 2018-2019. The co-presidency, elected at the end of February by the RC year, will begin after spring break.
Sana and Triston campaigned under an overarching mission to “foster a more collaborative environment that enables classmates to develop lifelong friendships and fulfilling careers.” Their campaign rested on three key pillars: stronger relationships amongst the student body, better career resources, and greater personal support from academics to mental health.
In their first communication to the HBS community as SA Co-Presidents, Triston and Sana detailed the beginnings of concrete plans for their leadership. Writing exclusively for The Harbus, they describe initiatives ‘from Bond by Giving Back to HBS TED Talks’ that they believe will help to achieve their campaign mission. They also highlight that they hope to gather input from their classmates while establishing their plan for the next year, to ensure they ‘address the varying needs of the student body as a whole’.
The team also plan to use their new platform to scale initiatives which each have already been running organically since starting at HBS. Along with his roommate, Triston spent his first semester hosting cross-sectional meetups at his home, where students read their personal statements to their fellow classmates to better get to know one another. In fact, this is where he and Sana first met, though it would be a few more months before decided to run for the co-presidency together.
Sana was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and studied at the University of Houston, majoring in Accounting and Marketing. After graduating, she worked as a Marketing Advisor to BP in Houston. Triston grew up in Jamaica, Queens, and is a first-generation college student. After majoring in Finance, Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, Triston worked in Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley in New York. According to the team’s campaign video, while in NYC prior to HBS, Triston organized motivational events where eventually over fifty of his future classmates spoke to underserved college students to provide life advice.
Running against Triston and Sana were Sijun Yang (MBA ‘19) and Kel Jackson (MBA ‘19). Sijun and Kel also ran on a three-pillar platform, focusing on student life, career & academics, and community & inclusion. They hoped to increase partner-friendly and inter-section events, such as Field Day II and an HBS 5k. The team also argued for an improvement in the HBS dialogue around sexual assault and harassment. Regarding the evergreen career question, one initiative proposed by Sijun and Kel was to improve coordination of CPD and Academic calendars to minimise scheduling conflicts.
The new leadership will take over from Angelica Castellanos (MBA ’18) and Kevin Ferguson (MBA ’18), SA Co-Presidents 2017-2018.
Pria Bakhshi (HBS ’19) is originally from India via London, England (along with a few other places) and graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2011. Pria is an RC, Section G, and is a Student Advisor to the HBS Business & Environment Initiative. Prior to HBS, she spent six years in sales and trading at Goldman Sachs in London.
