Christina Hachikian, AB ’02, MBA ’07, is the executive director of the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation, Chicago Booth’s research center for people committed to helping solve complex social and environmental problems. The Rustandy Center helps students and alumni gain hands-on experience in the social sector. The center also jump-starts nonprofit and for-profit ventures with social missions, advances social sector research and partnerships worldwide, supports an innovative curriculum, and convenes the world’s leading business, nonprofit, and policy minds at events in Chicago, London, Hong Kong, and beyond.
Christina was recently named one of Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 leaders for her work leading the Rustandy Center, and I got a chance to sit down with her to learn about the work she leads at the Rustandy Center, and the growing role of social impact within the Booth community.
Daniel: You are not only the founding director of the Rustandy Center, but you are also a Booth alumna. Can you tell us a little about your experience as a student and how it inspired your work today?
Christina: I graduated from the part-time MBA program at Booth in 2007, while I was working at a community development bank called ShoreBank. I continued to work there until 2010, when I moved into a more traditional bank called Cole Taylor. Cole Taylor was a great organization, and I got to work with great people, but when I was about a year into my time there, I realized that I missed the social impact piece of the work I had been doing previously.
I emailed one of my former professors, Rob Gertner, and asked if he knew of any job opportunities in social impact. We got together the following week, and it turned out that it was that very week that Rob had gotten approval from the school to start this center. I started this role in March of 2012, with just faculty co-directors, Rob and Marianne Bertrand, and me as the only staff member.
One of the most exciting things for me in this role was the opportunity to build out a support structure for students interested in social impact that didn’t exist when I was a student. We are today a team of 22, with a huge range of support for students, alumni, and faculty interested in a wide range of social impact opportunities.
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