Class Notes: Amie Vaccaro

I am so excited for reunion! I can't wait to hear all of your stories and see your glowing faces. Life has brought me on a tremendous ride since graduation, as I'm sure it has for all of us. Quick snapshot - I currently live in San Francisco with my 9 month old cat Coconut. I work hard, I aim to play hard, I ride my bike everywhere and my favorite people are still Brownies. In the following account (what a challenge to sum up 5 years of life lessons in 1 blog post), I'll tell you what's happened since graduation, but please note I have left out the most colorful details which I will gladly share in person. (Some things are just not meant to be shared on the internet.) Over the past 5 years, while my life has been in a continuous state of flux, the one constant has been the Brown community around me. As evidence of that, the two pictures feature Ruth Simmons with fellow 06er Natalya Blumenfeld and me in 2006 and again in 2010.

Like Adam, I started my "career" at Bain & Co in the SF office. I lasted in management consulting for just under 2 years. At best, it was highly educational (almost like business school that pays), lots of fun, challenging, and has helped me get jobs since. At worst it allowed no time for a life. The best thing I did at Bain was start an office green team to lead sustainability initiatives, and when I realized my energy was entirely focused on this extracurricular, I decided it was time to move on.

Thus began a series of jobs in very small companies - generally 2 partners plus me. The Brown community immediately picked me up. My first move was to work with a Brown alumni run venture, Green Zebra, where I started to learn about sales and marketing. And more importantly, confirmed my interest in consumer behavior change. My following two jobs were with a social impact consulting firm where I measured SROI and set up a small coworking space and an environmental startup where I led business development efforts. I became intrigued with the concept of a for profit business that drives social change.

In early 2010, I decided to start a consulting business, Cobblestone Solutions, to work with early stage social enterprises on the issue areas I kept seeing - sales, marketing, and business development. I worked with a dozen or so clients doing different work for each of them, and making it up as I went. Some of my projects included sales for TerraCycle, recruiting and sales for Big Tent, business development for Myoo Create, and a bunch of other gigs. I had never worked so hard and I missed having a core team. I then took on a role as project manager for a small mobile application development company. Here I got to lead the development of 80 mobile apps for Latin America and Europe. I've never had so much on my plate.

Along the way I picked up blogging as I realized that a) anyone will talk to you if you will blog about them, and b) I could get into any conference often for free with a media pass. You can read some of my stuff here. Over the years, I've become involved with a number of organizations. I'm a member of an engaged philanthropy organization, Full Circle Fund, that donates to innovative nonprofits. Through them I've been engaged with a water entrepreneurship nonprofit, Imagine H2O. I'm also on the board of the New Leaders Council, a nonprofit that runs a fellowship program training progressive leaders. And I'm a founding member of a social innovation coworking space, the Hub Soma.

That brings me to today. On Monday I'm starting a new job - where I'll have benefits for the first time since 2008. I'll be product marketing manager for a collaborative education software platform focused on universities - GoingOn. I'm excited to help build the company and develop a deeper skill set. And I have the Brown network to thank for this job too.

Speaking of Brown, I've consistently had a Brown family to lean on, for which I've been truly grateful. In hopes of building that family, I co-founded the Carberry Club with fellow alums. At first this organization served to put on alumni-hosted dinner parties and events where small groups of alums could congregate over food in a casual setting. We're currently taking the Carberry Club to the next level, obtaining nonprofit status for it, and hiring a community manager to build on the strong local alumni community. We want to see what's possible for the alumni community when we have a dedicated resource to plan events, make introductions, reach out to new arrivals, and more. You can check out the early website here.

If you're in the Bay Area, do get in touch - I'd love to see folks and I have 2 comfortable couches reserved for guests. Otherwise - I look forward to seeing you in May!

Amie

amie.vaccaro@gmail.com //415-504-2643