Women at MIT Sloan

Pauline Haddad, MBA ’98

Educational background: Institut National Agronomique, Paris, France (MS)
Current or most recent position: Management Sciences for Health, Inc., Assistant to the CFO

The rewards of following your heart

Before coming to MIT Sloan I had been in finance all my life and wanted to make a change. Because consulting and finance were seen as the most “logical choices” after MIT Sloan, consulting seemed to be a logical path for me. I was fortunate enough to get a summer associate position at McKinsey, which I enjoyed, and so stopped wondering what I'd be doing after I completed my MBA.

Once I joined McKinsey full time I discovered that there is more to choosing a career than how your MBA peers rank a company. Consultants have a very comfortable, rewarding and fulfilling life. However, the pressure and the workload are not meant for everyone. So when the Internet bubble called, I went for it, but found that startups — when you are on the founding team — are more demanding than the consulting life.

While participating in the organization of an MIT Alumni conference, I met a company that was the entire opposite of what my world had been until then. Good lifestyle, amazingly friendly people, even bigger diversity than at MIT Sloan, and a company that pushed its employees to grow within the company. Above all, it was a company whose work was meaningful to me. MSH is a NGO doing health care consulting in developing countries. It took me a while to accept the fact that I would cut my salary significantly, that I would not work with career-oriented, MBA-trained people anymore. But finally, I made the jump.

And I am so happy I did! I can see my two-year-old son every night for at least three hours; there has not been a day when I was not here for him. I'm happy to go to work. I have never regretted my move to MSH and its supportive and caring environment.

Different priorities, different paths

Career choices are all about compromises, and it is so important to know wha compromise you are willing to make, and what will make you happy. A career choice should never be based on what people think of what is best, but on what you think will fulfill every day of your life. And as my own experience proves it, some choices are more difficult than others to make, but you will be happy to make them! Six years after my class graduated, few people stayed on the consulting track. All my friends followed such diverse paths that I am convinced that MIT Sloan can really lead to anything!

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