Mindful Direction: A Booth Graduate's Social Impact Journey

Maire Daly, MBA ’13, has built her career helping nonprofits strengthen their operations and expand their impact. Today, through her Chicago-based consulting firm, Mindful Direction, she advises organizations on strategy, leadership, and board effectiveness. Recently, Daly returned to Booth to coach students in the Golub Capital Board Fellows Program, offering detailed feedback, subject matter expertise, and guidance as students pursued their projects.

What inspired you to pursue an MBA? 

After college, I joined a textbook publisher in Evanston, Illinois, where I developed and edited science textbooks for middle and high school students. There were so many interesting changes that took place while I was there: Our company switched owners, had to figure out how to deal with the new economy during the Great Recession, and the shift from print to digital. I got to watch, firsthand, this conversation develop around impact versus profit. It made me really curious about how management decisions are made. That was something I didn’t learn a lot about in college, but I got to see it play out in real time. 

How did your time at Booth shape your career path? 

I went to business school thinking I wanted to focus on entrepreneurship. I was originally thinking I would start some sort of educational business related to learning and science content. While I was there, Booth launched the John Edwardson, ’72, Social New Venture Challenge. That really appealed to me, and so I applied and was selected. The team I was working with ended up focusing on coaching for school principals, which was not quite what I set out to do, but in the same realm. 

Then, for my summer internship, I worked with Education Pioneers, which places graduate students at organizations in the education sector. I was placed with the Illinois State Board of Education, where I worked on marketing and communications for the launch of a new program. At the same time, I was a Golub Capital Board Fellow at the Network for College Success, where I created a marketing strategy and helped clarify the organization’s brand identity and messaging.

Those experiences taught me what the nonprofit ecosystem looked like in Chicago and how I could use my MBA skill set at a nonprofit in a way that I didn’t fully understand before. My fellowship, combined with my internship, inspired me to find a full-time job in nonprofit work. 

What was your first role after Booth? 

I was the director of strategy and research for Teach for America. I was really excited about the role because I was almost like an internal consultant. One of my main responsibilities was working across teams to improve systems and processes. I partnered with the teacher development team to redesign programming based on staff feedback, and I worked closely with the fundraising team to implement Salesforce and better track donor data. That was really fun. Simultaneously, I was the strategic planning lead who managed dashboards, data tracking, and presentations. Eventually, I moved into a senior director role focused on program strategy and operations. 

What lessons from your Board Fellows Program experience have stayed with you throughout your career? 

One lesson is not to be afraid to lean on the skill sets that I have from the for-profit world. There are times in the nonprofit world when anything that feels a little too business-y is shied away from, particularly in-house staff. I recall times when I was a leader at a nonprofit and would need to feel comfortable saying, “There’s this framework we can use that will help us figure out how to come up with our messages for different audiences.” 

The second lesson was gaining a deeper understanding of how nonprofits manage competing priorities. I’m not even sure I got it as a first-year MBA student, but it was something I reflected on later when I was in a full-time role at a nonprofit. We were tackling a lot of thorny problems, and I saw how quickly important initiatives could move down the priority list. It crystalized for me how there are so many competing priorities, and that’s OK. But if I’m seeing something important that gets pushed down—like launching a new program before figuring out the messaging—that’s a great moment for me to speak up and say, “If we’re going to roll out this big new program, I want to make sure we’re clear on how we’re messaging this to external folks.” That’s a huge part of long-term success. 

What made you decide to start your own consulting firm, and what was that process like? 

I was working at a national nonprofit called Book Trust, where the entire fundraising team had left over the course of the pandemic. They brought me in to rebuild the development team, but it was a high-stress role. In less than two years, we had three CEOs. 

I took a few months off as a sabbatical to figure out what I wanted to do next. I reconnected with former colleagues, including a few who had gone out on their own as consultants. I wasn’t sure if that was the right fit for me, but I liked the idea of flexibility, getting to choose the projects I wanted to do, and working with lots of different organizations. I reached out to people I knew in consulting and the nonprofit sector, did a lot of coffee chats, and gathered feedback on my business plan and potential projects. One of my earliest projects was through a Board Fellows Program connection; a woman who hired me to plan and host a board retreat for a Chicago-based national nonprofit. 

Since I founded Mindful Direction in 2025, I’ve focused on three major areas: board effectiveness, strategic planning, and leadership coaching. Most of the nonprofits I’ve worked with have been midsized and focused on youth, although I would love to broaden the network a bit. 

You recently became involved with Chicago Booth’s Golub Capital Board Fellows Program. What is your role, and how has the program changed since you were a fellow?

This past school year, Booth brought me in as a subject matter expert. In the fall, after board fellows are matched with their program partners, they write a scope of work to help outline the project that they’ll be working on throughout the school year. I reviewed those where I had some subject matter expertise, gave feedback, and shared resources with the fellows. In the winter, Booth held a workshop for the fellows, where I gave a presentation on development strategy. I’ve also offered one-on-one coaching.

I’m really excited about the direction of the Board Fellows Program. There’s more consistency across the years with nonprofit partners, which greatly improves their experience. Seeing the community that the Golub Capital Board Fellows Network is building is amazing. I had always felt that when I was a board fellow, there was this missing last step. How do we make sure that these lessons are continuing when fellows go on to serve on boards many years later? I feel like this last mile is getting solved through the additional investment in the program, which is helping build the kind of strong, sustainable network that keeps board fellows connected long after graduation.

What continues to draw you to social impact work? 

There are many ways to make a difference in the world, and I think you can do that in both for-profit work and nonprofit work. One of the things I like about social impact as my primary focus is that it allows me to make a difference in a lot of the problems that I see firsthand in my city, my community, and my neighborhood. I want to be able to say that I’m giving the hours, my brain space, and all my effort to try and alleviate some of those issues and address those challenges. 

There’s such a natural way to combine all the deep thinking, frameworks, and business school material in a way that is primarily directed at the impact and change it can make in society—and there’s no balancing act between shareholder value and impact to society.