4 ways I’m reimagining business as a force for good

A Two-Year MBA student reflects on how Social Impact & Sustainability Days inspired a shift to view business as a powerful tool for creating positive change.
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Kellogg
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A white man wearing a button down shirt with a blue blazer
SISD has inspired Owen to reimagine what a career in social impact can look like.

Every August, the Social Impact and Sustainability Days (SISD) at Kellogg invites incoming students from diverse backgrounds to come together and explore how business can be a powerful way to promote social good and social change. 

For Owen Torczon ’27 Two-Year MBA Program, the event began as a simple opportunity to meet peers who shared a passion for addressing pressing global challenges — an interest rooted in his desire to apply business principles to support and strengthen communities. 

Here, he shares how SISD was a deeply enriching experience, and one that sparked new friendships while offering a firsthand look at the many ways business leaders can drive meaningful change. 

1. Connecting with a community of changemakers 

I originally registered to be a part of the school’s Social Impact Days because it seemed like a unique opportunity to connect with classmates who felt similarly passionate about prominent social issues.  

My expectations were immediately exceeded when arriving on campus that Monday morning. The table I sat at for breakfast was filled with students from across the world who were interested in tackling everything from educational access to climate change. Many of the folks I met that day have become close friends. 

In addition to building connections with students, I was really impressed by the opportunities to work closely with faculty and distinguished alumni. I participated in the climate track, where we learned from and bounced ideas off of Professor David Chen and Sam Schiller, founder and CEO at Carbon Yield. 

2. Implementing frameworks in real-life scenarios

SISD centers around a pitch competition where students work in teams to design innovative approaches to real social challenges and then present those business plans to a panel of judges. To break down the task into something more manageable, Professors Megan Kashner and Karin O’Connor gave a presentation on their Intentional Impact Framework.

The framework splits building a social enterprise into five defining components: Problem Context, Success Definition, Tactical and Financial Solution Theses and Pilot. What’s interesting about the framework is it’s not too dissimilar from questions any entrepreneur needs to answer when starting a business. What is relatively different in the social impact space is the details behind each section. 

My pitch team was specifically looking at creating a climate impact business, but climate change is too large of a problem to tackle in a single venture. So, focusing on the Problem Context portion of the framework challenged us to narrow the scope, find the root cause, and think about who feels the pain and who will then pay for the solution.  

These questions helped us refine our focus from combating climate change to recycling used cooking oil, which turned out to be a much more manageable space to build a business that has positive social impact. 

3. Gaining perspective on who pays for social enterprises

Coming into SISD, my impression of social impact in the climate space was that it came largely from nonprofit organizations running philanthropy. While that’s the case for many organizations, it was eye-opening to talk with both Schiller and Professor Chen about their experiences working and investing in companies with both positive climate impact and viable economic returns.  

The recurring advice we received encouraged us to think creatively about who would and could pay for these social enterprises. There’s certainly philanthropy, but we also covered cases where local governments or insurance companies were willing to pay for products with positive social impact because of the other financial benefits these products represented. 

4. Learning about careers in social impact

Before participating in the Social Impact and Sustainability Days at Kellogg, I had limited understanding of what careers in social impact and sustainability can look like. What stood out to me after hearing from the speakers and learning from fellow students with experiences working in social impact was the wide range of opportunities. I learned that careers can take shape via entrepreneurship but also in finance and investment and within traditional for-profit companies in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments. 

A look at this year’s SISD

A woman wearing a black shirt with a purple cardigan and holding a mic in a group of people
SISD culminates with student pitch teams presenting in front of a panel of judges.
A man in a long sleeve dress shirt holding a mic in his hand.
Chase Mlnarik ’26 Two-Year MBA participating in the Charting Your Course panel discussion during this year’s SISD.
two women sitting at a table, looking through documents and information
Team members collaborating on their pitch development to present in front of a panel of judges.

Wondering what other students are saying about social impact at Kellogg?

See what they have to say: 


Read next: Thinking about a career in impact or sustainability? Choose your own adventure