Even as she helped to promote two organic food brands at one of the globe’s largest packaged food companies, Madeline Robbins MBA’22 felt disenchanted at the momentum and investment her multinational enterprise devoted to sustainability. Although she relished the opportunity to sell “greener” products, she was frustrated that the KPI (key performance indicator) driving decision making was largely sales rather than understanding how sustainability and sales were interconnected.
“It felt like I was hitting a brick wall, that the buy-in and belief behind truly sustainable actions and decisions wasn’t what it could’ve been or should’ve been,” said Robbins, who pursued an MBA at USC’s Marshall School of Business in hopes that a richer understanding of business, especially when applied through a sustainable lens, could propel positive change. “For me, the future of business is the same as the future of the planet.”