Yezers's mission is to safeguard the interests of young Italians (generations Y and Z) by designing and implementing solutions to make Italy a more sustainable, forward-looking, safer, and happier country than today, participating in local and national decision-making processes. During my remote internship I co-led the local development team, in charge of developing strategies and follow-up implementation for consumption reduction of the plastic materials in the Zoagli municipality (Italy), as well of the design of roadmaps for implementation.

In particular, I worked on three main work streams: (1) interface with the municipality to discuss project expectations, key deliverables and deadlines; (2) coordinate the team, monitor member’s participation, and organize daily workflow; and (i3) set up a long-term strategy with Yezers’ local development team to scale the project to other municipalities. The second responsibility was where I spent most of my time — overseeing the team members, sharing Zoagli’s municipality needs, and translating them in clear instructions, problem-solving with the team to develop sustainable initiatives and monitoring the progress of workstreams was most of my working day.

By the end of the summer, we: (1) searched and identified suppliers of eco-compactors compatible with the requests of the municipality; (2) monitored the installation of PET recycling machines; and (3) established a partnership with CORPIRET, and scaling-up of similar initiatives in other municipalities.

In my role as team leader, I leveraged both my previous consulting work experience (e.g., for planning and stakeholder management) and new quantitative and qualitative skills gained during my MBA. I relied on notions from my Corporate Finance and Capital Market courses to create financial models of several recycling initiatives (e.g., required capital, annual costs, returns, etc.) and generated risk and sensitivity analyses. My elective courses in Energy Markets and GHG emissions also provided me the background to conduct an in-depth analysis of environmental market trends and regulatory impacts and pending changes, which proved to be fundamental for the actual implementation of the project.

As for every project, during my internship I faced several challenges. The internship was fully remote and within two different time zones, which presented certain logistical constraints and prevented me from physically interacting with team members and external stakeholders. However, as I had already collaborated with Yezers few years ago, I already had personal connections with some colleagues, which helped me to avoid self-isolation. Moreover, the diverse and multidisciplinary background of the team members, with different levels of experience and attention to detail, made it particularly complex in terms of getting the best out of each team member and stewarding projects to completion. However, I can say that after this experience I am much more comfortable and experienced in leading and inspiring a diverse group. Other growth opportunities came from the startup nature of the organization, which gave me the chance to work across many aspects of the organization (e.g., long-term strategy, project implementation, and stakeholder management) in order to have direct impact on the local community.

Although I already collaborated with Yezers a few years ago, this summer internship was an invaluable opportunity to refine and test new skills learned in my first year at CBS and in my previous work experience. It was also an opportunity to better learn and position myself in the social innovation ecosystem. After this experience, I gained an even greater respect for those that dedicate their time and careers to nonprofits. The scope of the business, along with the passion one must have to work for a nonprofit cause, create an environment of high responsibility and commitment.

I found this project to be very rewarding as, in just few weeks, I helped generate positive and lasting impact for the local community. Finally, this experience also motivated me to collaborate more with nonprofits or potentially start an organization. I love the passion that those who work for these organizations bring to their team every day, and I would like to be inspired even more by the work I am doing.